Exercise Diary: Birthday Yoga~

I'm back!  I took about a week off from school life last week and went home for Independence Day/ my birthday.  Spent 2 blissful weekends shopping and eating and spending time with my parents and a whole week (about 3 days actually) wondering around in New York, saw 4 play/musicals and visited one museum.  All in all I was very productive fun-wise.

While I kept at my July Journey to Split challenge and stretched (and took bad selfies) every day, other than that I barely did any real exercise.  On two days I did some glute work but that didn't really count toward anything.  Granted when I left the house I did serious walking in the city (and in the mall), and was poorly hydrated throughout, but given the amount of junk food I ate they all sort of cancelled themselves out.

The real gain was in the gears.  We got a big discount from Kohl's and I went crazy.  Got back home with two new sports bra (with trippy summer prints too) and a yoga top that was both practical and cute.

And I put that top into serious work today at yoga class.  Having missed a week of regular exercise (and after getting up at 5:30 for my other gym class), today's class was particularly difficult for me to sustain through.  I was serious hungry (beginning of my super-serious weight losing plan now) and I was thinking about what to have for dinner the whole time while getting super sweaty.  While the top (sleeve-less and barely any fabric covering my upper back) was very freeing and breathable, the lack of fabric meant I had to keep all that sweat either on my body or on my mat.  This was the first time I almost slipped during a down dog.

But I think my brief stint so far with my morning weight class paid off somewhat.  I was able to do side plank on my both sides today without too much trouble.  This may not seem like a big deal but before today I always cheated on my side planks, either keeping my bottom leg bent or using the other leg to help support myself, and my arms always shook so hard my body almost shakes with them.  But today, my arms didn't shake, my bottom leg was straight and my torso was off the ground and my upper leg was even in the air!  And I was able to keep this posture for as long as we did the pose.  Still can't do a half wheel bent but small victories.

At least for this term I have gym class 4 times a week at 6 am, but I don't know what to write about them.  We always to something slightly different every time, changing the workouts and I always end up sweating through my shirt and properly worked out.  But I usually don't have time in the morning to blog and I don't usually get any profound realizations after each class so writing about them would feel more like a chore.  And because of these classes, which were supposed to help me build muscles to become a better runner, has somewhat now taken over my running.  I haven't been running at all this month and it's already half-way over.  Not quite sure how to balance it all.  It's not like I'm still dead set on a race any time soon but I really don't want to neglect running.  As part of class today we ran around the track a few times and I was tired after just the first lap.  I used early morning as my excuse but I was extremely sad about this.  How is it that I now am a worse runner?  I think it's the lack of practice.  I just need to do it to keep up (plus it will probably burn a few more hundred calories every week).

Still a struggle.  But at least I managed to get up a 5:30 first day after coming back and that's a good start.

Exercise Diary: Quick Yoga Post

Went to yoga yesterday.  I kind of had to go since I haven't been to yoga in two weeks, plus I got a free class because it was my birthday last week.

Summer really is a time when everyone is outside doing their physical activities.  When we got to the studio around normal time we were the first ones there.  Granted eventually the class filled up pretty well, and there were more than a few first timers, but overall it really is best to be outside.

Also partly because the studio was as hot and humid as outside.  If we are smart we should hold classes outside about an hour before heavy rain so they will save some money on their heating bill.

It was a good class over all.  My balance, especially on my right leg, still sucks, but otherwise I do feel stronger and somewhat more flexible.  Tried to do a back bend but failed miserably.  Perhaps if I lose another 10 pounds and strengthen my arms a bit I could eventually do it.

The yoga studio offers a rewards program, so you get points for attending classes and referring friends and such, as a way to motivate people to attend classes and get their friends to attend classes.  I had previously already earn enough points to get a studio logo T-shirt, which I assume was made mostly from cotton (there was no tag) but has a slightly different feel.  It feels thinner and silkier and clings to your body more, so I was always assuming that it has at least some polyester in it.

I wore my shirt proudly into the studio since I couldn't put it on when I was 10 lbs heavier.  As I said, the shirt clings to the body so it brings out the worst part of your torso.  I had tried it on in the studio's makeshift changing room before I took it home with me but it was tried on in haste and I didn't realize how much my stomach was showing.  But now I can wear it and not feel conscious about wearing it so  I have really made some progress regarding weight loss.

The shirt, however, was not good for warm yoga.  It's slippery, so it gets almost slimy with sweat.  And the sweat stays, to the point that I saw giant sweat stains on my back and under the arms when I took it off afterwards.  And it's thin, so it doesn't even absorb that much sweat, most of it went on  to the mat.  It was overall very yucky.  I still like the shirt, but I probably won't ever wear it again to yoga.

Anyhoo.  Just want to put it on record that I went to yoga yesterday.  It was a good class and it felt easy.  We started out really slow, probably because of all the newcomers, but I did get a workout from it, so all is good.