You'll probably never guess so let's cut the suspense. My friend Kendra introduced me to Gallup's latest... bikram yoga. I'm hooked. I've always thought I was more of a "cardio" person. Traditionally, I like running and workouts that do not involve much coordination (read: no dance or step routines). When I have ever tried workouts like Zumba, I find myself in possession of about 5 legs and no idea of how to use them or where to put them. It's not pretty. So my mainstay for the last two years has been running and Jillian Michaels dvds. Yoga I had put on the back burner because I never felt like I did anything.
Check again! So there are all sorts of different intensity levels in yoga. Bikram yoga is a high intensity version. To amp it up several notches, try working out for two hours in a room that is heated to 105 degrees. It was insane! The moves were beginner level and with patience and concentration, quite doable. But geez! I have never sweat so much in my entire life. What really got me, though, was how relaxed and peaceful I felt afterwards. I came home to two crying children and a husband who had a basketball game to get to. Jos was starving, Greta was tired and crying... and instead of having a meltdown as I would normally do under the circumstances, I was able to keep my calm and take care of everything in a timely-enough manner. That feeling of one's body untensing is new to me. I feel like I've been one tight, anxious, intense ball of emotions since my pregnancy. Quite literally, my body hurts from the constant tension I feel.
But not tonight after that yoga workout. I think I might have found a great stress reliever. Actually, I'll get back to you about that tomorrow when I find out if I can still walk. :)
I used to love my pilates/yoga type workouts on Netflix watch instantly. I don't pay for gym workouts (not in the budget!), but I do try to get out for a long walk every morning for 45-60 minutes pushing the kids in the stroller. I was feeling tired and slow this morning and was literally THIS close to skipping my morning walk when I read this blogpost about how awesome you felt after working out. I jumped up, changed the kids out of jammies and we were out the door for our morning walk (it still took us 20 minutes to get completely ready and out the door...like I said, I was feeling slow and tired!!). Thanks for the inspiration ;)
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