Ashtanga yoga

For my exercise today, I went to the morning Mysore class at the local yoga studio. For those of you unfamiliar with Mysore and Ashtanga yoga, it's a self-paced class where each student practices the same series of poses (although advanced students learn a second series) at their own pace.

Why do I practice yoga? I think it improves flexibility, strengthens the entire body, and there's savasana (resting) at the end. I like that part - it's nice to rest for a few minutes after practicing for an hour and a half! Also, I sweat more in that class than I ever have doing any other activity, so I feel like it's working. I can also see improvement fairly quickly, especially when I first began. If you practice regularly, you will get better and be able to go deeper into the poses and learn new poses. You'll also see increased muscle definition and you'll feel stronger. I love the way my arms look after practicing regularly for a few weeks!

Yoga also helps you maintain awareness of your body. When you're aware of how your body feels, you're less likely to eat too much or eat junk food, because the body doesn't feel good afterwards. Really, the idea behind it is that it tires out the body to prepare the mind for meditation - when the body is tired, it will be able to sit still for longer periods of time. Also, you use a lot of mental energy remembering which pose comes next, so it helps to stop the endless mind-chatter.

Tomorrow I start Kaia's six week Brik program. It includes nutrition, so I've cleaned out the fridge and cabinets and I got rid of all forbidden foods (or, for the ones that will keep for more than six weeks, I put them on the highest shelf in our cabinet that I can't reach without a chair). Later today I'm going to Trader Joe's to buy food for this week.

Even though I haven't had Kaia classes the past week, I've gotten used to getting up early, so I don't think it will be too hard to get myself out of bed tomorrow for the 6 am class. I have a three-pronged alarm approach (alarm clock, watch, and cell phone) so it will be very difficult to sleep through all three alarms. :-)

My first 5k is one week away! I'm looking forward to it!