Cheetos and Hot Yoga
A couple of months ago I started practicing yoga. I had totally stopped exercising in the past year due to arthritis.
Well, arthritis and a three-year-old.
Well… arthritis and a three-year-old and laziness. (The truth always comes out in the end, doesn’t it?)
Anyway, it was time to turn things around. I was pretty discouraged about my physical fitness. I decided to redeem a gift certificate my husband had bought me last year when a Bikram Yoga studio opened near our house. The certificate granted me a month of unlimited yoga classes.
Bikram is the originator of “hot yoga”. For those who aren’t familiar with it, it’s a 90-minute class where you go through a set series of 26 poses in a room which is kept at 105 degrees and 40% humidity.
As someone with a background in ballet, I’ve managed pretty well in the basic yoga classes I’ve taken from time to time, but I could tell right away that this would be a little different. It’s a very disciplined environment, not like the come-and-go fitness classes at the local gym. Once you get inside the yoga room, you must observe silence. Nothing is allowed inside with you except yoga mat, towel, and water. The postures and the order in which they are practiced never changes.
So I took my first class and here’s what I learned:
Hot Yoga is challenging. Hot Yoga is very hot.
That last point may seem a bit obvious. I mean it is called HOT yoga. No false advertising there. The thing is, it’s really freaking hot! Like heat-of-a-thousand-suns hot. Like I-can’t-believe-a-human-can-sweat-this-much-should-I-drive-myself-to-the-ER? hot.
I made it through the class without going to the ER, or even passing out (though it got a little dicey there a couple of times.) At the end I felt like I had run a marathon.
Okay, I have never run a marathon. So, more accurately, I felt the way a person who has never and will never run a marathon imagines it must feel to do so. (When what they actually did was not even remotely as hard as a marathon!)
When I left class, I was tired and sweaty and thirsty and hungry. I had a sudden impulse to order and eat an entire pizza– probably triggered by the fact that there’s a Domino’s in the same shopping center as the yoga studio! I resisted the urge and instead went home to shower.
Since then I’ve tried to go twice a week. Which means I go once a week. But for me that’s great progress. And slowly, it seems to be helping my arthritis.
Adopting this good habit may have created a collateral bad habit, though. I rush home with barely enough time to quickly shower then go pick up my son from preschool. And more than once I have grabbed some junk food on my way out the door. Since, like I mentioned, I am ravenously hungry each time I finish class, I end up bingeing on Cheetos or Hershey Kisses in the carpool line.
You’re probably reading this and thinking, as any reasonable person would, that there are two obvious remedies to this bad habit:
- Start prepping healthy snack that are ready to grab and go, and
- Don’t keep that dangerous stuff in the house any more.
I agree.
I am right there with you.
Besides, my husband lost 30 pounds in the last year by swearing off sugar and junk food, asking that I keep it out of the house so it wouldn’t tempt him. And we rarely give the kiddo candy unless it’s a holiday or special occasion– he is active enough without a sugar overdose!
So, why do I still have Hershey’s Kisses in the house?
Ummm… because sometimes I miss junk food so I buy it and hide it from my husband and son. And I just eat a little when they’re not around.
Does anyone else do this or, as I suspect, am I a terrible person?
No? No one??
Okay… just pretend I never mentioned any of this, then. But if you’re ever in need of a chocolate kiss, you can raid my stash!
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