Hot Hot Hot

Today I tried HOT yoga for the first time! I've only attempted Yoga on a few occasion so this was really going out of my comfort zone. I've been wanting to give this a go for a while now. I've been feeling pretty stiff lately - especially in my lower back and hips. Normally, trying to get me to stretch is right up there with asking me to eat a plate of liver and sauerkraut for dinner.


Bikram yoga is a 90 minute class that goes through a series of 26 poses while the room is heated to 40.6°C with a humidity of 40%. I'm someone who feels sick in hot tub within 10 minutes. So I had to get prepared and I truly thought I was! I drank a lot of water, didn't eat for nearly 3 hours prior ...and I wore yoga clothes straight from Lululemon! Unfortunately, this isn't a "typical" yoga class and you want to wear as least amount of clothes as possible. I was the ONLY person wearing long, thick yoga pants. It was hideous. By the end of the class, I may as well have jumped into a swimming pool. I kept on having to wipe the sweat out of my eyes in fear of going blind by the end of it.


When I've done yoga before, it's slow moving, has low lighting, with the instructor talking softly. With Bikram, it's a quicker pace, lights are much brighter and your instructor belts out demands like it was boot camp. I was glad I was at the back of the class. Some of these poses of shoving your heels behind your ears n' stuff was way, way out of my league. I was surprised how well my balance held up for some of it... and other times, I thought I was just going to keel over in the fetal position and start crying. Around mid-way through, I was thinking, "Hey, this ain't so bad. I'm going to survive this just fine." Then all of a sudden it hit me and I was like, "Damn you for thinking so darn positive!" This overwhelming wave of nausea and dizziness just hit me out of nowhere. So there was a few minutes where I just laid on my mat while everyone else was turning themselves into pretzels. I didn't want to start gulping water either in fear of my stomach completely turning. All I was thinking was "Why, why, OH WHY did I have to eat those Triscuits with cream cheese and jalapenos last night?" I not only had eaten my weekly quota of fiber in one sitting but jalapenos don't always sit well with me on the best of days. I'm pretty sure between the sweating and the fiber, I've been "detoxified" as well as anyone can possibly be in just one day.


After class, I just wanted to get changed and get home to take a shower. I decided to grab a quick bus ride home instead of walking (like I would normally do). Luckily, I remembered to bring a change of clothes. I'm pretty sure if I went the way I was, it would turn into one of those deodorant commercials where everyone is holding their nose and cramped up at the back of the bus while the stinky dude (a.k.a. "me") is oblivious to it all and continues reading the paper.


Anyways, they unfortunately didn't have any private rooms/stalls there. Instead, I changed in the bathroom stall (ew). If you're a little more shy (like myself) you really have no privacy. I wanted a shower so bad, but there wasn't anywhere to even hang a towel to wrap myself with when I got out. BUT, I gotta tell ya... if I wasn't straight, it would be pretty awesome! Many of the girls were these gorgeous models with perfect bodies. It brought a whole new meaning to the term "hot yoga". I seriously didn't know where to put my eyes so I just got out of there as quickly as possible. lol.


I've felt pretty sleepy since. Apparently, that's normal and my body has started cleansing itself. The tired feeling will eventually go away and I will start to feel "energized". I guess it's kind of the same rule when you start working out at the gym. The first 2 weeks are always brutal. Who knew it was so exhausting to sweat waterfalls? I plan to go back and hopefully (eventually), I'll start reaping some of those ultra-limber benefits that come with practicing yoga. ;-)

Namaste