Tag: Exercise

Yoga For Beginners

I started doing yoga recently, about six months ago. I saw a post on our local Facebook page advertising some new classes and decided it was time I realigned my body and mind. So off I trotted one Monday evening back in July, yoga mat and blanket in hand, to the local hall where the classes were taking place. We were a mixed bunch of eager yogis, all keen to walk out of that class as supple and renewed humans. Well, some of us were already supple but I must admit that I was not one of those people. Sitting down in front of a computer for large parts of the day had rendered me short muscled and extremely inflexible. Never mind, we were told by our instructor Jac to ignore those around us and just concentrate on ourselves, there is apparently no ego on the mat. Well as someone who has spent most of her life trying to not make a fool of herself, this was probably more of a challenge than what my body was about to have to deal with! Having lost my adventurous spirit somewhere along the line, a simple class of yoga was right outside my comfort zone. The thought of getting stuck in a pose filled me with fear and just thinking about it in the lead up to my first class left me in a cold sweat. However, my enthusiasm for turning into one of those instagramable bendy yogis outweighed my fears, so that Monday I found myself in a candle lit, incense infused hall. My preconceived ideas that yoga was all hippies and yoghurt knitters was soon challenged when I met the lovely Jac, she is neither hippy or yoghurt knitter, just someone who oozes an infectious calm aura (if that makes sense, maybe oozes is the wrong word, or aura, but you get the idea). The candles and incense in themselves were soothing and Jac’s welcoming nature added to an atmosphere which suggested I would actually enjoy this “adventure”. God almighty when did I get so uptight that Yoga has become a huge deal? We started quietly, sitting cross legged and very soon were stretching our limbs to beyond our (or my, I can’t really speak for everyone else) perceived limits. I felt a euphoria which I don’t get when I am killing myself at an exercise class (probably because I feel like I am dying). Perhaps this was down to the fact that I didn’t feel like I was dying. Or maybe because my body was contorting in ways I never knew was possible for me. It was probably a good thing that there are no mirrors in that hall because I was in the zone where I truly believed that I looked like those yogis on Instagram, my body was lean and supple and my poses were deep and graceful. Hmmm, experience since that first encounter with Yoga suggests that I more than likely did not look anything like that. The end of the session when my body was in a small state of shock that I was actually sweating from some of the poses-who knew Yoga could make you sweat- we lay down in shavasana. I can honestly say that I have never felt so relaxed in my life, I floated out of that hall at the end of the class. At the time, I was finishing my thesis and my stress levels were pretty high so it was the perfect way to balance that time in my life.

Since then I have been going to yoga regularly, two to three times a week. Not only has it changed the shape of my body (kind of), it has also changed the way I think and react to things. Once upon a time in the not too distant past (probably about six months ago) I would have reacted to negative situations and people in a reactive way. Now, I can sit back and think things through without regretting my words or actions. And I no longer hold onto shit in my head, instead I acknowledge it and put it aside. Once upon a time I would let things eat away at me which never solved anything, it just made me miserable. Yoga has been the catalyst for this new, very grown up behaviour, it has helped me deal with other people’s behaviour too. I know that I have no control over how other people act or what they say about or to me. That is their business and not for me to be getting in a tizz about. I can honestly say that it has changed my life. Yes I sound like some middle aged flake going through a midlife crisis but hey it’s how it is and how I feel and after all, this blog is called the HONEST woman’s guide to growing up. I would like to think that this is a long term, rest of my life behaviour, and I guess time will tell. But at the moment it is how I am, and it all feels very balanced and I will live in the moment and enjoy it because who knows where life will take me.

Getting back into the Fitness Swing of Things

Following on from my last blog on running, I thought I would continue the theme of exercising in your forties, which for me, is a completely different experience to exercising in my twenties. I follow fitness guru, Jillian Michaels on Instagram, she is amazing, I used to do her on-line classes.  She is in her forties, fit as, and a body to match.  She is my idol, and how I wish I look when I am having a pity picnic and hating the person I see looking at me in the mirror.  I realise of course that I will never have a body like her, but it doesn’t hurt to aspire to great heights.  However, my ill-discipline will probably stop me from ever getting anywhere close.

 I started back at my local fitness class last week after an extremely slothful and alcohol fuelled summer holiday.  Now when I say slothful and alcohol fuelled, that doesn’t mean I did zero exercise and drank myself stupid every day.  What I mean is that I managed a walk or run most days (to keep my sanity of being home with the kids during the long, long school holidays) and drank alcohol on a regular basis (one or two glasses a night, most nights).  For me, this is significant for several reasons.  Firstly, my body, as I have discovered, loves fat.  When I say loves fat, I mean it loves to accumulate fat at every opportunity, be it through a lack of hard out exercise, or through drinking alcohol and eating crap. Secondly, if it gets even a whiff of a slowdown in the exercise department then it thinks it needs to pad itself. For what I don’t know-a famine?  I had decided that this Christmas and summer holidays, I was not under any circumstances going to do what I have done every year by taking my foot off the brake and wallowing in excess.  I bought myself some weights to supplement my in residence medicine ball and vowed to work out three times a week in addition to my running, while my usual fitness class was on a Christmas break.  Who was I kidding, I must have done three workouts all up.  My excuse, none really, just pure laziness, and we are having one of the hottest summers in years which would put anyone off exercise after 9am in the morning (actually not everyone, I have seen some crazies out there running at midday).

So last week I hauled my ever growing arse back to the gym in order to stop the spread.  Now, the class is not for the faint hearted, it is a 40 odd minute class of sprinting, boxing, weights, and other exercises with names like frogz, burpees, press ups, planks.  You get the idea, it’s no walk in the park, and it makes running with seagulls seem like a breeze.  But, it gets results, and Steve our instructor never gives us the easy option, no matter how much we whinge (and I whinge a lot).  It is so hot on my first day back that I am sweating even before we have done the warm up.  So you can just imagine how I look by the end.  Sweat is running off me, it’s like I have spent an hour in a sauna, I am sweating in places I never knew I could sweat.  My legs are shaking, and I am hoarse from complaining about every single exercise we have had to do.  But I am feeling extremely pleased with myself-I can imagine that my clothes will definitely be looser after that workout-if only from a loss of fluids from all of the sweating.  And I have managed to finish the class without vomiting or passing out-two great accomplishments.  I think of myself as being like that meme that has been going around social media, the one with the fit woman versus the elephant-what I think I look like, and what I actually look like.  Yep, I do not look like the fit girl-think more baby elephant!  Things wobble, I can’t touch my toes, the list goes on, but I am there doing it, so I am up there with that girl, regardless of what I look like.

Since then, I have been back twice-the morning classes only run twice a week and my enthusiasm wanes by evening, so evening classes are out of the question.  I had my third class today, and it definitely feels better than the first-although the legs were still shaky, and tomorrow I won’t be able to sit on the toilet without wincing.  I managed to whinge through the whole session too, which I reckon is testament to a good workout, if I didn’t complain then that would probably mean it was too easy.  And I was able, most of the time, to keep up with the thirty somethings, no small feat at times.  So far, the body looks the same, I guess I need to learn some patience-hard in a society of instant gratification.  I will stay in the oldies corner, as it was called today, and keep reminding myself that although I will never look like Jillian Michaels, I’m not doing too bad at all.