With three small kids, a full time job as a chemist, and a home to run as well as family and friend obligations, exercise was on my To-Do list yet time was not. There never seemed to be enough time. Definetely not enough time for me to be seemling selfish and take care of myself by eating well, drinking enough water, sleeping 8 hours a night and getting a minumum of 30 minute exercise daily. I knew what a healthy lifestyle was yet somehow managed to let life kick me around an endless Everyone Else's First List. It was a life of "Eat a hot dog at the ballpark, rush the kids home to get homework done, tell my husband not tonight, I'm too tired and mean it, rinse, repeat and start all over the next day. Forty pounds overweight, I was quiet miserable. Where did my body go? I was living in a Mommy body! The only exercise I got was bending over to pick up GI Joe action figures, Barbie's with unrealistic bodies and hundreds of legos that I seemed to manage to step on on my way to the referigerator at 9 pm when I finally got some "me" time. Ice Cream was there for me, so wasnt Cheese Popcorn, Lucky Charms and the occassional left over pizza in the box on the counter that the kids forgot to throw away.
Would I have to settle for this body until my munchkins went off to college? This was a real fear constantly on my mind. Until one day when I got my ten year reunion INVITE in the mail. It was in six months. Could I get 40 pounds off in six months? OMG, I couldn't let people from high school see me like a Junior Blimp. Girls barely weighed 100 at graduation in 1985. 130 seemed huge. Here I was a whopping 170 pounds and I couldnt blame it on my 3 year old anymore.
- Could I do it without sweating. I hated to sweat. I signed up at a local gym. $40 a month for 2 years. Sounded like a great deal when the pushy gym coach made me sign on the dottted line. What an uncomfortable feeling it was walking in the gym for the first time. It seemed as if when I walked by people, they were thinking "What is that Big Mama going to do.?" In reality they probably werent even focused on me but my confidence level was a 2 on a scale of One to Ten. Everyone seemed to be in perfect shape. Everyone seemed to know how to use all the equipment. Everyone had the perfect gym outfits. I went for a week then quit. Their was no friendly factor to keep me coming back. People in the group classes only talked to people they were friends with outside the gym. I just felt lonely and alone totally surrounded by people. Somehow it didnt bother me that I was paying for a monthly gym membership but never went. Maybe in the deep part of my mind I thought, I have a membership in case I find time therefore I was "trying" to do something good for me.It wasn't my thing. I'm more of a social person and less into looking at my muscles flex in the mirrors all over the gym. Maybe I'll just be overweight and be ok with it. After all, obesity is on a drastic rise in the US.
A good friend invited me to a yoga class at her studio. The class was a Gentle Yoga Class. It was doable, relaxing yet really too slow for my taste. She told me to try this new hip yoga studio in Cleveland called Cleveland Yoga. It was a Hot Yoga Studio. I didn't know what Hot Yoga was but I was curious to try it. I drove 45 minutes to the class, walked in and there was only one spot left. People were only one half inch apart. There were 92 people in the room. The teacher, Parker, was incredible beautiful and didn't demo any poses, she just verbally instructed us. I was dressed in baggie sweat pants, a t-shirt with a sports bra and my hair down. The only spot left was furthest from the door and in the corner. There was a reason that I was unaware of why no one was in that corner. It was the corner where all the heat work met and dumped heat. I was in the Shake & Bake Corner. Within ten minutes I was miserable. I had no idea how to do any poses. My pants were about 30 pounds heavier with sweat, my t-shirt kept flipping over my head. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing. My scrambled eggs I ate half an hour before class with bacon were feeling so good in my belly. I was dizzy. I was nauseous. I had no escape. I just had to struggle through what seemed to be a never ending cycles of Updogs and Downdogs. When class ended, I was 100% whipped and ready for a long bath. I smelled like a towel that fell behind the hamper.Yet somehow afterwards I felt completed rejuvenated. I felt alive! I had so much energy when I came home that "Mommy was ready for anything including Daddy.
I talked to my friend and she said that my experience was typical and that I needed to try it four more times before I decided I wasn't up for the challenge. She was right. By my fifth class, I craved the heat. It was therapeutic in my body. I knew what to wear and eat before class. I was learning to be messy in poses and take the perfection out of the practice. I was making all kind of new great friends I was in love with my mat and this thing called Hot Power Yoga. It was addictive. I wanted to do it everyday and made that 45 minute drive everyday. It was hot sweat dripping challenging exercise that I loved and wanted to do. Imagine that, exercise that people like to do.
I made it to the 10 Year High School Reunion. Only 30 pounds was gone, yet my body looked better than at the lower weight. Somehow that number wasn't important, the muscles lifting my butt up two inches higher seemed more relative than being a weight that was just a number. I felt confident, in control of my health, energized, and looked younger. Yea! Younger. The heat detoxifies the skin so my face was radiant. I had a blast at my reunion.
Years later I quit chemistry, pursued training with the best yoga teachers in the country, became the highest certified teacher I could possibly become, toured around the USA guest teaching as a Tour Yoga Teacher and finally settled down in Land O'Lakes from Ohio. In Feb 2013, I opened a world class yoga studio in LOL. Yes, I was a Hot Mess after my first yoga experience and No, it doesn't have to be that way. At Florida Power Yoga, we developed a very successful way of giving everyone a great first experience on a yoga mat called our Friends Starting Together Program(FST). We have people coming in everyday happy to tell us they are beginners because their friends have had great experiences in FST. You are invited to be a hot mess and we promise a great experience your first time It's our mission and our speciality. Are you ready to get real messy?
