Yoga-Meditations

You can’t know how many times my friends have called me crazy. They’ll comment on how great I look or how happy I’ve been lately, and ask me what’s new. The answer is always the same – hot yoga. You can imagine how many giggles that got from them at first. But soon the giggles subsided and were replaced by shock as I began to explain what it meant. “You go into a 100 degree room with humidifiers and work out”.

When I first told my friend Helen about this, she thought I was utterly insane, that or joking. “You have to look at it from my point of view”, I said as she looked at me with some bizarre mixture of curiosity and unease. “Yoga is great on its own, but I wanted to lose more weight. I found out about how hot yoga takes it to the next level. It really becomes a powerhouse workout.”

But for me, it’s not just the workout. I feel different, better. After a workout, I feel utterly calm and at peace, and little things don’t bug me so much. Even that doesn’t aptly describe it, though. It’s not just about looking good or feeling great. It’s about being healthy. After being morbidly obese and losing a lot of weight, I still had back problems. But not after doing hot yoga. My back doesn’t hurt, I feel so much more energetic, and I really believe that I can take on the world after a session. In my mind and my body, I feel like a new, healthier person.

The other day Helen and I got on the subject of hot yoga again. She’d taken up yoga since we’d last talked, and wanted to know why it had to be so hot. “I’ve lost plenty of weight just doing regular yoga”. she said. I smiled and replied “The heat is a must. It’s not that it does something more than yoga, it’s basically the same, it just makes it more potent. You’re more flexible in the heat, which means your body can handle more open stretching. It also makes your heart beat faster so it becomes a cardiovascular workout.

Try that about three times a week and you’ll see even more results”.
I’m so happy to say that I started practicing hot yoga 100 lbs ago. Size, shape, weight – it doesn’t matter (as long as your doc says it’s okay). This isn’t some horribly complicated exercise regiment. It’s just yoga… only hot! Anyone can do it, and you will see results.