Yoga for 40 days...now for life!

This last month, I signed up for and completely my yoga studio’s 30 day yoga challenge.  There were some days when I had to double- up to reach the goal, but I did it!  While I didn’t see any shift in my body weight, because I do not think yoga is all that great for fat loss, I did gain an incredible amount of strength and flexibility.  Question is, does the strength training you get from doing daily yoga do enough for body strength or do you need to lift weights too?

According to yoga journal (http://www.yogajournal.com/practice/739) the answer is yes!  Because when they tested yogis for fitness (those who had been practicing for some 20 years or more), they found that these people truly were outstanding in the arena of physical fitness.  And yoga IS enough for building really great strength, as long as you are pushing yourself in the asanas.  You cannot do a warrior One and just half-ass it.  You have got to press into that back leg completely, pull your belly to your spine, spin your hips to the front, sink deep into that front leg and open your chest and breathe.  The deep breath is one of the most difficult things to maintain, and you will actually build and strengthen muscle by building your lung capacity.  Yoga will not make you bulky.  It will make you long, flexible, and strong.

So, I’m giving up weight lifting and dedicating myself to a daily yoga practice where I absolutely challenge myself.  I am still going to run, walk and swim for enjoyment and to feel my body move, which I love, but yoga has won me over. 

As far as my other health goals, I have been struggling with eating after 6 pm.  For the next month I am dedicating myself to 30 days of not eating after 6 pm.  Send up a prayer for me.  This one is so so so difficult for me.

And the poem I am memorizing this month is Mary Oliver’s “I Happened to Be Standing” which, I hope will help me to reflect on moments of prayer in my own life.

I HAPPENED TO BE STANDING

~ Mary Oliver

I don’t know where prayers go,
or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half-asleep in the sun?
Does the opossum pray as it
crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak
growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
along the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with things
of little importance, in full
self-attendance.  A condition I can’t really
call being alive.
Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep.  Maybe not.

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook open,
which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,
I don’t know why.  And yet, why not.
I wouldn’t pursuade you from whatever you believe
or whatever you don’t.  That’s your business.
But I t hought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be
if it isn’t a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air.