Yoga!

Last week I talked about my foot ailment, plantar fasciitis. It definitely slowed my progress. I took a week off from my exercise class. It seemed to help and I went back. It hurt again. This was a couple of weeks before we planned to leave for the States so I ended up taking all of December off and part of January.

Before I went back to class, I started exercising again with a 3 mile walk with Peanut. By the time I got home, my feet hurt. What to do?

I didn’t want it to get so bad that I needed surgery, but I still needed to work out. I’d made so much progress that I hated to backslide. Then I remembered. My awesome teacher, Sarah, who you met here, also does yoga classes in the evening.

I had taken yoga for a semester in college. It’s something that I had always wanted to try and I’d enjoyed it at the time. Afterwards, I tried to find a yoga class that I liked, but none ever clicked for me and I let it go.

When I thought about the yoga class here, I thought it would be the perfect solution. If it didn’t hurt my feet.

I’m happy to say that the yoga doesn’t affect my feet at all, so I’m able to continue the exercise without injuring myself further. If you’ve never tried yoga, I encourage you to do so.

Many people think it’s just stretching, not real exercise. I would counter that they are wrong. There is some stretching, but it’s so much more than that. You use your muscles in a more gentle way, if that makes any sense, but you still use them.

In fact, my arms and legs have been feeling the yoga workouts more than the Sculpt & Burn workouts I’d done previously. And with yoga, there are other benefits as well.

It increases your flexibility, which in turn, makes you look younger.

It massages the organs in your body. I know that seems weird and you’re probably wondering why you would even want to do this. The stimulation and massage of the organs actually helps keep away disease. A regular yoga practitioner can also develop an awareness of their body that will warn of impending health problems.

Detoxification. By gently stretching the muscles and joints and massaging the organs, yoga pushes the blood throughout the body, flushing out toxins from everywhere. This delays aging and increases your energy level.

Toning. Of course, the toning of your muscles.

So you see, there’s a lot to be said for yoga. I’m enjoying it again and may switch to this permanently.

Have you ever tried yoga? Want to? What do you think of it? Do you find it’s a good workout?