Tuesday, August 16, 2005

number seven on my list of things I never planned on doing: check

So I've warned you, I think, that I'm trying to get in better shape (a long, long process that will probably last for several years). I'm now in week two of the daily workout plan, and I found two obstacle standign in my way this morning: 1) it's raining, my wife has the car, and while I normally just walk to the YMCA for a workout, today that seems not so fun (in that I'd get soaked). 2) After 7 straight days of the elliptical machine (well, I took Sunday off, but still) I had little desire to do it again. Separately, those two things don't matter, but together . . .

Now first of all, let me just say that part of what I've been doing is just walking more than I drive. For example, the video store is a little over half a mile away, so instead of driving there, I just walk (I know, that may not sound like much to you big-city types where walking is preferred to driving because of all the people, and it's not that much to me. When I lived in London and Japan I walked or rode a bike all over the place. But when a car is convenient a car is convenient, so it's easy to get in the habit of just driving everywhere. This is the first habit I'm trying to break). I know I'll be walking back to the video store today, as well as to the grocery store, as well as other errands, so it's not really like I'll just be sitting around all day. But at the same time I don't want to get out of the habit of having a dedicated workout time in addition to getting more active.

Solution? Workout at home.

Now, that doesn't sound like much. I've got some hand weights that I use occassionally, and of course there's always the "Old Folks Chair Exercises" on tv. But I wanted to do something real, something challenging, something I hadn't tried. So, I look around a little, and I find Amelia's yoga workout video.

I know, I know. And I felt just as stupid and oafish and dorky as you're imagining me.

But here's the thing. Yoga is freakin' hard. I only got through about 25 minutes or so (mind you, this is a 68 minute tape) and I was dying. I looked nothing like the people on the video, who know how to do all kinds of crazy stuff, and my body is more sore than when I finish doing weights at the gym. It was nuts.

So nuts that I think I might try it again. Never when people are around to actually see me, of course, but you gotta start somewhere.

One thing's for sure. I used to laugh a people who called yoga a workout. "That's not working out," I'd chuckle, "That's stretching. You silly new-agers."

Well, I'll laugh no more.

(OK, maybe I'll still laugh at new agers. But I won't laugh at yoga.)

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