Bend Don’t Break: Yoga

There are obviously cycles during school and work when things are very busy.  I remember that in my last semester of law school I didn’t have a free Saturday until the end of March.  That meant I was going full steam for 6 days a week and then having to do all my readings on Sunday.  It was intense and stressful, which lead to stress-eating.  But really, I was stress-eating from the moment orientation started.  During law school, I gained probably around 40 pounds.  It was not good; not just for my self-esteem, but for my actual health.  Diabetes and heart disease run in my family–like in many Latino families, so after graduation I knew I had to get my health under control.

Once I graduated I really focused on health and fitness and lost most of the weight through different forms of exercise and much healthier eating.  Now, I’m constantly looking for new forms of exercise to try so that I am motivated to continue to improve my heart health and overall fitness.  Let’s be real, obviously, I’m not always motivated and there are long spurts of time where this isn’t a priority–when it totally should be!  So as a way to motivate myself I thought I’d review one of my latest workouts: yoga!

I pushed myself to really try yoga last year because as my work load and cases increased, I started experiencing a lot of aches and pains that seemed to be coming from nowhere.  After yet another visit to the doctor, she encouraged me to try some stress relieving exercises to see if it helped.  So I opted to try to do some simple yoga at home.

I stumbled onto Patricia Moreno’s Cardio Burn Yoga  and it is amazing!  I’ve started using it this past summer and I really enjoy it. It’s a low intensity cardio workout, with the added benefit of working on your yoga poses–meaning you’re working on your balance and core. Having only ever taken an occasional Yoga class and not knowing if I’d really be able to follow–I ended up really liking this dvd.  I found her voice to be calm; the instructions are easy to understand; the music isn’t overwhelming; and it’s challenging for both beginners and people a little further along in their yoga practice.

The DVD has an hour exercise and a 30 minute “express” workout.  I enjoy both and do the hour during the weekends or the 30 minutes after work.  The workout itself is gentle; I use a Polar to track the activity and I burned less than 300 calories with the 30 minute exercise.  However, even while gentle, you can feel the stretch the next day in your arms or legs.

By a happy coincidence, Patricia Moreno is Latina.  Obviously that’s not why I purchased her exercise, but if you follow her other plans (or read up on her history), she struggled with weight loss and health issues that were in part influenced by her upbringing–an upbringing, that I think a lot of us can identify.  Just an added bonus, I guess 🙂

Have you tried Yoga?  What are your favorite forms of exercise?