Improvements!

People! Listen up!

Tonight was an excellent night at Bikram. I made 3 HUGE improvements in 3 different postures. Seriously, I went into class with the mindset that I was going to push myself and do my best and I sure did. So excited to share this with you.

All the below photos from here.

First: Toe Stand Pose

Ok, I know the lady looks a slight bit freaky, but you'll get the gist of it nonetheless. I have never been able to do this posture. I always make sure I try, but I never can quite touch the floor. Well today I went for it full force! Quite sketchy and scary but I did it!!! Yay me!

Second: Standing Separate Leg Stretching Pose

In this pose my legs are usually giving it all they've got and sometimes almost shaking (I know.. my knees are locked and thighs contracted.. don't worry). Well, the instructor said to keep opening your legs wider and wider until your head touches the floor. I was so wide out that I was 1-2 inches from the floor. This is such great progress, since usually my head was around 1 foot from the floor.

Third: Head to Knee Pose with Stretching Pose

In the first pose, today I was able to actually touch my knee to the ground! Since you are supposed to grab your foot and keep your forehead to your knee and keep trying to push your knee down. And in the second posture I was able to lock my knees and lift my heels off the ground. Yipeee.

Clearly I am so exhausted now, so I am for sure just going to relax for the rest of the night and get a good sleep since I am going to visit Amber tomorrow and do some Moksha Yoga with her!!! Can't wait!!!

On a side note, my first day back to Bikram after the bulk of my exams was yesterday. I made the #1 mistake of eating before class. I had a huge bowl of tomato rice soup because I was starving... and I ate it at 6:00pm and class started at 7:00pm. BIG MISTAKE.

On this first forward fold pose:

I almost threw up. I could feel all the soup draining into my throat (I know... sorry... gross details) and I thought I was going to have to bolt.. 2nd pose in!!! 

Oh god. Thankfully I pulled through that one. Never EVER again. When they say don't eat 2 hours before class and make it a light meal, it is for a very good reason.

I know that in yoga you aren't supposed to concentrate on the calories burned... etc... but I was super curious as to how many calories are actually burned! I knew it was intense, but I wanted to know. I'm starting to count calories as of today on Spark People and needed to know for tracking exercise. Well I found that it is hard to determine since estimates range from 500-1200 calories. I ended up finding this calculator here. It's actually quite interesting, but you scroll down and enter your weight and age and bam. It tells you how many minutes it takes for you to lose one pound. Then from there you figure out how many calories you burn in one class (3,500 calories is 1 pound). For me, Bikram is 760 calories. Holy smokes! Which is good... I need to keep going. I weighed myself today (I've been really scared to) and I am at 157.7 pounds... :s...... That's 15 pounds heavier than I was at this time last year. So I need to keep doing this and I will see results! Yes yes yes.

Well that's all I've got, have a good night everyone and TGIF!!!