This time it was real. This time I was going to do it. After I passed grueling finals and finished my classes for the semester, I packed my possessions and moved two hours away from home. I had gotten a summer internship with the newspaper in Waterloo, IA and was ecstatic to start. Not only would I be diving into real-world journalism but this was the first real time I would be on my own. I wouldn't have a roommate and though I knew I would miss my boyfriend, family and friends, I was thrilled to start.
I made a promise to myself as I had many times before, this summer I was going to get into shape. It was a familiar promise that I pursued for a few weeks before suppressing to the college workload. I knew it would be hard, I knew I was going to have to push myself. But this time, I was going to do it.
The first day after I moved in I went for a run. I remember running about a quarter mile before I was about to drop. I felt so pathetic. How was I going to get back into shape if I felt this horrible discouragement every time after I went for a run? Later that week, I was assigned to work on a fitness story for a magazine that the newspaper published. I decided one of the places I would feature would be the yoga studio up the street from where I lived.
I had tried yoga a few times before and loved it, just hadn't ever made the time for it to be a routine. As I talked to Kara, the yoga studio owner, I learned that the studio was a hot yoga studio–a term I was not familiar with. Hot yoga originated in India and is practiced in a studio with temperatures ranging from 80 to 100 degrees. The hot temperatures make the body work harder to burn more calories and releases harmful toxins. I was enthralled. After learning that the yoga studio had a special price for the summer, I nearly immediately signed up.
When I played volleyball in high school, my favorite time of practice was the time we spent stretching, but I had never experienced stretching like this. I had never sweat so much in my life–my clothes were soaked through and when I looked down at my mat there were puddles of sweat. It sounds gross, I know, but it felt oh-so good. I loved the soreness in my muscles the days afterward. I loved pushing myself to achieve complex poses. I loved the heat. Finally, I felt as if I had found my fitness niche.
(Left to Right: My pre yoga body, my current body)
Though the first couple weeks, I found myself attending the 5:30 a.m. classes. I forced myself to get up early, to start my day on the right foot. If I was going to get into shape, I was going to commit. There have been days were my 5:00 alarm goes off and I consider sleeping in and days I wonder if all the stretching is really benefiting me at all. But I have made a commitment, and this time I was going to keep it.
The morale of the story is this: if you're trying to get into exercising and you find yourself constantly giving up, try a different venue. Figure out what kind of exercise your body likes and then stick with it. The results are worth it.
