Thursday, May 20, 2010

Don't Miss a Great Deal on Yoga Journal Magazine

For one day only, (Thursday, May 20th) you can grab yourself a one year subscription to Yoga Journal Magazine for just $4.29. What a bargain! This deal if valid for brand new subscriptions, as well as renewals. All you need to do is click on the link below to be taken to the place where you can purchase the subscription. Don't forget, this is only good for one day. Don't miss it.

Best Deal Magazines Deal of the Day

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Friday, May 14, 2010

Finding Inspiration from Chocolate

This seems like a great reason to reach for a yummy treat. What's better than both chocolate and a great inspirational note? Thank you Dove.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

My New Motivation to Run

No, it's not because I'm about to go on vacation where I'll be sporting a bathing suit most days. And no, I haven't lost my mind and agreed to run in another race. So why am I all jazzed to get home every day and run? Because it takes less time than any of my other workouts!

I finally completed my third straight season of P90X and I'm ecstatic over the thought of gaining one little half hour back into my evenings. My husband and I normally take a one hour hike with our dogs, but a few days ago we decided to lace up our running shoes and give trail running a try. I always love to test my post-P90X physical condition and not many things test it like running. So we gave it a try and to my delight, I enjoyed it. Well, minus my nasty allergy issues that I always struggle with. Aside from the throat restricting, the wheezing, and the feeling like I'm being strangled, I really enjoyed the run – so much so that we decided to run every night. I'm just loving the fact that our workout now takes 30 minutes instead of 60.

But I can't help to wonder what gives me more of a work out. Do you burn more calories walking at a brisk pace on varying elevations for one hour, or jogging that same distance in half the time? This really has me pondering. I have several unreliable heart rate monitors and it appears that I average a heart rate of about 125 when I'm hiking. I can't get a reading while I'm running so I may never find out the answer to this question. Does anybody out there have and use a reliable heart rate monitor that doesn't require a chest strap? I see many products that you wear on your belt, or on your wrist, and I just can't figure out how they work. I have a chest strap and that darn thing doesn't even work. Please, if you know of a good means of measuring heart rate and calories burned, please let me know.

Sunday, May 09, 2010

30 Day Yoga Challenge

I just stumbled upon an interesting web site. It’s called Dashama 30 Day Yoga Challenge and they are offering a free 30 day program to bring yoga into your life. If you sign up you will receive one email per day that will include a brief (usually about 10 minutes) instructional yoga video. If you are ready to dedicate just 10 minutes a day to a yoga practice this is a great way to stay motivated. So far I just watched the first video and it included 7 minutes of seated stretches. I think these daily emails will serve as a great reminder to take a break from your otherwise busy day in order to something beneficial to your health. Everybody can spare just 10 minutes. I plan to watch and practice with these videos every day before lunch.

Here’s a peek at the promotional video that explains this 30 day challenge.


What do you have to lose? Give it a try!

Thursday, May 06, 2010

Things I Learned This Week

I was on the road this week, on a business trip. This meant that I got knocked off my P90X schedule. I really hate when that happens. Fortunately my last business trip landed conveniently during a Recovery Week which meant that I could manage to keep up in my hotel room. But this time my trip landed during my last ‘real week’ of the program. I’m getting home just in time for my final Recovery Week and it pains me to think that I have to prolong the program by yet another week. Uuugh.

But this week has taught me two things. First, I realized that I soon as I removed the weight lifting and one hour hard-core cardio sessions from my life, my appetite went right back to normal. I have been starving non-stop for the past two months and now here I am, in the middle of a big city, surrounded by great food (on the company tab, no less) and I can’t be bothered with food. I get to normal meal times and almost force myself to eat something, when normally at home I’m counting down the minutes until I get to eat again. This just proves my theory and makes me wonder why I bother burning so many calories a day when it just causes me to eat that many more. Seems like a silly run around on a hamster wheel, but I know that won’t stop me.

My second lesson of the week involves yoga. Because the hotel that I’m staying in doesn’t have a gym, yoga is the best and easiest way to work out every day. And what I’ve discovered is how much I improved by doing my routine every single day. I started out this week sweating and watching the clock in anticipation of the routine ending. But the second day was a littler easier. And the third day even easier. By the fourth day I was stunned at how easily I breezed through the rigorous routine. I know that practicing anything makes you better, but the speed at which you see improvement in yoga by a consistent and frequent practice is astonishing. Practicing once a week seems like you never get a chance to really build those yoga muscles and get in the zone. You are therefore struggling every time you practice. But if you can increase the amount of days per week in which you practice it really seems to pay off. For me yoga went from a chore to pleasure in just 4 days!

I’m curious how many days per week most enthusiastic yogi practice . . . Please share if you will . . . How many days per week to you practice?

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Free May Desktop Calendar from YogaDudes

Here's a nice Springy desktop to usher in May. I tried drawing some cute birds doing "in-flight" yoga poses, but let's just say it didn't work out. Perhaps the simple birdhouses are perfect on their own. To make this your desktop calendar, just click on the image above to bring up the larger image. Then right-click and "save as desktop."

Happy Spring!

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