I couldn’t sleep well last night and I began to wonder if it is my BIKRAM YOGA “practice” that is shifting things internally and messing up with my night time sleep schedule….and day time energy slumps. They say it gets easier and I can expect to BECOME MORE ENERGIZED – but WHO is they anyway? 🙂

Yesterday was Day 16 of doing Bikram daily. I began to question if what I was doing….a 30-Day Challenge was actually good for me and wanted to hear others experience of what it did for them! So I googled and found many great stories, videos etc. but THIS one put a smile on my face and I continued to read on and actually ‘champion’ her successes.

….and this is where I stumbled upon this part 1 of a gal, Paige Williams, who shared her Bikram story in Oprah Magazine. http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/paige-williams-60-day-bikram-yoga-makeover/all

This girl, Paige, was 80 pounds overweight, divorced, out of work, and deeply in debt. OK, so none of those are me, except I am a 60-year old woman who had never done a BIKRAM challenge and someone, much like Paige, who wants to make peace with my body while balancing my body-mind-spirit connection. Oh and add one more thing, I’d love to drop at least 10 pounds in these ‘infamous’ 30-days. (I’d like to say where the FAT could melt off, but I guess I will have to just wait and see.) One thing I know, a woman with a ‘men-o-pot’ around the belly can not bend into poses easily.

So here is how it was described in Paige’s article. Paige needs a physical and spiritual overhaul. Can 60 days in a Bikram hot-yoga studio really undo years of damage? and this is where it got funny-and accurate.

OK -SO I NEED A PHYSICAL & SPIRITUAL OVERHAUL too, I agree. CAN 30-DAYS OF BIKRAM HELP ME?

Paige writes: “The teacher wants me to make a Japanese ham sandwich. To my knowledge, I’ve never seen a Japanese ham sandwich, but as I understand it, I’m to stand bent with my face to my shins and chest to my thighs in perfect vertical union—I am the sandwich.

I would say I look more like a jelly roll. My flabby abdomen won’t let my forehead anywhere near my knees, and my legs tremble as I try contorting myself into a position my body neither recognizes nor endorses. The goal is to concentrate on stretching and breathing, but I’m fixating on my unpedicured toenails. And the neon paleness of my legs. And the fact that I probably should have shaved.

The students around me are tanned and toned and very nearly nude. Every body glistens. We’re in a Bikram yoga studio, after all, where the heat is set to 105 degrees and the humidity to 40 percent, to facilitate flexibility. The men wear nothing but shorts; the women rock hot pants and halters. Because I’d rather lick the sweat-soaked carpet than bare my wretched flesh, I have on the hot-yoga equivalent of a snowsuit: calf-length sweatpants, a jog bra, and a T-shirt. I’m huffing harder than a serial killer. And we’re only on posture number one.

Posture number one of class one of day one. Assuming I survive, I’ll make the ham sandwich and about two dozen other postures every single day for the next two months, for the notorious 60-day Bikram challenge. I’m subjecting myself to “Bikram’s torture chamber,” as founder Bikram Choudhury himself calls this insanely intense regimen, because the program promises renewal from the inside out—because suffering inside this hot room may be my surest path to survival out in the world.

I need to change so many things about my life, it’s hard to know where to start. I need physical and spiritual transformation, from the mental to the muscular to the molecular. I need to stop treating my body like a landfill. I need stability, which I haven’t seen in so long, I’ve forgotten how it feels. I need a reset button.

“Do this yoga for 60 days and it will change your body, your mind, and your life,” says Choudhury, a former Indian yoga champion who lives in Los Angeles and who is, depending on your viewpoint, either a beloved lifesaving guru or just a really flexible guy who got lucky, and rich, with an idea and a persona. Bikram students believe, and I hope they’re right, that Choudhury’s heat-centric, copyrighted sequence of ancient hatha yoga postures is a transformative agent like no other; testimonials the world over suggest this yoga eases the symptoms of a range of maladies—depression, diabetes, carpal tunnel syndrome, fibromyalgia, migraines, arthritis, back pain, and heart disease, for instance—while relaxing the mind and slimming the body.

“Can’t you just do all that by, like, running every day for 60 days?” a friend asks. Good question, but the answer doesn’t interest me. None of my past fitness activities—racquet sports, cycling, jogging, gym circuit training, kickboxing—seem catalytic enough for the depth of change I’m after.

I’m not a renovation; I’m a tear down. And I’m hoping Bikram is my bulldozer!”

So here I am….JOY, not Paige and I began questioning if what I was doing was sane, smart or worth it. I can say each and every day is different- for example Day 17 was TODAY and I felt GREAT. I could balance stronger, I was less tired (despite not sleeping well last night) and honestly if I had to, I’d actually be able to do a 2nd class later today, which they call a ‘double’! (Now that I think of it, I believe it was the TAVALA TRIM drink I had prior to class today that made a difference) I’ll have to try it tomorrow! www.DaveandJoy.com

Am I going to stick it out? You bet. How could I come this far and not complete the 30-days? I’d truly let myself down if I quit now. 30-days straight or admit I don’t have what it takes.

I began Bikram when I listened to my inner self/my voice tell me this is what my body needs. I wasn’t thrilled to ‘hear’ the message but I believed it to be true.

If you won’t listen, then why ask- right?

I began my personal 30-Day Challenge on August 21st and September 1st Queen City Bikram Yoga, where I go, started their 30-Day Challenge. If I do just mine, COOL, if I do the studios’ it will take me to 41 Days Straight. What do you think? Think I can do it? Think I ‘should’ do it?

I look forward to the day when walking into a Bikram yoga studio is as comfortable to me as walking into a gym or fitness center. The familiarity of a cold 20 lb. dumbbell could really excite me! but in the meantime, I’ll see what YOGA can do for this less-than-limber 60 year old body.

If you happen to live in Burlington VT and would like to join me, message me. My husband joins me 3x a week and the more the merrier!

Joy Edgerton/ 802-846-7530

joyedgerton@gmail.com/ www.DaveandJoy.com

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