Return to Hot Yoga. And this time, with guests!

Well, not really guests plural, just guest singular. For some reason, Bobby told me that he wanted to go to hot yoga with me. I'm assuming he experienced some sort of old-fart style injury that made him realize he needs to be a little more limber or perhaps he purchased a new 'book' and has some extra-curricular activities in mind but either way, he kept saying he wanted to go, and I probably asked him a hundred times to be sure since I thought he was messing with me.

Watchu mean you wanna try hot yoga?

I know you're probably shocked that I'M going back to hot yoga, based on my earlier posts about my first time at hot yoga and then the second, super awful time. But here's what I didn't write later: I ended up loving it. I didn't write about it because it would have gone something like this:


"Hey everyone! Remember all those awful things I said about hot yoga? I was wrong! Oops!"

Who'd read that shit? Not me so I figured you all wouldn't want to either. But by the time I finished my Living Social deal, I was going 2 to 3 times a week. I was a frickin' addict. But then I started VaVaVaVoom, the summer just flew by, and I just never went back. So I've been talking about going back for a while, and even found a place just a few minutes from my house (Heat Yoga in Clearwater), and bookmarked their website on my phone. Every once in a while I'd check out the classes and remark to anyone who was around me that I'm going to go back soon and gee, that class sounded interesting! I think I thought if I could convince others I was going then I could convince myself. 

If I just make it up this hill, I swear I'll go to hot yoga again!

I'd been eyeing the schedule and knew there was a 6 pm class today and Bobby agreed to the time and hey, it was date night after all, so it all just came together. I also saw it as a sign that when I was checking Groupon today, there was some coupon for a bagel shop called 'A Roll with a Hole" and I thought, huh, great name! Change the order around a little and it could pretty much describe me: an a-hole with a roll! Or maybe a few rolls. Seems like the one on the back of my legs hit it off so well with the new muffin top that they're going steady these days. 

It's hard to emphasize how much I do not exercise. On my last night in Maine, I got sick and Abby's hypothesis was that my body was physically rejecting all of the exercise it got while hiking. And honestly, it made the most sense. Up until a week ago, blinking was my main source of energy expenditure. All this sewing has made me have the physique of a corn dog, crusty breading and all. Not attractive.




To get ready for my re-entry into physical movement, I thought I'd ready the mind before readying the body. So around 2, I decided to go ahead and get dressed in my yoga gear (the middle school bus stop is in our front yard and I'm kinda embarrassed if I'm still in my pi's when they get dropped off in the afternoon). While I'm always a fan of stretchy exercise clothes, I don't recall feeling that my sports bra was trying to 'smother me with love' before. I seriously felt like I was wearing the world's skimpiest straight jacket. I think I'm going to have to have Bobby pre-wear all my workout clothes from now on so they won't be that tight anymore.

At 3 pm, I sent Bobby a warning text to STOP EATING and start drinking lots and lots of water. He seemed surprisingly willing. At 4:30, I hear the garage door and Bobby's home early to get ready. Curiouser and curiouser. He then asked me where I kept my old Hooters shorts (at Goodwill, with my ab master) and then came into my office wearing my pajama shorts and asked if that was okay to wear. Sorry ladies, he scampered off before I could get a pic. I don't know which was more disturbing; Bobby in my pajama bottoms or Bobby scampering like a girl when he thought he was going to be caught on film.

I finally get all of our crap together and we head out. I've been telling Bobby that it's okay to take it easy, and to just sit on his mat if he starts to feel sick, but now I've got a new worry. I've been, naturally, completely delusional and picturing myself performing Barishnikov-esque stretches next to a passed out Bobby during class but now, reality is hitting hard and I'm realizing that I'M the one who's most likely to pass out, not Bobby. Shit! He's been actually using the BowFlex that I just had to have and now avoid like a fat kid avoids a carrot stick. I'm going to look like a complete idiot! Hey, maybe it'll go better than I expect. You never know!

It went way worse than I expected. Don't get me wrong, the place was great, fantastic teacher, the heat wasn't set to 'broil'. But as I lay on my mat halfway through class (I like to call this pose 'warrior holding down the floor'), I can feel my heart pounding through every blood cell in my body. And I literally have done nothing harder than raise my arms above my head and taken a few deep breaths. How out of shape do I have to be to already be this wiped out? Of course, as I'm laying there trying not to die, I naturally daydream of Big Macs due to Justice's article on Cross Fit (thanks Justice!) and I reflect that we seem to have correlating goals: to be fit enough to be able to hoist not one, but two Big Macs at a time! A few more minutes in this heat and even Bobby is going to start looking like a Big Mac. I'd better get my ass a movin'.

Make that 2- and supersize me!

I fake it almost the entire way through the rest of class. It's not until the last ten minutes that I feel like heat is emanating from every part of my body like a huge George Foreskin grill. I think I could make a grilled cheese sandwich on my muffin top I'm so damned hot. I hold out until the last 'namaste' and then pull a road runner style exit out of there and into the air conditioned lobby. I sit on the bench for a few minutes, staring at the cooler and think how great a cold drink would be. I drag my zombie-like body to the counter and grunt towards the cooler until the girl at the desk realizes I'm heat-dumb and gets me the water. I'm thinking she's seen my condition once or twice before.

water.... me.... want....water.....

No, I said 'no tomatoes'!

She is super nice; she introduces herself since we had talked on the phone earlier and she asks how I liked the class. I go to tell her it was great and I want to sign up for a membership but it ends up coming out as, "Huwwwuuuuuuwuuuuu wugh buuuubuuuu tuuu wuuu luuugghh". I sound like Chewbacca trying to order chimichangas at Moe's. What the hell is wrong with my mouth? I take a drink and then try again. This time it at least sounds like English, although English spoken by a stroke victim, but she gets the point. I get my keychain tag and I'm all good. I'm gonna start back with some warm yoga classes and then work my way back up to the hot stuff. 


Oh, how did Bobby do? What do you think. Way better than I had thought and while I'm happy that he liked it and would even consider doing it again, I would have felt a little better if he had thrown up just a little bit or maybe even had a slight heat stroke. I should have known that being Mexican, he was pretty much built for the heat and being told what to do in a large group setting. Afterwards, he's glowing like a blushing bride while I look like someone squeezed me around the middle until the blood was one micron away from bursting out of my face. 

Ola amigo! Donde esta hot yoga por favor?

In the end, it was a good night. I made dinner and ended up sewing till midnight and look, I still  have energy to type this up at 1:30 am! Crap, I need to get some sleep. Just go try it. Hot yoga is worth it just for the detox and large calorie burn for very little movement. Just make sure you're good at it before you bring in your better half so you don't look like a moron like me. Good luck!

This will be you afterwards, I promise!