last year i’d been practicing at bikram yoga lower east side for going on 7 months, somewhat sort of consistently, which for me was to say i went 2-3, maybe 1 time a week.

now that’s not a “wow” statistic but it was pretty awesome consistency for me so much so that when i went to the jersey shore (the dry towns part, not the snooki/juice gorillas part) for a long weekend in mid-august i felt pretty decently alright about getting into a swimsuit in front of all sorts of important people like my parents, aunt, uncle, cousin and countless neighbor friends plus the guy who’s sort of around my age looks like a surfer type but is from philly and now lives in nyc & for a moment i thought my aunt might try to arrange our marriage, but here i sit alone blogging. (thanks for sticking with that run-on)

anyway after that vacation i got back to the city and into the hot box maybe once and then decided i was still on vacation to make up for the fact that i wasn’t going on any real summer vacation (excuse #1).  plus my shoulder was really sore like i had tennis elbow but in my shoulder (excuse #2). 

hey this, white girl-accountant-provider to two cats has it rough (excuse #3? maybe, yup definitely an excuse).  

time slipped by and i spent 4 months telling myself i’d start back into bikram “next week” (excuse #4) after this wedding (excuse #5) after that vacation (excuse #6) when i feel less tired (excuse #7), god i’m so tired all the time (excuse #8) not after i’ve eaten so much (excuse #9) are you kidding me i didn’t hydrate enough yesterday to attempt that today (excuse #10)

cut to, the holidays  when it’s never a good time to start an exercise routine because you’re just going to eat back your weight in cookies (excuse #11)

looking back on that four months all i accomplished was to disprove my hypothesis that if you eat loaves of bread with enough olive oil it slides through your system and right out your butt without nary an ounce gained.

in practice it turns out this is not true.

to complicate matters following the EVOO/bread-slide-butt-experiment, i was too fat for my liking and about to turn 30 in less than a month’s time.  

extreme actions were necessary.

for those who might not be familiar with the specific torture of bikram yoga here are some facts:

• it’s done in a 105 degree F heated room
• you wear as little spandex as possible so drenched wet clothes aren’t hanging off you in weird ways (before bikram i had a strict “no spandex” policy for myself)
• the same 26 postures & two breathing exercises are repeated every class
• it is 90 minutes long
• you get to lay around like a corpse in savasana for as long as you want afterward, unless you have to get to work and then you probably run and claw for a shower
• sometimes if there were multiple classes before yours you can bite off a chunk of hot air when you enter the room

most importantly, if you can convince yourself to go in the first place you know that no matter what happened in class, whether you got dizzy, ‘most barfed, or got through the whole set like a rock star, when you exit that room you’re going to feel like your body and your mind have been through a separate but equal kind of strange battle and you both came out alive. that’s true, it’s weird, feel free to try it for yourself.

i started my 30 day challenge officially on december 28th.  i was dreadfully out of physical shape for such a lofty goal but i had the week after christmas off to kick-start myself and a dream of not bringing back rolls with me as i turned 30.

it turned out taking 4 months off was a huge mistake.  i knew all the moves, i wasn’t anywhere near perfect at them before, but now my extra, ahem, body mass was in the way of doing them as i’d remembered.  

i learned from this that sometimes you have to pick up your foot from the side, swing it under your armpit and then mash it up into your boob/stomach so you can set up for standing head to knee and hey, that’s going to have to be ok for now.

to fully cement my dedication to this pact i’d made with myself & the thinning area between the thighs of my jeans, i rang in the new year at bikram yoga les.  an nye yoga party includes, hot pink lights, sweating to pop music and afterward champagne that rapidly warms in 105 degree heat. in short it was an amazing way to start the new year.

after that it was back to work and my friends and i in the 6:30am class got well acquainted by sweating together and me not making eye-contact with them. by day 9 i was looking for something to help my body recover. because we all know that’s why you take rest days between working out “to recover” and not because you drank too much the night before and you’re not the type to sweat off a hangover you’d rather wallow in it.  i digress, as it turned out the solution for that recovery feeling was putting trace mineral drops in my water, or at any rate to make it to 30 days i would tell myself that that the no-fail solution was to put trace mineral drops in my water.

i chugged along drinking my mineral laced water nicely until day 15 when i was psyched to be half way, but my body was like, ‘nuh uh, fuck you gina’ and i had a raging bout of acid reflux which it turns out doesn’t pair well with the stomach down spine series or rolling forward for turtles and rabbits.

as i’m writing this i notice that this story is sounding possibly depressing and maybe gross, but just remember that every time i came out of that room after 90 minutes I HAD WON! (except for day 15, that was a weird day, a wednesday, the reflux would not subside, and i spent the day at work having weird achy muscle chills like when you have the flu. nothing a couple zicam plus some quiet self-pity on my couch followed by a nap couldn’t fix)

then the next day i won again, maybe slightly less gallantly because a.flux and i were still hanging out like chilling out through locust and rabbit pose if we needed too.  he was all “you take it down a notch or i’m going to force hot acid out your mouth right here in front of everyone” and i was all “shhh don’t embarrass me” and that’s how we lived in equilibrium every couple days or so through the final 15. SPOILER ALERT: i make it to 30.

on day 20 a.k.a. MLK day i made a killer killer batch of chocolate chip cookies that included both pastry & bread flour in the recipe, oh and i’d made it to 2/3 of the way through!  nothing could stop me now not even acid reflux and i was about to turn 30 in 5 days and my back fat flaps had reduced to like maybe hummingbird wings size. tiny successes well within my grasp.

baby steps, baby steps, what about bob, paging dr. leo marvin I’M DOING IT. (i’m saiiiiiling, i’m a sailor, i sail, just change that to yoga terms as you see fit)

january 21st, 2012. i’m 30 years old and i’m not freaking out about it because my totally calm bikram soaked mind helps me not freak out about things or at least it’s trying to.  

from the beginning of my yoga journey i’ve always fancied myself pretty good at playing dead in savasana but after 25 days i could even feel myself being able to wrangle my racing mind in when i needed to.  a few times i think i even internally talked myself back from a panic attack because no, i wasn’t going to die in there, my towels weren’t actually on fire and i’d certainly survive to feel the cool sting of 53 degree new york winter air in my lungs once again.

on monday of this week there were only three more classes between me and sweet sweet goal achievement.  tuesday morning my body told me politely “no thank you” so i waited for the evening and did a 6:30pm/6:30am overnight double header.

today was day 30. i ended on a high note of a class.  my body, that at some points seemed like it wanted a rest doesn’t seem like it needs a rest that much anymore. or maybe that’s just my mind bullying my body, but really they’re both in this together.

i’m adding on the bonus day i went before starting the challenge officially, so i’m at 31 and looking forward i want to see how far i can go.

if i can say anything about this experience its these things  

• taking this on immediately got me eating a lot better  
• i’ve had 4 significant holiday type days where previously i would have used as an excuse to eat crap and laze around but i didn’t (exclusively do that)
• kale is fully fledged back in my life again, oh kale, i’ve missed you
• my jeans don’t hurt
• i’m not tired all the time but i still love naps
• i still had time to catch up on misfits and downton abbey
• someday i’m going to enjoy balancing stick, but i really don’t right now
• tomorrow morning (a friday) i’m going to get up and go to 6:30am class even though i’m not legally obligated by myself to go in order to get a free month of yoga

finally:

if left to my own devices i really really wouldn’t have stayed in the room for all 45 hours and i owe that to (in descending order of how much they personally tortured me) rupi, corinne, tricia, riji, christopher, eoin, jena, kristen, upkar, graham & nadia, so thank you.

thank you.

thank you.