For the Love of Yoga

It was just under a year ago that I struggled just to touch my toes. No lie. After heading to Yoga By Sarah with my soon-to-be-step-mother-in-law (mouth full), I became absolutely in love with yoga. It's relaxing, it's a great work out, and I can actually put my palms flat on the ground now. And I really do enjoy the fact that Women's Health has an entire tab devoted solely to yoga. Recently they posed the question as to whether yoga really can be the "holy grail" of all work outs. Here are my thoughts:

As a fat-frying, heart pumping, major cardiovascular work out goes ... no. You will not see the same benefits from yoga as you will from traditional methods. However, the yoga I started with is pretty good for burning calories. Hot Yoga. It's awesome. I've read that doing Hot Vinyasa yoga (a type that has quicker movements from one pose to the next) can burn around 400+ calories an hour. Then there's even Power Yoga. These are more complicated, expert, moves and you go through them super quick, or hold for very, very, long periods of time. This can burn 9 calories a minute. Not too shabby. But then there's the issue of wanting to calm down and stretch, and that's where I find benefit in yoga.

I found that after doing hot yoga, about 3 or 4 times a week for 2 months resulted in longer, leaner looking muscles. My jeans didn't fit so tightly in my thighs and I could see some definition come back to my arms. I even found that the breathing technique was unreal when used while running. It taught more than just how to stretch in a more complicated manner. It helps me sleep at night. Seriously! I love it, and will do it from now on. I'm devoting at least 3 days a week to yoga, and hope to get into the studio again when I get back State-side.

Check out the real article here: Benefits of Yoga: Does Yoga Really Burn Fat?

While writing this post I experienced two unbelievable videos. I would like to share them with you all.

I want this to be my next Halloween costume. For real.

Matt's favorite new dance.