Tonight, I picked up my yoga mat again and sweated it out at the Bikram Yoga Manila studio in Makati. It's been exactly a year today when I found out that I was six weeks pregnant. And it's been exactly one year ago that I did my last practice in my beginner's form in the hot room.
Months before I found out the biggest surprise of our lives -- tadah! we're pregnant, I was actively doing yoga: once a day, seven days a week. In early 2014, I came back to the studio to improve my posture, sweat out the toxins and hoping against hope, to lose some unwanted inches. Perhaps, it too prepared my body for pregnancy. I was practicing the whole six weeks of my pregnancy because I didn't find out until the sixth week.
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| Yoga essentials: yoga mat, yoga towel, water bottle |
Night after night, I'd go home with aching muscles. There's nothing else much that I was capable of doing except to prepare my yoga clothes for the next day. The one benefit that I swore to be the best is being able to sleep soundly at night and wake up the next day renewed and refreshed.
In the weeks of my practice I've also noticed that my eating habits have been adjusted. I ate a controlled portion at lunch. No more snacking in between lunch and yoga practice or else, I'd pay for it inside the heated room. Dinner after yoga has been reduced to small portions of light meals because I feel like am still very full -- well, considering that I chug a liter of water before practice and another liter during the one hour and thirty minute practice...
After a year of no practice and practically leading a sedentary life, I decided to go back again. It has always been in my horizon that I'd go back after I gave birth... that I'd find a way to fit it in my schedule.
But the reality is -- the first time, the first instance of commitment is always the hardest to start. So what tipped the scale?
My 15 pounds (7 kilos) bundle of joy loves to be carried. She bounces her feet when we're heading out to the lobby, the pool area or even just at the hallway of our building. And boy, she loves it when we do bursts of sprints along the short length of our hallway. Her squeals of delight send me to mommy heaven. But I always end up breathless and panting after such a seemingly simple activity.
And so it dawned on me that I should do something. I may not be able to outsmart time but at least I can ease myself into delaying the setbacks of ageing.
Commiting to practice yoga and living an active (read: it's definition is relative ha ha) lifestyle will help prepare me for the days when my baby's idea of play time is running, climbing trees, scaling uphill grounds, and rolling in the hills.
It would be a bonus if along the way, I'd lose my pregnancy weight. So, here's to my 30-day challenge.
Namaste.
Xx
Sheng
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