I can barely get to work 30 days in a row let alone yoga! Time to refocus.

So I've pretty much $*&% the bed on the 30 Day HYC this time around so I've decided to test and review BB Creams instead! Have you heard of these supposed miracle creams? They are many products in one and depending on your skin type that could very well be true. There are many out there promising everything from a moisturizer, primer, concealer, brightening, rejuvenator, SPF Protection and Foundation.

Today I picked up a bunch - samples - I'm not made of money - and I will give each of them a go and let you know what I think.

Tonight I am off out for dinner and drinks with friends. I am going to try the Smashbox Camera Ready BB Cream. It says it primes, protects, hydrates and has a 35 SPF. It's $39 which is pretty standard for Smashbox. Although the Garnier one is rumored to be good too and is only $20. I really hope I hate the Smashbox.  Here goes nothing.

Day Seven: Yoga Muffins!

They say that working out in the morning is the best time to work out. And if that's when you choose to do so, exercise on an empty stomach is optimal. Optimal for fainting, I say. If you want to see checkerboards in front of your eyes for 75 minutes each morning...don't eat before your 6:30 am hot yoga sesh.

They recommend not eating within two hours of a hot yoga practice but I have to eat a banana and have a glass of juice before morning yoga or it's touch and go whether I'll maintain consciousness 'til the end.

I'm finding that cheese strings and apples are no longer cutting it, so here's a really healthy and yummy muffin that I have perfected over a few tries.

Justy's No Fainting Yoga Muffins
Mix together:
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups of oat bran
1/4 cup of ground flax (use your coffee grinder to "powder" it or your don't get the goodness.)
2 tsp of baking soda
2 tsp of baking powder
1/2 tsp of salt
good dash of cinnamon
Make a well in the dry ingredients


whisk together 2 eggs and pour in well
dump in 3 small containers of unsweetened applesauce (you can also use cranberry apple or pear etc)
add 4 TBS of canola oil
add 1 1/2 cups of frozen raspberries or strawberries
Mix until just blended....not too much.


Spoon muffin mixture into "Pammed" muffin tins and let sit for 10 minutes while the oven is warming to 400C.


Bake for 15 mins.


Remove muffins from tin immediately and let cool on rack.

Eat with butter and coffee or green tea....or no butter and a glass of juice. No idea how many calories are in these, but really? It's a really healthy muffin...and not cake like most muffins. And when you're burning 1000 calories per yoga sesh...who cares?

Here's to not fainting in public:)

xo

Day Six: Is actually Day Five:(

And so yesterday I had a huge lunch out with our friends at Corus Radio to celebrate our most successful Radiothon ever. (Final total now over $2 million!!!) And as part of that celebration I insisted that every clove of garlic at the Redwater Grill be cooked into my lunch. Needless to say, unlike Ms. Patchouli from the other day, I wasn't going to submit my fellow HY challengers to the smell of me slow roasting in garlic next to them. Translation: I skipped yoga yesterday to go for drinks. Crap. Now I'm behind.

Anyway, was there bright and early this morning in my favorite Lululemon outfit. Leggings and my red yoga top. This top is awesome...holds your rack in, cross over back and the rest is flouncy with a drawstring if you want to cinch it a bit, which I do. I love it because it hides every lump and roll. And after slacking for the last 2 months, there are plenty. But when I wear this top, they don't exist and I am a hot yoga guru. (Not literally...because I think they actually are called gurus in yoga.)

Unfortunately to the others in class, I look 5 1/2 months pregnant in it. And of course, I'm glowing because I'm in a 50C yoga studio!!! So while I stand triumphant in my Warrior Twos and feel like I'm the sh*t, everyone else thinks I'm cooking my baby. I would get the exact same stares if I were drinking rye in a hot tub!

But I don't care because this top hides my bum and my gut and I feel awesome in it!!  I'd post a link to it but the Lulu ethics board's probably pulled it off the shelves!!!

xo

Update: Just got back from second class of the day and am back on track! Now off to Spiros to undo all the good:)

Day Two: This ain't your Grandma's yoga bag!

I'm not proud of this, but I'm a big fan of instant gratification. Treats and praise are huge motivators for me. If I don't get to buy something, eat/drink something or get praised about something after an accomplishment, I'm not interested. This was a huge deal during the last HYC and perhaps I went a little overboard with the incentives - like when I couldn't bring myself to do one more load of sweaty laundry and dropped $200 at Lululemon simply because I needed something to get me through. This sounds dramatic. I assure you, it was.

Cute story about Lululemon while we're on the topic. My 80-year-old parents made the trip to Market Mall to find the famous Lululemons and buy me the yoga bag I wanted for Christmas. They walked all over the mall looking for it and finally had to ask. I had forgotten to mention the outside of the store only has the logo out front and not the name. They had to ask someone. Can you imagine this cute pair of British octogenarians asking where "Lululemons" is?  Adore! And I love my bag! And I am so proud of them for making the trek into the unknown. I was going to post a link to my bag but it's already been replaced by presumably, an even better bag on the Lulu website - probably one that comes with an umbrella or fold out into pants or something. Such a racket! :)

Another awesome Christmas pressie was my new towel made specifically for hot yoga. I had pooh-pooh'd these in the past as my 20-yr-old Bacardi beach towel was perfectly sufficient. But my friend Jason gave me this towel for Christmas and I can't believe I made it through one class without it - let alone an entire month. I go back to my old mantra that is, "If someone who works at Lululemon tells you something, it is so." Thanks for this incredible towel, Jason...it's made all the difference in the world. I have another confession to make. I wanted a second towel to use while the other was in the wash and I actually found one at Winners for $19.99. It's obviously not as good as the Lulu one, but it is way better than my manky old beach towel. In a pinch, go to Winners or Homesense and grab one of these things. 

Third confession of the night: I bought something at Planet Organic. I can't stand these places. They reek of patchouli and are chocka with hippies. You can't even buy Diet Coke there! So dumb. But I digress. With all the extra heat and sweating I have become a moisturizing fiend - especially on my face. I use an awesome face cream already - the name of which I will save for another day because it deserves its own entry:) Obviously the best way is to "moisturize from within" and drink lots of water. But what I've stashed away in my yoga bag is a spray bottle of - if you can believe it - rose water! You heard correctly. Known for its moisturizing properties, rose water is the perfect post yoga face spritz that gets rid of the sweat, freshens and moisturizes until I can get home, wash my face and replace the moisture properly. There are several brands out there but the one I got is called Heritage Brand Rose Water. It come in a hideous circa 1970 bottle and was about $12. I love it. And this ain't your Grandma's yoga bag!

So that's enough from me tonight, Friendies. Thanks for indulging the madness.

xo

Round Two: Day One

I have a confession to make. Until two weeks ago, I didn't step foot into the yoga studio since I completed my 30 Day Hot Yoga Challenge in December. I was really exhausted, then Christmas came and then work got bonkers with Radiothon prep and I just didn't need one more thing to worry about. Cop out? You betcha. As I blogged during my first HYC, I kept track of small changes that I saw in my body, my strength, my ability and my attitude. It was my intention to come home on Day 30 and sum the whole experience up with a big epiphany. Instead I drank a glass of champagne and had a little cry. (Of joy - don't worry:) I kept meaning to come back to the blog and finish what I had started but I just didn't get around to it. In a way I'm glad it happened that way and here's why.

After a few weeks of not making it to yoga, the changes I noticed from NOT going far outweighed any initial changes I noticed from going. Here's what I mean. It's actually easy to get into hot yoga. I don't mean hot yoga is easy - I find it really challenging and frustrating. But it's easy to get addicted and it's easy to get caught up in it. 

During my first HYC, the plague descended on our office and people were getting sick left, right and centre. But I never did. Prior to the HYC, I had been breaking out - I'm sure due to stress and within a week of starting the HYC, it cleared up. My skin started glowing and got really smooth. I felt absolutely (I apologize in advance, men.) no PMS symptoms. I toned up quite quickly...I saw collar bones for the first time in years and my arms got some pretty good definition. If I'd continued, who knows what other benefits I'd see? I'm totally mad at myself.

Within weeks of slacking, my skin began to feel a little bit "scaly" and rough compared to how it had been. I felt like I needed to keep exfoliating. I broke out. I got sick. Twice. I got puffy and gained back all my weight around my middle. This is how I'd been living my life prior to hot yoga and it was acceptable. Now that I've seen and felt how good I can be, that's my new standard. Living and feeling that way no longer feels right to me. I realize how "enlightened" and how borderline condescending that sounds.

What I'm trying to say is that I didn't truly appreciate the benefits of hot yoga until I wasn't experiencing them anymore. Not cool. So, I started another 30 Day HYC today. Here I go again.

xo

Day Thirty: I actually cried.

This is all I have in me for a post tonight. Will let it all sink in and recap tomorrow:)

xo

Fifteen minutes after my 30th class:)

Day Twenty Nine: Hardest. Class. Ever!

I can't believe that it took me until my second last day of the HYC for me to be in Chris Rurka's Hot Fusion class! First of all, I heard every single word he said, so I'm already thrilled. And secondly, this practice kicked my arse!!! Tonight's class doesn't even register on the sliding sweat scale. How do I explain this? You know my new dry wick wear from Lululemon, the stuff where the angels take the sweat away? Well I was pouring sweat so much that my sassy red top turned burgundy. BURGUNDY! Gross!

Anyway, really fun class - a nice new spin on the stuff we've been doing. And he was really encouraging throughout the class so I really appreciated that. It was like when the French instructor touched my foot - doesn't take much to cheer me on:)

So the combos we had tonight were so different than what we've been doing that I was exhausted really early and could barely keep up. Again, I was soaking wet about five minutes in, and my mantra morphed into "Holy Sh*t! Holy Sh*t!" For sure people heard me. I couldn't help it. At one point, my mat was bunched up like an accordion and I was slipping around like a newborn calf and being all squeaky - I was the one who sounded like I was making balloon animals. If there was any oxygen getting to my brain, I would've had the clarity to have been embarrassed!

So very happy with tonight's class. It makes me feel like even though tomorrow is Day 30 (Eeeeek!) of the HYC, I want to learn so much more and there is an infinite amount of room for improvement. I can get so much stronger and I must have a bit more grace left in me somewhere that is just screaming to get out:) I'm excited to keep going. (Don't worry...I won't blog about it everyday;)

I'm beginning to see examples of how hot yoga is affecting me mentally. I really am much more calm at work..because normally I'm a prize bi....,but enough about me. As great as the emotional and mental benefits are...and I'd say the emotional vs. the physical is aboout 50/50...I still can't help but be thrilled that I think my bum is getting nice again:)  Bah ha ha.

I'm sorry about this post. I had a giant glass of wine and I think I'm bombed. On a Monday. In bed. Nice.  In all fairness, my alcohol tolerance is for sure way down. They should tell you that before you start and maybe I wouldn't have gin and tonics in my water jar!

Good night, All.

Justy

xoxo