Entries Tagged 'Fitness' ↓

As I packed my suitcase to leave for Canada a couple of months ago, I was devastated when my yoga mat didn’t fit into my suitcase. Well, actually it probably would have fit, but I was already way overweight with the luggage allowance so unfortunately my yoga mat had to stay at home.

So I did yoga on the bare sand in Fiji, yoga on a towel in our hotel room in Waikiki, and yoga on the carpet of our apartment in Vancouver. Fortunately I’ve been staying with family in Toronto who’s house came equipped with yoga mats, but on Monday I’ll be on the road again and I do not want to do yoga on a slippery towel.

If you’re wondering what’s with this obsession I have with yoga and what the heck does it have to do with skin care, well …yoga is pretty much the answer to everything [including clearing acne] and apart from all the other benefits that I get from doing as much yoga as I can, I do notice an improvement in my skin when I follow a disciplined yoga practice.

The hunt

So a yoga mat should be easy peasy to buy right? Well you’d think so. But of course I started thinking about the environment, and uncessesary waste, and how buying another yoga mat is just contributing to land fill. So then I found these ‘eko’ mats. Yoga mats that are made out of recyclable and biodegradable material. What a perfect yoga mat to buy, and how very yogini of me.

However, the problem with these eko mats unfortunately are the price. To save the environment it’s going to cost me a bit of money. A regular yoga mat costs around CA$30, but a environmentally friendly mat will cost around CA$50. I’m a struggling traveller at the moment so I don’t really have that extra $20 to spend! Continue reading →

I’ve been attending a yoga class once a week for the past few months now. From the beginning we were encouraged to continue the yoga practice at home, preferably on a daily basis. I really struggled with trying to do even one day at home on my own. The thought of doing the warming exercises and holding the Asanas for a length of time felt like it needed a lot more patience then I actually had. I tried a few times but my efforts were really poor. I’d race through the warming exercises and hold the Asanas for a ridiculously short amount of time. It was better than nothing I guess, but I don’t think it was really doing a lot.

It probably took a good three or four months of classes before I started daily practice at home. It happened all of a sudden too. I went from not practicing at all during the week to practicing at least once a day, sometimes even twice.

Why I made the transition

Continue reading →

I woke up at 6:30am this morning to do yoga and I now feel fantastic. I’ve been meaning to get into the habit of daily yoga for a long time now so hopefully this is the start of a healthy habit. The way I feel now makes getting up that extra hour early so worth it. It’s not a fitness thing either. It’s an overall feeling of wellbeing. I feel quite calm now and relaxed and ready for the day.

I did find I was quite stiff and my stomach was rumbling a bit because I was hungry but everything else went really well. I was able to take my time and really enjoy it. Maybe the mornings are better for me because I’m more dopey and relaxed. In the afternoons or evenings I’m processing the day and thinking about all the other things I want to get done so I get impatient and rush through it.

I’m looking forward to getting up early all this week and doing yoga!

Frances Kerr