Day 21

Easy afternoon, 5pm, class today with one of my favourite teachers. Seems like I've bounced back from the Friday morning low point and I am really pushing myself hard again. 90 minutes just flew by today and I wasn't even hot. My body has pretty much totally adjusted to 40 degrees C temperature by now. Dreading going to a future beach holiday anywhere with temperatures below 30 degrees as I might find it a bit chilly... 
Once out of the studio I floated back home and upon arrival realised that I'm NOT hungry. Hmmm? This has been happening over the last couple of days - I get home and feel like I do not want a big dinner. It's strange, because during the first two weeks of the challenge I have literally been demolishing the content of our fridge. Now, this has just stopped. The insatiable hunger has mysteriously disappeared. Instead, the mysterious cravings have appeared. So far, I have eaten an incredible amount of fresh radish, artichokes, coconut chunks, nuts and dried cherries. None of which featured much in my previous diet. Radish is by now a clear obsession. Having googled it today to check out its nutritional values, I was surprised to find out that it is full of potassium. Is this my body being really really clever and asking for what it needs as opposed to what looks good? Perplexed. 

In addition to what's already mentioned above, I'm off meat - red especially; totally off. This doesn't puzzle me so much as it happened before when I practiced 3 or 4 times a week. The final major change in my relationship to food is that I now prefer it raw-ish. Less processed - the better. So, during my today's google quest to try and find out what's happening to me I stumbled upon a concept of 'clean eating'. This in a nutshell is a lifestyle approach to food, basically striving to eat unprocessed stuff and consume food in its most natural state possible. Definitely something I can relate to right now. Anyhow I'd say that on the good days my family's diet is pretty clean already, but made a promise to myself to make it even cleaner and leaner. It helps that we have a great farmer's market on our doorstep every weekend and can load up with fresh, organic produce on a regular basis. If you are interested in clean eating have a look at these rules - '10 Rules of Clean Eating'. Thanks to the rule 3 below, I'll never view the supermarkets in the same way again...

3 / Shop The Perimeter Of The Grocery Store

Every store is different, but as a general rule, the periphery is the natural habitat of the fresh vegetable, meat market, whole-grain baked goods, and the nuts and dried fruits in the bulk bin. Get comfortable here; it is now your territory.

You'll probably have to venture into the interior for some staples like olive oil, but keep your blinders on. You're entering a museum of extravagant packaging and manipulative slogans. Few of the items you see in the store's interior promote good health; it's a stretch to call most of it "food."

The perimeter is also usually the home of the dairy case and the beer and wine display, so stay strong. Of course, if these are your biggest offenses, you could do a lot worse.

(source: www.bodybuilding.com)

Day 20

20!!!! Woooohooo! 2/3 done! I was a little bit worried about getting into the studio today after yesterday's 6am fiasco. I plucked up my courage but as I walked into the hot room, put the towel on my mat and slowly sat down another thought came to my mind - 2 glasses of champagne, dear God help me! - do we have another storm approaching? Turns out, not! A good class, sailed through postures, maybe drank slightly more water that I'd normally do. I've been trying to wean myself off, so lately been consuming very little during the class and concentrating on hydrating out of the studio. Speaking of water, they say it takes 21 days to form a new habit, and if there is one thing I really want to continue doing once the challenge is over than that definitely must be drinking litres of water daily.  Recently people have been commenting on how well my skin looks, apparently it's glowing sometimes. Also, I've noticed that the whites of my eyes have never been brighter. Aside from daily hour and a half of exercise, I put a lot of it down to water consumption.  Feels like water has featured heavily over the last couple of weeks in my life. I've been drinking gallons, sweating even more, constantly washing of my yoga gear, taking numerous daily showers and baths to help the aches and pains. Water rocks!

Day 19

I woke up at 4.45 am. Snoozed for 15 mins and then at 5am sharp - crawled out of bed on all fours. What was I doing up so early? Well, trying to get to studio by 6am for the worst, toughest yoga session ever. And by saying ever, I really mean EVER. In retrospect, even my first bikram yoga class all those years ago now seems like a breeze. What happened? Not, sure but it felt like a 12 force gale storm. Hurricane. Nothing worked, my breathing, body, mind, everything was disconnected. Is this the famous day 19 wall I've been told about? If yes, then - damn, that's one tall wall! Perhaps it was just the fact that the timing was totally out of sync with my body clock. I haven't slept enough, and at this time of day usually I am still tucked away in my bed not trying to touch my forehead to my knee while balancing on one foot. In any case, I had to do this one so early and rush straight back home and then straight onto a friend's wedding. So I guess it was all worth it. Speaking of weddings, I just realised the one thing I haven't mentioned so far in my blog is - alcohol. Basically, I more or less gave it up totally before embarking on this. So from day one I virtually had no alcohol until this Friday. Friday was a wedding day after all so I had 2 glasses of champagne. The first one went straight to my head, and I nursed the second one for ages, struggling to finish it. I don't miss it that much and definitely intend to stay well away for the next 11 days. Namaste!

Day 18

Late afternoon session today and a very very good one. Worked hard. I feel like I've been maybe pacing myself ever so slightly over the last couple of weeks and that now I'm entering into my finish line sprint. Really intend to go for it and reap up the maximum benefits. 

These past days when I speak to people and they find out I am doing this challenge one of the first questions they ask is 'What are you going to do once you complete it?' It always leaves me slightly baffled. Why? Am I supposed to do something? Run a marathon? Climb something? What? 

Well, now I think I have an answer. I'm considering going for a 7 day bikram yoga retreat next month somewhere nice, warm and sunny. Fingers crossed, it will happen. Namaste!

Day 17

In one of my previous posts, I think it was the beginning of second week of the challenge I touched upon the subject of awareness. More than just amazed at the changes by body is going through, I am fascinated with how this intense practice influences the mind. Hence, over the last couple of days I've done quite a bit of reading on meditation and development of active awareness. Also, a lot has been said recently in media about the concept of "mindfulness" which links directly into this subject. Mindfulness is defined as a state of active awareness; an active attention to the present - being able to actively observe the thoughts or feelings without attaching emotion to them or judging them as good or bad and as a concept is closely related to another area of interest - metacognition sometimes referred to as meta-awareness (cognition about cognition). Mindfulness deals with how you think while metacognition puts more emphasis on what you think about but, just like in this amazing picture the fMRIs of the brain shows significant difference in brain activity when these two are at play. (source: www.pnas.com)

If you have time, have a look at this short clip from a BBC programme, talking about the mindfulness and the effect it can have on human brain. This active awareness developed through meditation can reduce stress, anxiety, depression and even chronic pain. 

Hatha yoga, and hence Bikram is perfect it you want to develop an active focus and clam your mind. The daily practice really does show benefits. Over the last couple of years there has a lot of research performed in the neuroscience area on this, so if like me you are interested in the subject or would like find out more why not check out this paper summary  - Does mindfulness lead to neuroplasticity? - by Micah Allen, PhD. Fascinating stuff.