Balancing Stick is one of those "sleeper" postures in yoga.
You balance on one leg, knee locked. The rest of your body is extended over it like a table-top. Arms are flexed hard, stretching straight past your head. One leg is lifted straight back, knee locked, toes pointed. In hot yoga, or Bikram Hot Yoga, it's ten of the hardest seconds you can imagine. When you stand up, your heart will be pounding in your chest. Sweat drips from your nose. You want to gasp for breath but are encouraged to breathe "in through the nose, out through the nose," in order to stay calm and not go running from the room. As my embroidered yoga mat says... "This ain't no sissy yoga."
Yoga is easy to get into; you only have to do each posture as YOU are able on that day. You don't have to be a skinny-minny, and you don't have to be perfect. With hot yoga, your main goal is to stay in the room!
In a hot, humid room, my ligaments and muscles stretch easier. By the end of the class, I feel wrung out like a dirty sponge. I'm soaking wet, exhausted and... calm! I can even pig out a little bit later in the day without sacrificing the calorie burning benefits of the class.
There are some great calorie calculators on the internet. They're pretty accurate for determining how many calories you burn doing specific types of physical activities. When I weighed 165 pounds, one Bikram Yoga session burned 1,099 calories in my sweating, flabby little body. I'm now 10 pounds lighter, but I've gone down 4 pant sizes. My core strength is amazing. I can feel abs under the flab!
If you are serious about losing weight, don't discount yoga. Just make sure you choose one of the "hot" varieties for maximum benefits and weight loss.
Patti Mertz
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