2014 Goal 4

To make this more exciting, for me at least, I going to go through my goals for 2014 in countdown style starting with goal 4.  The 4th goal on my list is to exercise more.  I have made this goal before, and it usually works for a week or 2, but eventually I fall of the wagon.  Most of the time because the repetition of the same exercise or because I'm too tired when I get home at night.

My solution for this is to make my exercise yoga.  This works for me in a couple of different ways.  First, I can do it quickly and at home without any additional equipment or having to go to a gym somewhere.  My plan is to do 15-20 minutes of yoga in the morning before I get ready for work.  I'm starting with the Sun Salute which has roughly 12 steps and only takes 20 minutes.  

Second, yoga can be used as a way to wake up your body in the morning.  Typically, when I do yoga I fell better afterwords, not worse like when I go running or lift.  I think is has something to do with stretching out my back.  

In my New Years post I mentioned that any goal needs to me specific and measurable.  This will help to set guidelines for what counts as exercise and keep me on track.  But I have been bit by this before so I also want to make sure that I can achieve my goal each week and there is a built in way to catch up if I get behind.  So my goal is pretty simple.  

2 hours of yoga each week.  My plan is to do 20 minutes a day, 6 days a week, to achieve this goal.  If I can manage getting up every morning a little early to do the sun salute then all I will need to do on the weekends is 20 minutes.  But if I miss a few days here and there is should be easy enough to do one longer session on the weekend to make up the difference.  Whether it is 20 minutes, on 6 different days or 60 minutes twice a week this would be more exercise than I did on average in 2013 and would count as more exercise.

Why yoga?  Mainly because it is relaxing and it helps my back feel better.  For my beginning experience level yoga is basically fancy stretching and breathing but there is a lot of articles that state it can be used for muscle growth and toning as well so hopefully I'll work towards that eventually.  In Kino MacGregor's post A Beginner's Guide to Yoga she states that Yoga is a door to a state of harmony that would otherwise get lost amidst the buzzing of emails, video chats, text messages and another level on Angry Birds.  This really speaks to me.

If I can find more time to exercise in the week I plan to run, bike, do some push-ups or crunches and maybe swim.  But all of those activities would be in addition to my 120 minutes of yoga each day.  The yoga is start my day out positively and refreshed as well getting in a habit of daily exercise.  This week I have already done 3 days of yoga totaling about 60 minutes.  I'll keep you updated on my progress here on the LoA blog.  Cheers!