Better Living Through Groupon

It has been 2 months since my last post.

Don’t be mad. It’s been a busy two months, during which I (among other things):

• moved
• took a busy freelance job
• produced a music video
• helped form and then re-form a company

Yes, I know, no excuses. But! I haven’t been a slouch. I did my vegan food delivery, review to come, and have started my month of Unlimited BCOR Bootcamp classes, which I am loving. One of the classes is boxing and it turns out I punch pretty hard. Who knew?

In the mean time I’ve also been eating pretty healthily and am of course still dancing (hula and bellydance). So can we forgive and forget? You look nice today, by the way.

Current weight: 192.5
Update: I’ve lost 7.5 lbs since starting this thing, but I should probably also be tracking my inches. Most of the things I’ve been doing are strength building and my body is changing pretty quickly- mostly in my legs. I’m having to wear a belt with all my pants and some of my favorite dresses are too big and look weird. Sounds like someone has to go shopping!

Aloha!

Kendall

I’m done being sick. Done! Time to get back on the horse. I’ve got a couple new deals I’m excited about! Here’s the rundown:

Four Classes at the International Dance Academy
Fun! They have a bunch of different classes to choose from. My question is whether to try 4 different classes or four classes of one type? I am thinking four classes, maybe Burlesque. I’m already doing pole-dancing so no shame.

One Month of Unlimited Classes at peace yoga/gallery
I love this! The whole idea behind the studio is about peace and relaxation. I like yoga for a lot of reasons, but more than anything the meditation aspect is what I look forward to. This studio seems geared specifically to that vs. the fitness yoga.

Hot Yoga tomorrow morning! And I still have deals on rock climbing, pole dancing, and vegan food (week of 1/3). Away we go!

Look how sad I am. Enjoy it while you can Lincoln because I'm not gonna be this comfy for long.

A week ago today everything was awesome. The sun was shining, I was up on time, traffic was easy and I was on my way out to Santa Monica. I rolled out my mat and towel and settled in for what promised to be a very rewarding hot yoga class with instructor Dakota. Well, it lied. 45 minutes later (1/2 way through the class) I was so dizzy and nauseous that I gave up trying to get ahold of myself in 105 degrees and hit the showers. I’m not the sickly type and thought I was a little overheated and probably dehydrated from some relatively excessive Thanksgiving drinking, but after a shower and a ton of water, I still wasn’t feeling better. I spent the day drinking more water and sleeping and was still woozy. Eventually I realized I’ve probably got a pretty ugly ear infection and yadda yadda yadda, here we are. Both blogging and fitness classes have been on hold for the time being. I did make it to bellydancing and hula, but took it way easy since I’m still getting dizzy with physical exertion.

Anyway, I’m not at 100% but it’s time to get back to business. Tahitian is tonight at Your Neighborhood Studio so hopefully I’ll make it through.

Thank you, thank you!

Also, I got a Groupon for rock climbing at Hangar18 so that should be fun! The deal is for either 2 lessons and 2 days climbing for one person or 1 lesson and 1 day climbing for two people. Hopefully Chad will want to join me but it will be a good workout either way.

So let’s recap:
Week 1 – Thanksgiving
Week 2 – Too Sick To Do Pretty Much Anything

AKA: Weigh-In Week 2

Current Weight: 198 lbs.

Hot Yoga + Gruet + Brillat Savarin = -2 lbs? Sold.

I was too busy to post it yesterday, but I weighed in and though the program was not exactly in full force and last week was Thanksgiving, I still lost 2 lbs. Awwwyeah! This is especially shocking to me considering I was visiting my family in Phoenix and not shy when it came to food and drink. We stopped by my old haunt Cheuvront, near downtown, not once but twice and it definitely did not disappoint.

Hello, Filet!

Was it a fluke? Was I dehydrated? Was I that loaded down with toxins? I don’t know. But I do know perhaps I shouldn’t underestimate Camel Pose after all.

So I rewarded that fabulous affirmation of the power of hot yoga by completely missing it this morning. Awesome job, Kendall! I got up early, took a shower, packed my bag… and then trounced out the door about 15 minutes too late. Last week when I trekked out to Santa Monica I was forgetting the power of the holiday week. This morning traffic was in full, vicious force and it was clear almost right away I just wasn’t going to make it. The only thing worse than waking up late and realizing you’re missing the class… is waking up on time and still missing the class.

Chad, Brulee-blockin me. He doesn't know how close he came to losing that hand.

On a brighter note, I got an awesome deal on LivingSocial last week. $99 gets me a whole week of vegan meals, three a day plus dessert (normally $218). I have never tried a vegan diet, mostly because I don’t know how many people would survive the experiment. I am not a big meat-eater, in fact on a whim I once stopped eating red meat for five years (a spam musubi pulled me out of that) but it’s chicken or your life. So this should be fun. The business is called Gobble Green and the meals will be delivered, I think frozen. It’s dawning on me now that I am about to go an entire week of eating vegan tv dinners. Oh jesus.

I killed it in Hot Yoga this morning. Ok not really, but it was a pretty awesome class. The instructor today was Kemi Oyemade and she was great- very encouraging and monitoring the class constantly to help make necessary adjustments. I was worried the class would be full since I got there super close to the start time, but actually there were only three other women there.

I felt very swanky this morning once I got up and could actually see straight. Headed out to do some yoga at a fancy place by the ocean. Sweating more than I ever thought humanly possibly in the name of detoxification, then taking a shower with soft music and lavender lotion and heading off to an exciting job with my gourmet coffee. Ok so my gourmet coffee was 711 Regular Exclusive Blend but it was delicious.

Camel Pose, if you had hair like this you would be sad too.

Can we talk about Camel Pose for a second? I mean seriously, wtf. If I even think about getting into this pose I feel like I’m about to pass out. I’m pretty good about listening to my body and not killing myself so I stop when I need to but we’re talking full-on, rushing and ringing in the ears, eyes starting to fade, everything. It was pretty cool though that going into Child’s Pose right after completely got rid of all of those feelings.

Eff you, Camel Pose! You don't know my life!

I did a little searching around to try and find out what I did to Camel Pose to make it hate me so much and found this Ask A Yogi blog post on Lululemon. It mentions a release of emotional issues stimulated by doing some of these poses, especially Camel Pose (possibly because of the heart’s extreme vulnerability?). I don’t know about all that… I’m wondering if it has more to do with some kind of pinching of veins or something that could be keeping blood from running up to my brain. Or maybe I’m just a sad, sad girl.

I missed Hot Yoga this morning.

I was so ready for it. I packed my bag last night so I could shower there and roll straight into work, even set out my yoga clothes so I wouldn’t have to make any potentially complicated decisions in a 5am haze. I set my alarm, made sure it was on loud, and then still woke up at 6:30am. *sigh* If anything is going to be my downfall, it’s waking up on time. I am a stupidly heavy sleeper- I turn my alarm off, reset it, have conversations with Chad, walk around, you name it, I’ve done it sleeping. I even once took a pretty bad tumble down a flight of stairs in my sleep, fracturing my wrists and getting a concussion. Good times.

So I failed. But oh well. I hit up Booiaka last night, which was still a ton of fun and a great workout even though there was a substitute teacher and the class was structured a little differently than usual. If I can get out of work on time I will be there again tonight at Your Neighborhood Studio. And tomorrow morning…. mark my words… Hot Yoga is in full force!

I need to find something in Phoenix. We’re going to visit family for the holiday and as it stands now, even making it to Hot Yoga tomorrow morning I’ll only have 2 Groupon classes this week instead of 3. I am keeping my eye on it and Living Social. If you have any tips, send them my way!

Location: Hot 8 Yoga

I woke up early yesterday morning to go to Hot Yoga at Hot 8 Yoga in Santa Monica. It was… well… how to describe… hot. Shocking, I know. I was a little nervous, having spent Saturday evening drinking a little* bit to celebrate the first performance of our new bellydance troupe, the Donya Rhythms and Raks Co. I woke up at 6:30am Sunday morning with an annoying headache and sat for a while in bed after the alarm went off, wrestling with rationalizations that would keep me from going to the class. But, it was the only class I’d be able to make and I made a commitment on a blog dammit! You can’t just go back on those sorts of things. And anyways, I could test out the class’s hangover cure properties as well. In the name of science, I got my ass out of bed.

Hot 8 Yoga is easy to find, with lots of free (for 2 hrs) parking in the Santa Monica lots, although I bet they fill up during peak hours. The employees seemed very friendly and though I read mixed reports about this on Yelp, the room seemed fresh and clean. Maybe that’s because it was the first class of the day, but I have a feeling it has a little more to do with the people surrounding those particular Yelpers. No offense to any of my classmates (Better Living Through Groupon is a judgement-free zone), but there was a noticeable difference in air freshness depending on which way my head was turned.

We got off to a late start (they were having some trouble with the heating system), but the teacher Janice was so sweet I didn’t mind, and nor did it seem the rest of the class did. I’ve done yoga on and off for a few years, though never consistently enough to really focus and develop a practice. This one seemed pretty standard with all the regular poses and I appreciated Janice was constantly walking around correcting everyone’s form. I expected to sweat a lot, of course, but I don’t think I expected quite so much. I mean it was pouring buckets.

All in all, I had a good time and am still feeling the workout today. I should probably hydrate a little better before I go tomorrow morning, or maybe just not drink quite so much 2 Buck Chuck tonight. Ugh, and it was WHITE 2 Buck Chuck! WTF was I thinking? Whatever, I was bellydancing for chrissakes! If you can shake your thang half-naked without getting a teensy bit drunk off whatever is available then you’re a better (and probably skinnier) woman than I.

*by “a little” I mean “quite a”

Like 99.995% of women here in Los Angeles, losing weight and getting in better shape has been on my mind for a while. I’ve never had weight issues- I was a chubby kid but a naturally thin-ish teenager. I never needed to learn to eat right and exercise regularly. After high school I started dancing hula and paddling outrigger canoe and again, the weight just naturally stayed in check. All fat hell broke loose though when I moved out here a few years ago and attended the Los Angeles Film School in pursuit of my passion for filmmaking. Over the course of one of the most insane, intense years of my life, living off the student loan buffet (i.e. ramen noodles and peanut butter sandwiches) began to take its toll.

So upon discovering Groupon and Living Social (with the rest of the world) I realized what an amazing resource these could be for a chubby girl on a budget like me if I can find some people willing to let me pay them to gift me 78%-off cupcakes. What could be better?

Then the yoga ones started rolling in and I got an idea. Maybe I don’t need the cupcakes (wtf right? I know, but stay with me). Maybe I can use this to make my life better. This is a big city- there’s a ton of things to try if you’re not afraid to look dumb or break a sweat. I’m not. So that’s what I’m doing.

I’m going to snap up all (or most) of the Groupons and Living Social deals for fitness or activity classes in Los Angeles, track my stats (lbs and cash), review the classes and who knows, maybe discover an extra passion or two. If I have to get in shape (and I DO!) it might as well be in the most fun way possible.

We’re starting with pole dancing classes and hot yoga. Yep. Pole dancing is just the beginning.

-Aloha-