Daily Archives: January 29, 2012

Jan29

January Giveaway Reminders! *CLOSED*

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The month is almost over and so are your chances to enter the January giveaways on Hairscapades ;)! So, before the sands run out of the hourglass, find out how you can get in on the good stuff!

Live in the UK? Want a chance to a Wonder Curl Sampler Set from British Curlies? Click here for details on how you can enter and earn multiple chances to win!

Don’t live in the UK, but want your chance to win too? Click here to learn how you can enter the sneakpeeq giveaway to win one of FOUR gift cards to this new online shop for “all the things you love but haven’t discovered!”

G O O D   L U C K ! ! !

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Jan29

Project Scale Down: Day 27 & Hot Yoga

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So, I returned to hot yoga (Vinyasa Flow) today!! I felt really good and am pleased that, although I’ve only been doing short work-outs, the consistent exercise routine really seems to have paid off. The room got up to 102°, but I didn’t even really feel it too much other than sweating. A couple of months ago, I was on my a@#$ about 20 minutes into class and couldn’t get it together for the life of me!!

BENEFITS OF HOT YOGA:

Health and Fitness:
As I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you, yoga improves cardio capacity, strength, balance and flexibility. According to FitDay.com, “Vinyasa classes typically burn 445 calories per hour, or the same amount as jogging at a slow pace for 60 minutes.” But, I swear to you, I think that I burn more and my instructor told me that you can burn up to as many as 800 calories in a 75 minute class.

Skin:
Today, my yoga instructor told me that there was a study published in this month’s issue of Prevention magazine that indicates being in 70% humidity reduces wrinkles! I couldn’t find the article online yet, but believe you me, I’ll be looking for it to share with you guys. I did notice that the appearance of my skin improves and my forehead wrinkles decreased when I was doing yoga twice a week last year. I thought it was a combo of the increased water consumption and sweating out toxins. Maybe the humidity in the room was a factor as well! So, I’ll keep looking for that article online to update this post and validate the information. However, again, even without the humidity factor, I did notice a reduction in the appearance of wrinkles and improvement in tone when I was doing yoga regularly.

Hair:
Yup, believe it or not, yoga … more specifically inversion poses in yoga … may have benefits for hair. This is because being upside down increases blood flow to the scalp and, hence, may help stimulate the cells that promote growth.

via LiveStrong.com

The average person grows hair at the rate 1/2 inch per month and has 100,000 strands of hair on their head. The best way to grow long, thick hair quickly is to increase your blood circulation, which will stimulate your hair follicles and help your hair to grow at the fastest speed possible for you. Scalp massages, inversion exercises and brushing your hair will all increase the speed of growth. The more hair you grow, the thicker the appearance will be. …

Do yoga poses like downward facing dog, forward fold, headstands, handstands, and peacock to put your body in an inverted or partially inverted position. Yoga Sun Salutations include these poses so most classes and DVDs will work, or you can learn them from an instructor and do them at home. Forward fold is the easiest of these poses to do. Start by standing up straight with your legs and feet together. Reach your arms over your head and bend forward at the waist as you reach for your toes. Breathe in and out through your nose and relax your neck allowing the blood to flow to your head.

So yeah, definitely trying to get back into regular hot yoga sessions so that I can realize all the benefits!! I mean, I was looking at some of my videos from the summer and boy can I see the difference!!

Day 27:

  • 75 minute Vinyasa Flow hot yoga class. √
Jan29

Project Scale Down: Days 24, 25 & 26 & Cardio Kickboxing

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Unfortunately, I’m posting today to admit that I didn’t make it.

Day 24: Fail

Day 25: Fail

I was just soooo mentally and physically exhausted on Thursday and Friday … again, big project at work that … YEA! I did get done on Friday!! All eyes were on me on this one and I was very anxious about getting it completed as there were a lot of moving parts that needed to align. Add to that, really super late nights working on the blog all week meant that I didn’t get to bed before midnight even one night all week. These are all really excuses though, because I could have done 10-20 minutes immediately upon arriving home. But, I sat down in front of the computer instead. So, it’s ultimately all about choices and I made the wrong one and am accountable for my decisions.

But, on a good note, just finished Day 26 at about 11:30 pm! Wait, can I call it Day 26 or is it Day 1 again? Whatever! I’m going with 26 and then, I think I’m going to try to keep going for as long as I can again with at least 20 minutes every day!! But, I’ll group my postings over several days or weekly so as not to bore you ladies.

As to my workout today, I tried to pseudo make-up for two my two missed days. I ordered the Kathy Smith Cardio Knockout DVD on Amazon for $6.99 a couple of weeks ago (it’ up to $10.89 right now! I guess I got super lucky!). Back in the day, like 2002 or so, a friend of mine dubbed the Kickboxing routine with Keith Cook for me on VHS. I had surgery to remove fibroids and had put on a lot of weight due to inactivity and eating everything and anything under the sun! (Sadly, immediately prior to finding out I needed surgery, I was in amazing condition.) So, I was in “Project Scale Down” mode back then too, I just didn’t call it that ;).

Anywho, I really liked this routine and have used it many times over the year. But, the VCR is upstairs and I have the DVD player in my little “faux gym” in the basement. So, I needed it on DVD and, fortunately, found it with two other workouts to boot! I haven’t tried them yet, but I did the Keith Cook Kickboxing tonight and was feeling good baby!

A few things  of note. First, Kathy Smith doesn’t have great form, but Keith does. So, it’s all good. Two, as with most exercise DVDs that I’ve used, the music is pretty booty. So, what I do is play my own CD/music over it once I know the routine well enough to not to need to hear the instructor anymore:)! Three, the DVD box indicates that this workout is 120 minutes. I have no idea from where they got that number. It’s 55 minutes.

Day 26:

  • 55 minutes Kathy Smith/Keith Cook Kickboxing (10 min. warm-up; 30 min. kickboxing routine; 5 min. buns & thighs kicking drills; 5 min. cool down; 5 min abs & back strengthening) √