Bikram, Day 5
It was very hot in the city today, although I didn’t think that would matter as far as doing a Bikram class. If anything, there would be less of a “cooling” when stepping out into the street afterward. But, for whatever reason, it made the studio even hotter. I saw the temperature at the front near the teacher hit 107, to the oint where she even opened windows to bring the temperature down.
As per usual, about the last 10-15 minutes of class, I start to get nauseous. I know I haven’t eaten for 2.5 hours prior to class, but it seems like something might want out, although nothing should be able to find its way out at this point.
One thing I failed to mention was that at about class 3 or 4, I started going into the class shirtless. Now, I’m not a big fan of shirtless. But, given the nature of the class, all of the guys get naked in the locker room after class anyway, since you’re soaked with sweat from head to toe. So, I figure, if the guys are seeing me shirtless anyway, wearing a shirt to class just lets the girls see me without a shirt (which has no point) and creates more wet, nasty laundry.
At the risk of sounding like Karl Pilkington, part of me problem being shirtless in general is immediately evident in this class. Basically, after losing a lot of weight, the outside of my body is bigger than the inside. As much as I chide people for not discarding their old clothes in larger sizes, based on the notion that they might need them again someday, I seem to do the same thing with my skin. My skin is ready and able to envelope a 305+ pound man again. No stretching required.
So, when I’m on my hands and knees (we’re in yoga class, remember… dirty birds), the skin sort of just hangs there. It isn’t pretty. Part of my interest in yoga is that with all the stretching, it might reawaken the skin and start tightening it up. If not, there’ll be surgery down the line at some point. Hopefully my book doesn’t do well posthumously after an unsuccessful body lift. But, thanks to the gastric bypass hordes, this is becoming a more common procedure.
So, yeah, a bit harder to do the postures today. I’m wondering whether I should look into getting a sweatband, since I keep wiping the sweat out of my eyes between postures, when I’m supposed to be in savasana, because part of the focus is on a mirror in front of you, maintaining eye contact with yourself, as your body finds its groove in each position. But, hard to maintain eye-anything with the salty sting going on.
I might be interviewing Susan Powter soon (don’t tell her, though, she doesn’t know yet), so we’ll see what her thoughts are on the whole skin thing. I’ve made some progress, keeping fat pictures in the house and all (although no longer posted on the refrigerator to dissuade eating). So, I’m trying not to pretend the fat era never happened, but I don’t think I want to keep the actual skin from that era. I’m not that nostalgic, and I’m really against clutter. That definitely qualifies as something I haven’t used for the past six months. Time to get rid of it.
