DDP Yoga: Week 4

Exercise and I are ancient enemies, like oil and water or cats and mice.  Aside from walking, which to be honest, I've always enjoyed as it was good for clearing the mind, exercise was an anathema to my life.  Yet, the thought of regular exercise in my life is farcical. 

So, here I am, four weeks into DDP Yoga and I realize, that regular exercise is good for me.  The hardest part is that exercise does not yield instant gratification.  After a good workout, you have all of this pain and fatigue, yet you look exactly the same.  Part of it is that you are holding back the hands of age.  I started feeling older, probably when I thought I was starting to go bald, but that just seems to be some loose hair in the shower drain.  But I still needed to make better choices to go from existing to living. 

And DDP Yoga gets me there.  The program is well-suited for beginners, especially out of shape schlubs like myself.  At first, I felt pain, lots of pain, as muscles, atrophied from years of office work, were being stretched in ways that I didn't comprehend or want to accept.  Yet, I persisted, which was out of character. 

However, it is the little things which make it seem worthwhile.  Some days, I feel taller, which is strange at my age.  And it gets easier.  For example, my heels are closer to touching the floor in Downward Dog and I no longer feel like I want to die right away when I start Red Hot Core.  It's a gradual process and requires perspective to keep focused and motivated.

I've even given up soda.  In the last two weeks, I've had one soda, while I was out and could not find a juice to save my life.  Even the one soda had no caffeine, which is hard to believe, considering how much caffeine I used to take in every day, but it is the little things that I'm doing for myself.  I definitely feel better and think I'm making the right decisions toward changing my life, which is what I wanted to do with the second chance I've been both handed and taken. 

Also, DDP Yoga has the best customer service I've ever encountered.  There was a defect with one of my DVDs and within 90 minutes, I received an E-Mail letting me know a replacement disc would be sent to me without any further issues.  This was amazing in contrast to my experience with Sony, who required me to work with the online representative, then the phone representative and then required me to pay to send their defective cable back to them in order to get a replacement from a brand new box.  It costs six dollars to buy a new cable, which takes Amazon two days to deliver or six dollars to send it back to Sony to wait another few weeks to get a replacement, leaving me bereft of a cable. 

I guess it could go without saying that I heartily recommend DDP Yoga for not only having a great product, but the good sense to stand behind it. 

Surviving Week 2

I have miraculously survived week 2, currently exhausted from surviving my thirty minute workout.

Now, for the vast majority of my life, there were few dirty words, but exercise was one of them.  I managed to go 33 years without doing anything more strenuous than being mediocre at dodgeball and avoiding all sorts of non-walking physical activity.  I feel one of my life accomplishments was being able to neither perform a push up nor a pull up, which I believe is still true. 

About two years ago, I had an illness, in part, aggravated due to a lack of physical activity...and sleep and eating.  So, during my second day of recovery, we went to the gym, because that was what we did that day.  Entering a gym for the first time since high school, I thought maybe, just maybe I should do more than sit in a chair, wait for the next horrible crisis and on some level, wait to die and perhaps do something. 

With time as my friend for a rare time in life, I joined a gym.  Sadly, the only decent gym was about 12 minutes away through a terrible four way intersection.  So, I would go three or four days a week and spend 30 minutes on a treadmill.  While it was probably good for me on some level, I found myself backsliding all of the way out in under two months.  Of course, I waited another year to cancel the gym membership, but it would require me driving the whole way there...which I finally did.

With time currently being a friend and an enemy, I convinced myself to start DDP Yoga, since the primary benefit was I could do it from home, without purchasing large equipment I had no room to store.  And the first five days, I made it through.  But today was another story. 

Today, I went for my walk and even took a nap in the late afternoon.  After waking up, I honestly thought I wasn't going to do it.  An easy backslide, which I am exceptionally well qualified at.  But as the day passed, I realized I needed to go forward and do it.  And afterward, despite my trepidation and initial lack of desire, I was happy I sucked it up and spent 30 minutes trying to improve myself. 

Most importantly, staying in a routine makes it easier to keep up with things.  So, no backsliding today and I suspect I feel better than if I hadn't, but that doesn't make it any easier to change a life of inactivity. 

Shape Up Or Ship Out

To be honest, I've never taken the best care of myself.  I have a weakness for brown, sugared carbonated water.  I once joined a gym, about two years ago.  For the first two months, I went, maybe three times a week, more at first, when it was new, but could never stay motivated to go. I mean the gym was 10 minutes away by car...and there is a four-way stop light.  FOUR WAY, each side takes a turn, which drives me crazy.  But basically, I drove to the gym to walk on a treadmill to come home.  Never did I feel it was worth it.

However, I'm getting older...or old if you prefer.  Not just spiritually, which I've been since I was four, as an old soul has always lived here.  But physically older.  I unscrupulously avoid the stairs, as if they are lined with poisonous snakes which spit glass.  I do like walking, but its cold outside, I mean really cold and that really discourages walking or leaving the apartment.  Regardless, the walk to the store is not going to prolong my life or leave me feeling old and soft. 

So, watching RAW tonight, because at heart, I am a wrestling fan and have been for over thirty years, I saw DDP.  Now, Diamond Dallas Page was late to the game and one of the few workers to go from manager to World Champion, especially into his 40s, but he was motivated and while never a favorite wrestler of mine, someone with a good story and can work the microphone.

And DDP is now best known for DDP Yoga, which is an exercise program, which along with lifestyle changes, allowed Scott Hall and Jake Roberts, two wrestlers many were surprised were still alive, to get a second chance at life in much better shape.  So, seeing an advertisement in RAW, I head over to the website, not committed to buying it, but to just look. 

And look I did.  Not just at the site, but other reviews off-site.  And slowly, over the course of an hour, I convinced myself, I could do this.  I could change my life and take better care of myself.  Honestly, what will likely happen is a strong surge up front, followed by a slow tail off, not really changing anything.  But in life, sometimes you have to take a chance, even if you think you might not commit or follow through. 

So, I now have DDP Yoga en route to my apartment, waiting to see if I can affect some positive change in my life.