Not Quite Sold On Yoga (yet)

  

I feel like Jason Segal's character when I enter the yoga studio,

and yes,

my yoga guy did do the move that Kristin Wiig pulled on

Russell Brand to get me properly aligned!

  

I attended my 90 minute yoga class this morning.  I am not convinced that yoga is going to be for me, but I will attend a minimum of five classes before deciding to drop the class.  Given my travel schedule, I will be yoga-ing through September.  In today's class, this older guy wound up taking the space next to my left- boo.  He was a complete know-it-all.  When the instructor told us to sit in a specific pose in the beginning (I didn't know the name, but I am a good follower), he actually asked if he could sit in his favored position instead.  Seriously?  Everything he did was loud.  His breathing was 5x as loud as everyone else's breathing, to the point that it was very distracting.  AND he was wearing floral swim shorts with a white t-shirt tucked in.  My third eye couldn't focus with all of these annoying stimuli.

   

The rest of the class was fine, but attempting yoga really shows me how far I have to go in this weight loss journey.  That is not a bad thing at all, but still, it is humbling.  When I swim I only focus on me.  I swim at my own pace and do my own thing (not so good for weight loss).  With yoga I am pushed to do things that are way out of my league, even though this class is not advanced.  Because this class deals with different levels, the instructor tried to have the more advanced students do headstands and this:

  

    

And, he wanted people to stick their legs out completely during the pose.  At least 50% of the class just sat and watched- including me.  I am all for pushing myself, but there is absolutely no way I am going to successfully balance 250 lbs on my head and arms or hands.      

    

In other news, Kenny and I had dinner with another couple on Wednesday.  We tried a new restaurant in Chelsea that has been getting very good reviews:

   

   

The lighting is much nicer in the evening

     

The restaurant was fantastic, and I highly recommend it to any of you passing through London (as long as you aren't staying too far from Chelsea, of course).  The food was great, and the service was perfectly attentive.  Now I have an amusing story concerning this meal, even though it is in reality a bandster nightmare!

    

The couple on my left was seated a bit after we were, and the woman was very interested to hear what we had ordered.  We were all eating our first course, and Kenny and I had switched plates so we could take a nibble of the other's dish.  I was still chewing a bite of my crab raviolo with samphire, brown shrimp, fondue of leeks and bisque sauce when Kenny wanted to switch (he was having the duck egg tart with red wine sauce, turnip puree, lardons, girolles and sauteed duck heart).  Our neighbor asked how we were enjoying the dishes but was very interested in how I liked the raviolo vs. the duck egg tart.  Now I was doing my 'Nora chew', where I chew every bit of life out of my food before I swallow and attempt another bite.  We are having this conversation about the starters, and I am STILL chewing my rather small bite of raviolo while telling her how good it was.  I told her that I had not yet tried the tart but that Kenny really enjoyed it.  She pretty much said, OK, now you try it and let me know what you think.  She said it in a very nice way- it was a much friendlier conversation than I can accurately depict on the screen- but I was like, oh crap.  Now everyone is watching me while I'm STILL chewing this little bit of raviolo.  And now I need to swallow, because my table as well as hers are interested in my opinion concerning these two dishes.  I finally got to the point where I could swallow the raviolo (it was very soft to begin with, but I am paranoid after having a PBing in a restaurant experience) and had to immediately shove a piece of his tart in my mouth to offer my opinion.  Talk about pressure eating!  

   

I couldn't find a picture of my starter on the restaurant's website, but here is a picture of the tart:) 

    

   

 Tomorrow we are going to watch the British Open in Kent.  We are expecting typical English weather out there, so I will be traveling with sneakers, golf shoes for when it gets muddy, a raincoat, an umbrella, and a cashmere sweater.  The US Open is a much easier event to attend!