This past weekend, a friend of mine invited Boyfriend and me to attend a hot yoga class. Even though I’ve been attending yoga classes on a weekly basis for almost 2 years now, I’ve never had a chance to try out hot yoga so I happily agreed. My final conclusions after the class: (1) The room was not as hot as I anticipated. Based on an exaggerated story from an ex-roommie of mine, I’ve always assumed that hot yoga was like yoga in a sauna. Without the humidity, though, the temperature was a significant relief to me…until about 30 minutes into the 90 minute class. (2) For the $17/person that I paid for the class, I didn’t feel like I got an incredible stretch or learned any new poses. As a matter of fact, it felt very un-yoga-like afterwards; I was hot, tired, and my mind was restless. (3) I agree that sweating is a natural and sometimes can be a detoxing process. On the other hand, I’m not entirely convinced that sweating, to the extent that I was, was all that “natural”.

Of course, this is all just my personal opinion and I’m still glad I gave it a try…it just wasn’t for me. I feel like I could get similar results by going for a 2mi run in Atlanta’s August.