Water Weight

I looked down today, a rain of sweat splashed against the towel.  So saturated, the drops had to spread out to dissipate into the fabric slow enough to watch the overhead lights reflected in the drops before they each soaked down.

I was spreading my legs for the second set of triangle pose, right foot out four feet in the same position, only this time it slipped and I watched as it slid those few inches, sweat from the drenched carpet curled like a tiny wave in front of the side of my foot as it slid.

I step back to my mat and towel to a plopping sound like treading on wet leaves on the pavement.

Water trickles down my body, tributaries paying tribute to perseverance.

I read an article where a woman was perturbed that a little sweat had been accidentally flung on her during a hot yoga class, but what did she think she was breathing?  The humidity rises rapidly during a class.  Once I walked into the room after a full class and my glasses fogged.  Just one more reason to keep taking the early classes as my routine.


After class my towel doesn't have the capacity to hold all the sweat that it did when it was out flat across my mat, and I leave puddles anywhere I stand too long.  At the water fountain where I fill my water bottle to drain and fill and drain again.  Out in the lobby where I catch my breath, reflect, and do my Facebook check-in, I leave more puddles.

A liter in the morning before class, another during.  Two more after class before I even leave the studio.  Five, six, maybe even seven before the afternoon.  Another during class, and two more after.  If I drink two more that night, I drank twelve liters of water, or just over three gallons of water a day.

I drink three gallons of water a day.

A gallon of water weighs roughly eight pounds.  I drink twenty four pounds of water a day.

Weigh myself in the morning before class, drink eight pounds of water, practice yoga, and still weigh two pounds lighter when I get home.  I lose roughly ten pounds of water weight in each yoga class.  Three hours out of every day I am shedding twenty pounds of water, or a little better than a gallon of sweat per class.

I think I will go refill my water bottle and get some sleep, so this is me signing off.

Namaste.