30 Day Challenge begins!

Tomorrow is the beginning of a new challenge that I've been teasing for a few days now. Here's the scoop!!!

A few times a year, Moksha yoga studios hold 30 Day Challenges. My studio's summer challenge starts tomorrow and runs to the end of June. The idea is that participants sign up and will practice yoga every day for 30 days. Classes can be done at the home studio, other Moksha or other yoga studios, or even home practices (so long as at least 1/2 the classes are done at the home studio).

This will be my 5th time participating in a 30 Day Challenge. These challenges are incredible, both physically and mentally - it's not just about physical postures! Some students become very emotional or discover new things about themselves during a Challenge.

I have written journals during my previous challenges every day so that I could look back at the end and see my progress (actually, the journal also helped my physiotherapist to diagnose my plantar fasciitis and figure out how long I'd been suffering with it :P!). I will not be blogging every single day during the Challenge, but I will provide updates at least once per week to let you know how I'm doing!

I will also be adding extra challenge to my 30 Day this time around. Because teacher training is coming only a week after this challenge ends (I know... I'm doing a 30 Day challenge followed by teacher training - which includes 2 practices daily for a month!), I have decided to incorporate some of the challenges that I will incur in the training into the Challenge. Might as well start getting accustomed to it sooner rather than later! In teacher training, participants are required to stay alcohol and drug free (including caffeine!!!!), and are strongly encouraged to try to reduce or eliminate meat from their diet (i.e. go vegetarian). I attempt to make vegetarian dishes at least a couple of times a week, but I would like to incorporate more vegetarian dishes into my life. I smell more recipes coming!!! And FYI, I plan to still consume milk and milk products and eggs in my vegetarian diet.

So here's the schedule of extra challenges:

Week 1 (May 25 - 29): all yoga all the time, no eliminations yet. Just getting accustomed to the yoga practices for now.
Week 2 (May 30 - June 5): eliminate alcohol and reduce caffeine to only 3c of coffee this week or fewer
Week 3 (June 6 - 12): Keep eliminated alcohol, eliminate caffeine entirely, and eat a full day of vegetarian meals at least 3 times per week.
Week 4 (June 13 - 19): Keep Week 2 eliminations, and increase vegetarian days to at least 5 times per week.
Week 5 (June 20-23): Keep Week 2 eliminations, and eat only vegetarian meals this week.

Can it be done? Stay tuned and find out :D!!!!