Sweatitation is based on true events. After turning 40 my body changed so quickly. I gained weight in places I never had before and it scared me! What scared me even more was the fact that the weight loss strategies I'd used in my twenties and thirties did not work to help me lose weight after turning 40. I knew I needed to exercise if I was ever going to lose the weight I had gained and keep it off.
I had a weight problem due to binge eating and binge alcohol drinking through out my teens, twenties, thirties and early forties.
From the time I was 13 until the time I was 42 I had been on and off every diet from every decade several times. Like most people I lost a few pounds but never kept it off.
I didn't know at that time that going on a diet was setting myself up for going off the diet. That the word diet meant temporary. That being on a diet was my minds way of never having to fully commit to giving up the food I loved because I could count on having it again when I went off the diet.
I was always either on a diet or bingeing. Being good or being bad. Being right or being wrong. Depriving myself or feeling guilty for over-indulging. Sound familiar?
I was trapped in this painful, viscious cycle of dieting for almost 30 years until I discovered traditional meditation.
I've been a student of metaphysics since the early nineties and practiced meditation on and off throughout that time; however, the daily habit of meditation didn't stick until Sept. 2006.
I started meditating every day and for the first time in my life I began having control of my food choices and quantity without forcing myself using will power. It felt different. It was happening from the inside out.
I began losing weight without dieting from my meditation practice. I was so inspired by the positive behavioral changes that were happening in my life as a result of meditation that the next logical step was to join a gym to start exercising.
I joined Ultimate Fitness in American Canyon, Ca and started doing cardio on the Elliptical Trainer 3 days a week for 30 minutes. During my cardio sessions I was always watching the clock to see how much time had passed or how much time was left before it was over. I was bored. I was using willpower, forcing myself to exercise not because I wanted to but because I knew had to if I wanted to lose the weight I had gained.
Then one day I decided to pull my sweat head band down over my eyes and meditate while I was on the ellipitical. I loved to meditate! I did not love cardiovascular exercise. Not yet anyway.
From that day on I coined the term Sweatitation for my cardio sessions at the gym and a passion for Sweatitation was ignited. I was no longer bored but excited to do Sweatitation every day. I was excited about the process of self discovery that was happening within while simultaneously buring a ton of calories during each Sweatitation session!
During this same time I was also practicing Bikram yoga 2-4 times a week. I began integrating bikram breathing and posture techniques into my Sweatitation sessions and my cardiovascular endurance went off the charts! I could exercise at extreme cardio exhertion levels almost effortlessly.
I became hooked on Sweatitation and practiced an hour a day literally 7 days a week for almost 3 years!
Needless to say, I lost all the weight I intended to lose and have kept it off. What happened that's more important is that I lost the mental baggage that caused me to be overweight my entire life.
By accident, without realizing it at the time I used Sweatitation tm, cardio-meditation, traditional meditation and hot yoga to shift my fitness perspective entirely from a superficial outward focus on my body and the weight I wanted to lose to an inward focus on my mind. While exercising my body and burning a ton of calories every day, I cultivated the inner attitudes that lead to permanent behavioral changes in not only my diet but in every area of my life! Habits that were the source of a lifetime of suffering are gone.
Sweatitation helped me see how my mind worked. It helped me stand back from my thoughts and helped me realize that my thoughts were not me. It helped me see that my habits were all just recurring thoughts too, mind habits only, that I made the mistake of identifying myself with. Once I had these realizations it became easy to not follow every thought I was having. For example, I knew I had the choice to not climb aboard the train of thought that said to eat when I didn't want to because I understood it was just a thought I was having, a habit of my mind, NOT me.
What a gift. I healed my relationship to food, my body and changed my experience of exercise by restoring a connection to my real self, my inner self through Sweatitation tm cardio-meditation and hot yoga while burning a ton of calories every day.
It's been just shy of 4 years since I discovered Sweatitation tm that day at the gym. During this time I became so interested in cardiovascular exercise, fitness, meditation and yoga due to the positive changes they were making in my life that I wanted to learn everything I could about them. I wanted to take my own personal training to the next level by deepening my understanding of both eastern and western training theories and philosophies. So I studied and obtained a Female Fitness Trainer Certification, RYT 200 Hatha Yoga Instructor Certification and Meditation Instructor Certification. I will be attending Hot Yoga Teacher Training in Costa Rica this May where I'll obtain a Hot Yoga Certification.
I mentioned earlier that I've been a student of metaphysics since the early nineties. In 1992 I began studying A Course In Miracles, a metaphysical, self study course in spiritual psychotherapy. In 1996 I moved to San Francisco and began a formal study of the Course at the Community Miracles Center on Market Street by enrolling in their Minister Training Program. I became ordained as A Course In Miracles Minister and Pastoral Counselor in July of 2000.
I have been practicing Sweatitation tm, yoga, hot yoga or traditional meditation daily since 2006 and have experienced so many positive changes in my character and conduct that I feel compelled to share my passion, enthusiasm, wisdom, knowledge and experience with other sincere souls seeking a path to mind, body health and fitness by following the truth within them.