A Labor Day's labor

A little catch-up from Monday ...

Pre-workout fuel: Slice of whole-wheat toast with banana
Workout: 30 minutes yoga and 2.25-ish mile walk with dog in the a.m. Upper body strength in the p.m. (while catching up with "Dexter").

I had my coffee, my peanut butter toast and a couple blogs to read. The clock - it read 7:05 a.m. Normally, I'd be rushing around, frazzled that I had yet to start my workout. Oh, but this day was Labor Day and all I had on the schedule was a 1 p.m. lunch with a gal pal.

Sip away, Kim. Sip away.

Once I finally got motivated to start my day, I found myself also motivated to try a new yoga workout on OnDemand. Or what I thought was a new workout on OnDemand.

"Body Slim" is "an active series of yoga postures that flow together to build long, lean muscles; improves your flexibility; and makes you drip with sweat."

Tell me about it. The workout started off with core (ugh) and went through a cardio sequence then a slow burn sequence. Once the second cardio sequence began, I became keenly aware that I had done this workout before ... and quit.

Reason No. 1:

Reason No. 2:

As much as I'd like to practice yoga, I am more of a do-er. And I only do yoga when my head allows me to believe that I can do the given poses. My head usually doesn't like me to think that I can do downward dog splits and then bring my knee to my chest ... my knee to my tricep ... my knee to, well, just about anywhere.

That brain - it's so funny. It tells you that you can't do something but if you are motivated enough (or don't want to embarrass yourself in front of your husband, who is eating frozen waffles on the couch), you can do things thought impossible.

Like the downward dog split.

I won't say that it was easy. It wasn't - at least for me. And I definitely struggled through the third and fourth salutations, which featured the poses. But I allowed myself to do it, and I'm thankful for that. Maybe I'll even try it again next week. Maybe.

How do you keep your mind from defeating you?