Quick update; I’ve stayed true to the promise I made to myself, I’ve continued my commitment to practicing yoga at least once a week. My flexibility is not the greatest, but I can already feel some pretty wonderful improvements; it probably helps that I’ve also stayed committed to stretching each time I finish a weight lifting session.

Today I did a quick 16 min session with my wife. It was nice to have a partner to struggle alongside me – even though she said my breath smelled of coffee; I blame Nespresso for being so delicious.

That’s it for this beautiful Sunday from Southern California. Stay healthy everyone, and Fight On!

Alright folks, I have a confession to make. In my adult life, I don’t think I’ve ever had a blood test done. I’m terrified of needles; I hate getting shots, but I can usually tough out a quick injection in the shoulder. A blood draw, that’s been a giant obstacle for me.

That is until today.

I bit the bullet and did it. I was very lucky to have a great compassionate nurse and doctor to help me through it.

The thing is this, after today’s experience, I feel a bit invincible. Getting a blood draw was single-handedly the most challenging thing I have had to overcome. It may sound really strange to many, but for YEARS I have declined the procedure (if you can call it that) when I would have my annual exam.

This is all to say this, we all have little things that seem like mountains to overcome, and even if it seems like not such a big deal to others (flying, riding a roller coaster, or petting a dog), those fears and anxieties can seem debilitating when you are put in that situation. You don’t need to be ashamed of it, I know I was for a long time, as coworkers and relatives would roll their eyes at my terror.

Even if it’s nothing to you (or maybe you feel the same way I do about getting a blood test), I am very proud of this achievement today.

This is just one challenge checked off the list of things to do – now time to move onto the next.

Earlier this week my wife started a subscription to MyYogaWorks, which I promptly broke in with a 20-minute session. It wasn’t my first time doing yoga, but I can almost guarantee that I could count each time I’ve practiced yoga with one hand (maybe two fingers). Nevertheless, I’ll call this my “first time.”

For those unfamiliar, MyYogaWorks is an online yoga studio, where instructors go through their sessions on the web and you, the viewer, follow along. The instructor generally has a few people in the class to demonstrate each pose or movement while they glide through the studio describing the actions and feelings you should experience; my instructor was Melanie Lora Meltzer.

I’m going to challenge myself to do each of Melanie’s classes on the site – attempting one to two per week – she has to 118 sessions, to date. Some of the videos are under ten minutes while others can be longer than an hour. The difficulty may be finding the time to accomplish the longer sessions – but I recall a great and inspiring section of George W Bush’s memoir – Decision Points – when he said, if it’s important to you, you’ll find time for it (which is how he explained his ability to workout daily while his time as POTUS). Additionally, to make matters a bit more difficult, I still plan on hitting the gym as I normally would, I do not want to supplement this for weight training.

I’ll keep you posted along the way, wish me luck!