Let's Talk "Calories."

I like to wear a heart monitor when I work out. Whenever I go to Equinox, you can usually spot me wearing my pink Polar heart monitor watch on my left wrist... And, if you saw me topless in the locker room, you would see me wearing a chest strap.

(Ooooh... Sexy! NOT!)

Anyway, I wear these things because I like to see where my heart rate is at any given point in any workout I do. I also like to wear them because they help me estimate how many calories I have burned during my workout.

The only workout in which I do not wear my heart rate monitor is during my Bikram class. Though, I occasionally do pop it on my wrist, just to gauge where I am at. I don't wear it (usually) in class because I like to respect my practice and not be distracted with checking my progress. Plus, some teachers chide you for wearing it.

I do know, despite not wearing it in Bikram, that I burn far more calories in a Bikram class than I do in a workout at Equinox. This is because Bikram is done in a very, very, almost ridiculously hot room. (In Boston, it's atleast 111 before class starts... Sometimes 115. And it just gets hotter when you start to move around in the practice.)The room is kept hot so that you can loosen up your muscles, and it also brings in an element of "cardio."

See, when you are doing certain poses, your heart rate SKY ROCKETS. Mine can get up to 171 beats per minute when doing Standing Bow, Balancing Stick and Triangle. And when your heart rate goes up, you burn more calories. Bikram is a very well-rounded workout.

But I often hear and read about people who don't think Bikram is a good workout. They think because it has slow-moving and pausing yoga poses, it can't possibly burn that many calories. Well, you know what? They are eff-ing wrong. And even my trainer at Equinox says they are. We talked about this very thing today, in fact...

"Wow!" I said. "I just burned 510 calories from your boxing workout! That's 200 more than I burned in that spinning class yesterday with that horrible instructor!"

He laughed.

"Yep," he agreed. "You took a lot of rests today though. Next week you get fewer rests and we will keep your body warmer for longer."

"I burn, sometimes, 800 calories in Bikram," I told him.

"I believe that," he said. "That's because you are in a heated room. And when you heat your body up, you burn more calories."

"That's what a calorie is," he went on to explain. "It's a unit of energy. And when you heat your body temperature up, you heart rate goes up, and you burn more calories from the exertion."

"So next week," I went on to request, "should we not turn the fans on in the boxing room?"

He laughed. But he is right. Why do you think people workout with lots of clothes on sometimes? And steam rooms and saunas? It's not just to heal and loosen up your muscles. The heat gets your body going, and it helps you burn through more energy.

So to all you "haters" out there who like to write and tell me that Bikram "is not a workout" and "there is no way you burn that many calories in one class" can BLOW ME.

And don't think that I think that Bikram is the only good yoga out there. I love how challenging Bikram is for me. That is why I practice it... It kicks my ass every single time. EVERY SINGLE TIME!

But I also practice slower and more gentle types of yoga. There is one teacher at Equinox who Yummy Mummy and I are currently crushing on right now. She has the most amazing shoulders, and all she does is practice yoga. I only burn 250 calories in her class... But that's not why I go to her class. I go to it for the soothing nature of the class.

And another thing about calories... Everyone burns calories differently. The lighter you are, the fewer calories you will burn in anything. Just because I burn anywhere from 650 to 800 calories in Bikram doesn't mean someone who is 100 pounds will burn that much too.