I signed my daughter and I up for yoga class this summer. She's been doing the upward and downward dog poses since she was about 18 months, so I figure she's ready. And so am I, after practicing very sporadically throughout the 15 years since I took my first Hatha class in college.

At first, yoga for a 3-year-old might seem silly. Efforts to get my daughter to hold any pose for more than 5 seconds, let alone something specific that requires following instruction from a teacher, can be futile at best. My daughter has definitely hit a stage during which focused activity has become necessity to get through the day. Discipline has become more of an issue. But I'm hoping the novelty of the yoga class will play big. And listening to a stranger is always easier than listening to Mommy or Daddy.

But we might get more than that. Experts suggest yoga for kids can increase self-esteem and body awareness in a noncompetitive way and can even help children who suffer from hyperactivity disorder.

A few days ago, a friend of mine asked me if yoga was fun, and it got me thinking. I've been doing yoga regularly for about three years now. But don't know if I would call it fun ...

Flash back to my first yoga experience. I signed up for a 4-month, once-a-week yoga class at my gym. Most of my classmates were either middle-aged or a senior while I was a spry 20-something. For this reason, my first class was pretty mortifying -- I was the youngest in the class and yet I was the one who couldn't hold the poses. Downward dog was tedious, painful even. I couldn't touch my toes. I felt like I had the body of an 80 year old.

And for the next few months, the classes only got marginally better.

Hey yogis, do you find that yoga is hard on your wrists? I sure do. All those downward dogs and upward dogs and the occasional crow pose leave my wrists aching to the point where I feel like I can't take it anymore and have to retreat to child's pose. Fitsugar has recently addresses this issue, and they have the following suggestions:

• In poses like downward dog, where there's a lot of weight on your wrists, make sure put some of the weight in your hands too. Each of your knuckles and each of your finger tips should be digging into the mat, but the undersides of your fingers don't have to be touching. Make sure the weight isn't concentrated on the pinky side on your hand. It will make a huge difference.
• Move slowly and take a break when your wrists are screaming.
  
• Try some wrist stretches.
• Ice your wrists if they need it.
  

I'll have to try these the next time I'm at yoga class. Do you have any other suggestions?

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Any experienced yogi is aware of the Vinyasa -- that series of poses that you do about 100 times during the practice to link your other poses together. But if you're new you yoga, trying to get in to it or just plain curious as to what goes on in one of those classes, Fitsugar has put together a video of the Vinyasa. Basically, a Vinyasa serves a specific purpose -- to link the practice all together and get you focusing on your breath through a series of fluid motion.

Though my weak wrists have meant I struggle with downward dog, I find Vinyasas very calming-yet-invigorating. It's a great way to renew your body throughout the practice. Here's how it goes:

1. Inhale: move into plank position
2. Exhale: Chaturanga, which means lowering yourself to the ground
3. Inhale: Upwards facing dog -- shine your heart forward
4. Exhale: Downward-facing dog -- make an upside down V with your body
5. Inhale: Jump through for the next pose (either to seated or standing)

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Yoga is intended to help with both physical and mental health so I don't think too many people are surprised to hear that yoga can help improve your mood. Whether you're feeling a little depressed, bored, stressed out, or even insecure before a big date or important event there are poses that will help you combat those emotions and help you get into a more positive frame of mind. And there's real physical evidence to back up the effects -- by holding your body in certain positions you can stimulate glands that release mood altering chemicals. Move #3 here I come!

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We here at thatsfit.com periodically post blogs on how to torch calories, as well as the importance of more out than in to lose weight (and keep it off). Generally those posts involve things like walking your dog, taking the stairs or visiting a colleague instead of calling rather than the every day ho-hum of jogging or doing sit ups. Today I've discovered another list of how-to options for burning calories, and reading it was almost as fun as some of the list's offerings.

This list, titled "100 Ways to Cut 100 Calories," compiled by Women's Health, offers a fresher approach to burning calories. While everything on the list may not be realistic (check out the one for slathering on lip balm) it's at least humorous, and does remind us that everything we do burns calories and can be put to use in our fight against the fat.

For example, as mentioned in the title of this post, you can fly a kite for twenty minutes to burn off 100 calories. That sounds both realistic and fun. If the kite gets away from you and you have to chase it down that might afford you some additional calories torched.

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I've heard people say that yoga isn't a very good workout, in the sense that it doesn't burn many calories. My reaction? Pffffftttt ... they obviously haven't tried the yoga class that I go to. It is hard. I've been doing it for a long time and I still feel sore after every single class. I sweat buckets. I often collapse halfway through a plank pose in utter exhaustion. The class moves through poses very quickly and it's hard to keep up at times. And before you disregard my claims by thinking I must be weak or lazy, I can assure you that I am in pretty good shape. But it made me think: Perhaps it's not the best for burning calories, but yoga is challenging at the best of times and it's certainly done wonders for my body.

Power yoga is basically what I described above. It incorporates traditional yoga moves that are higher in intensity and proceed faster than regular, more traditional yoga. Yoga is supposed to be about meditation, but in Power Yoga there's little time to relax because, as I mentioned before, the poses are intense. And while they're held for about 10 breaths or so, there isn't really time to get used to them too much.

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