EASY and sort of healthy, Candied Yams Recipe (or healthier...)

Healthier Candied Yams

You will need:

• 3 Sweet Potatoes baked and skinned
• Orange Juice | 2-3 TBS
• 100% REAL maple syrup | 2-3 TBS
• Brown Sugar | 1 TBS
• Dried Cranberries | 2/3 cup
• Cinnamon | 2-3 TBS
• Nutmeg | 1 TBS
• Butter/Butter Substitute | 1 TBS
• Baby Marshmallows

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Start to puree the sweet potatoes by adding first the butter, then add the brown sugar. Now add the maple syrup and orange juice. Keep stirring adding the liquid ingredients gradually to make sure that everything combines with the sweet potatoes. Add the nutmeg and cinnamon and then stir in the dried cranberries. Taste the mixture and add more of whatever your tongue tells you.

Spray a non-stick cooking spray like PAM on the bottom of a 9"X9" cooking pan (Pyrex works best). Wipe with a paper towel to ensure it's a very small amount. Pour mixture into container.

Cover the top layer with as few or as many marshmallows as you like. Place dish in pre-heated oven and bake for 10-15 minutes, until marshmallows turn a golden brown. If you do burn the marshmallows (totally happened to me), it's so not a big deal. Simply peal of the top layer of marshmallows and start again, this time, try not to leave it in quite as long. The burned marshmallows actually taste pretty good, but definitely doesn't go along with our healthy theme, so be careful.

Enjoy!

Mini Mat Series - Quick Work Out To Try on Vacation

Everyone tends to go on vacation this time of year. Try a few Pilates exercises to spice up your holiday work out. Maybe use this to help center yourself during the craziness of Thanksgiving. I hope this helps!

Start Position:

Lay on your back, knees bent feet flat, hands by your sides palms up.

Breathe deep, in through the nose and out through the mouth.

Do a body scan and let each part of your body get heavy. First the head, widen the collar, the upper back, mid back, lower back, the bum and all the way through to the tips of your toes.

Pelvic Rocking: Bum stays heavy on the mat throughout this exercise.

• Start by imprinting your back, flatten it onto the mat by tucking your tail and pointing your pubic bone upwards. Your waist band should get heavy.

• Then let your waist band come off the mat by rocking your pubic bone down towards the mat, slightly arching the back.

Start to engage your abdominals to make these movements even smaller. Only arch to the point where the ribs maintain a connection, and draw your belly button in to flatten your back.

Find a neutral place between these two extremes where you don't feel like you are arching your back and you don't feel like you are forcing your back onto the mat.

Remember this position for the rest of class.

First Exercise

Toe Taps:

• Let the collar bone widen on the mat and reach your finger tips towards your heels.
• Exhale one knee into table top.

• There are two bony landmarks called your ASIS otherwise known as our hip bones. It is important to keep these in perfect alignment throughout the exercise.

• Keeping the same degree of knee bend inhale as you lower the knee towards the mat while maintaining your neutral. It is okay not to actually touch the floor. Try to maintain a flat back throughout this exercise, drawing the belly button in and up and keeping the ribcage closed. 6-8 reps
• For an added challenge, continue another 4-6 reps by curling up the head neck and shoulders**

• Repeat Other side.

**Proper Abdominal Curl:

• Hands behind the head, head heavy in the hands. Start the movement by drawing your lowest abdominals away from your t-shirt
• Now let your ribs slide towards your hips maintaining a neutral pelvis
• Let the head and shoulders follow, the chin stays in line with your collar, head pushing back into your hands and hands pushing into your head. Eyes gaze on your knees.

Marching

• Exhale both knees into table top
• Keeping the inner thighs engaged, let one leg drop down to the mat maintaining a flat back and the 90 degree angle with your knee.
• Exhale to pull the knee back to table top.
• Repeat with an abdominal curl

Hundreds:

• Bring Both knees to table top and arms straight to the sky by your chest

• Engage your arm-pits like you have $100 bill under each one (this will activate your transverse abdominals).
• Press your palms to the mat as you perform a proper abdominal curl (belly button up and in then slide the ribs to the hips)

• Maintain everything else stable while your arms pump vigorously, like you are splashing water. Continue to engage your abdominals. (For an added challenge extend the legs long)
• Inhale for 5 counts and exhale for 5 counts. Each exhale keep scooping the lowest abdominals away from your t-shirt. On the inhale keep the belly button drawing in. Try to breathe in through the sides of your body.

Roll Backs:

• Start with the knees bent and the hands grabbing onto the backs of your knees.
• Firm the butt and grow through the crown of the head

• Tuck your tail and slide your ribs towards your hips into a C curve. Make sure to bring your head with you, keeping it in between your shoulders:

Head Positioning right:

Head Position wrong:

• Keeping the head between the shoulders, start lowering your lower back onto the mat by walking down your legs one hand at a time. Continue to hollow your abs each position.
• Peel your spine off the mat one vertebra at a time.
• Tuck your chin to initiate the motion, but maintain proper neck alignment by leading with your chest and keeping your chin in line with your collar bone.

All 4's Leg Work

First, find your flat back with a cat/cow stretch. Similar to Pelvic rocking. Go through the extremes to find your neutral.

• Cat:

• Cow:

• Neutral

• Now, maintaining this neutral, extend your right leg back, toe touching the mat and your left arm out, tapping the mat in front of you. The mat is your assistant in making sure you maintain your neutral.

• On an exhale, lift both arm and leg straight up keeping the toe pointed towards the floor. Continue for 6-8 reps maintaining your neutral. Try not to arch your back as you extend up.
• Keep your legs extended.

• Without rounding your back, draw your knee and elbow together across your body. It's okay if these do not touch.

• Take a break in rest pose. Sit down towards your heels and reach your arms forward.

Standing Saw

• Stand with your feet slightly wider than hip width apart.
• Extend both arms out at 180 degrees.

• 
• Twisting only from the rib cage, look at your back hand (palm is up). Make sure to pull the hip forward that you are twisting towards.

• Keep your hips squared and your arms long. Maintain your connection with your back hand as you draw your abs in and up and bend over reaching your front pinky finger to the opposite pinky toe.

• Lift up and stay twisted maintain square hips

• Center and repeat other side. 4-6 reps
  
  
  
  Congratulations, you just worked your abs, your back, your legs and your obliques! Now enjoy your Turkey!

Pilates: The Truth About Swan or Cobra

Swan is a very basic Pilates move done in almost every Pilates class. This is one of the exercises most people don't understand and therefore perform incorrectly.

The Essence of Swan:

The idea is to extend the lumbar spine, the area of your lower back that has a slight curvature above your bum. Most people doing swan, tend to simply arch up and this area become compressed. The idea is to lengthen the lumbar to take the pressure off the lumbar spine.

The Wrong Way:

The Right Way:

To perform Swan, or Cobra, correctly in Pilates terms, you will have to engage your abdominals to lengthen the lower back. It's important in a prone (laying on your stomach) position, to always draw your belly button away from the mat and let the pubic bone (or hips if they reach) stay heavy. When you start the extension, you will lengthen from the crown of the head outwards, eyes will stay glued to the floor. Normally I teach this exercise modified to verify people perform it correctly.

Modified Swan Step by Step (obviously you are already laying in your stomach with the abs drawn in and up and the pubic bone is heavy).

1. Place your fingers one on top of the other on your forehead; elbows out.
2. First lift just your elbows off the mat. Notice if your shoulders have started their migration North, and draw them back to neutral down your spine.
3. Now, extend out through the crown of your head, eyes stay glued to the floor in front of you.

Full Swan Correctly:

1. Place your hands under your arm-pits. Let your hands hover off the mat.
2. Extend up and out how you did for modified swan
3. At the top of your extension, press your hands into the mat and pull your abs up and in
4. Only go as high up as you can maintain the length in the lower back. If your arms are fully extended and your hips should be off the mat so the lower back is fully extended. If your hips are on the floor, you are most likely compressing this part of the back.

Your back should feel long during this exercise and your abdominals should be engaged.

A Step to Step Guide for Perfect Posture

Stand like a million bucks. You've tried before and it didn't feel right? The more wrong proper posture feels, the more you need it! Old habits die hard and trying to learn a new behavior is even harder. With Pilate's principles applied to daily living, at least you can be aware of your own imbalances.

Standing taller will ultimately relieve lower back pain, tight shoulders and a whole bunch of other misaligned type ailments. First things first, you have to find it.

Proper Standing Posture

1. Start by looking in a mirror head on with your feet hip width apart. Place one hand on the front of your stomach and the other hand on your sacrum (the bony landmark above your bum on you lower back. The area where the lower back is flat right above your tail bone). Start by leaning forward and back, shifting the weight between the balls of the feet and the heels. Now try to engage your hips, bringing them forward and back as you rock. This is called pelvic rocking. Make this movement smaller by starting to engage the core. Find a position that feels neutral for your body where your weight is on the balls of your feet and your pubic bone is pointed at the floor.
2. Now without moving your feet, feel like you are pulling your inner thighs together to get a little taller
3. Place both your hands on your lower abdominal (below your belly button) and exhale deeply. You should feel your abs pulling in and up. Do this a couple of times to get familiar with this feeling.
4. Place both your hands on your upper rib cage (right under your chest). As you inhale, feel your ribs expanding. As you exhale, feel how they come together. Now, as you inhale, see if you can keep them together by breathing through the sides of your body; in through the nose, out through the mouth.
5. Reach your fingers down by your sides, palms touching your outer thighs and let the shoulders draw back while reaching your armpits into your pockets. Now let's connect our pelvic floor. Think about the body as lengthening. Making the back nice and straight by tucking the tail just slightly if you have a larger arch in your lower back and drawing the abs up and in. Think about your pubic bone aiming directly at the ground. Think about each element we just worked and how they affect each other.
1. Start from our inner thighs, draw your abs in and up and allow this to close the rib cage.
2. Now, maintaining this posture, try to draw your shoulders down and back and lengthen through the crown of the head.
3. Notice your chin, is it in front of your collar bone? Draw it back and lengthen from the top of the head, the highest point on your head (the crown). Think back to when your mom made you walk around with a book on your head. In fact, just place a book there.

Notice if this position feels awkward. Notice your abdominal connection. This connection will remain the same in your seated posture (probably something we should talk about because odds are, if you are reading this you are probably sitting down somewhere looking at a computer. Let's fix your posture now:

Proper Seated Posture

1. First notice your sit bones. If you've ever bruised your bum, this is the area that you couldn't sit on for weeks. If you still don't know what I'm talking about, sit up for one second, and place your hands on your bottom (if you are in Starbucks or another public place, maybe excuse yourself to the bathroom for a moment). If you dig your fingers into each bum cheek, you will feel two bony things. These are your sit bones.
2. Now that you've discovered your sit bones, we can move on. Sit up nice and tall in your chair and rock forward in front of your sit bones and then rock backwards, behind your sit bones. Make this rocking gradually smaller until you are actually seated on your sit bones. Notice if this position has changed from your initial posture.
3. Just like we did in standing, it's now time to lift through your pelvic floor.
1. Firm the butt to grow even taller through the crown (highest point) of your head
2. Draw the lowest abs up and in and allow that to draw the rib cage down and together.
3. Press the shoulders down and back like your are reaching your arm-pits into your pockets while maintaining a wide collar bone and your abdominal connection.
4. Pull your head backwards so your chin is in line with your collar bone and you're lengthening through the crown of the head.

I hope this break down has helped to change your posture. Like I've said before, you can't truly practice Pilate's without having an out of body experience each time. A mirror helps, but it's not perfect. Do your best to implement these techniques into your daily life, but definitely continue to practice Pilate's regularly in order to see drastic improvements. Using Pilate's apparatuses will definitely help you see improvement quicker than mat classes, but anything you can do helps. Remember, keep drawing that chin back in line with your collar and you will notice a huge difference!

To Change or Not To Change - This is the questions.

Change:  Is it good or bad in regards to Pilates work outs verses General Fitness

First things first; Pilates is not the same as weight training, basic cardio or really any sort of gym work out.  Pilates is a tool which can be applied to these activities, but in it's essence is it's own entity with completely different rules and guidelines.

Normally, change is good.  Especially in fitness.  When people do the same cardio over and over again, they stop seeing results. This is because of muscle memory.  In general fitness it's great to change it up and do new exercises.

Pilates is different.  It's a principle that takes discipline.  Regardless as to how basic the exercises are or how difficult they are, the principles of the core connection remain the same.  It's learning this connection that allows you to improve within this discipline and apply it to the different exercises done in the weight room or cardio room.

Pilates needs to be thought of as a lifestyle or a discipline similar to martial arts.  A martial artist will spend years perfecting one move.  For example, in the Brazilian style martial arts called Capoeira, the ginga, is the most basic movement, but at the same time it is the core of the dance.  The dance evolves around the ginga and always returns to the ginga.  Growth can only happen once the ginga is achieved.  This is the same as establishing a neutral core connection.

Regardless of the exercises, Pilates is about the core connection and understanding how to maintain an equal balance between your ribs and your hips while maintaining an open chest.  Without being able to first achieve this, it is impossible to  move on and learn more moves correctly.  The difference between martial arts and Pilates is that the movements and variables are so small, it's extremely difficult to notice some changes which is why it is so important that a Pilates student has a great teacher who can see their imbalances. I always tell my students, in order to practice Pilates on your own, you would  need to have an out of body experience.

When new students are thrown into harder exercises without understanding core connections, they are likely to hurt themselves or simply power through similar to a Boot Camp class or Body Building.  This doesn't take into consideration the techniques and won't give the students a mind body experience.  By understanding the connections, you will get so much more out of the exercises.  Be patient, take time and learn to listen to your body.  Your body will determine your range of motion depending on the form.  A good teacher will not say "lift your legs to the ceiling" or "lower your legs to the mat".  A good teacher will understand that everyone is different and will give your range of motion in regards to your body's reactions "lower your legs only to the point where you can keep your back heavy on the mat" or lift your legs only as high as your butt can remain heavy".  Your legs may not even be pointed at the ceiling depending on your flexibility and your legs will come no where near the mat unless you are Joseph Pilates.

Learning how to move while keeping alignment is the lesson to be learned in Pilates.  Learning to engage your core and keep this alignment in the cardio room or on the weight machines is our goal.  Keeping this alignment typing at the computer, sitting at our desks or even driving is the longterm goal.

Change is great in fitness.  Change is only applicable in Pilates when the client is ready and has achieved mastery.  This is the difference.

Pilates: Attaining Perfect Posture in Everyday Life - Is It Actually Possible?

Everyone struggles with their posture. It's normal. Even if you think you are one of those people who has great posture, every now and then, I'm sure even you find yourself slouching.

My clients keep telling me how hard it is to hold in their abs to keep the perfect postural alignment. It is hard, but like everything, the more you do it, the easier it gets. You simply have to aware and eventually, you won't even have to think to engage your core. It will feel strange not to engage your core or, eventually, it may even be uncomfortable not engaging your core.

People don't realize, but our bodies are connected. Our back is supported by our abs and vice versa. Most of the time, when people have back pain it's caused by a lack of abdominal strength. By holding your abs in during the day to maintain perfect posture, you are using your abs to take the added stress out of your back. By engaging your core, you are elongating your spine. You can actually manipulate your spine through your abs! It's crazy, but it's true. Sometimes, when I'm trying to get my client to close their rib cage (a very difficult concept to understand), I will cue them both from their back and from the front of the body. Clients may at first think that I am saying two different things, but soon they will learn, it's the exact same thing said differently. A great example is the cue "corset your ribs together" - the back cue for the same action is "let your back ribs get nice and heavy". Two cues, sound totally different, but do the exact same thing.

The other most common alignment issues I've noticed is that people lead with their chin. Notice, even when you are walking, is your chin in front of your chest? Is your chin in front of your collar bone or in alignment with your collar? I call this the "bird" complex. If you ever saw the "Pigeon Dance" that Burt does on Sesame Street, you will know exactly what I'm talking about.

If this is you, think about lengthening through the crown of the head and pulling the chin back (but not to the point where there are tons of wrinkles under your chin...) Also, know the difference between crown and Tiara. Whenever I think of crown, I think of Burger King and the paper crowns they gave you when you were kids. Think of the space inside the paper crown. This is the crown of your head. If you lengthen through this area, the crown will not fall off. Most people lengthen through what I call the Tiara. Think Barbie. The Tiara goes on the forehead. If you lengthen through the Tiara, the crown will definitely fall off!

Last alignment issue I will discuss on this blog is our sit bones. These are the two bony parts of our bum that if you've ever bruised this region will really hurt a lot. This is where we should be sitting. Anytime we are sitting in front of our sit bones, our lower back will arch causing our ribs to pop our our Tiara's to lengthen, definitely not what we are going for in regards to perfect postural alignment. When we are sitting behind our sit bones, our backs want to hunch, our shoulders will migrate towards the ears and our heads will start hitting that "bird" pose mentioned above. Just like pelvic rocking laying down, try pelvic rocking in a seated position to figure out both the front and back of the sit bones. Then try sitting on your sit bones again and see if this has changed.

Remember these hints and note how people treat you and respond to you. I always tell my clients to have perfect posture. Two days ago, my client found her perfect posture and stayed with this posture all day long. She noticed people actually treating her differently, with more respect and they were simply nicer to her. By having great posture, you present yourself as assured and confident. As people we respond to body language. How you carry yourself gives people a first impression. Be aware of how other people's postures affect your first impressions. Try standing tall today and see if anyone responds differently to you!