Supernatural Botanicals

 I just ordered the new Body By Bethenny yoga DVD on Amazon.  I was all prepared to wait the standard week to receive it by mail, but fortunately, Amazon let me view it for free (after purchase)  immediately…and then stores the video in my Video Library on Amazon’s site.  They also give you the option to send it to TIVO or download it to your computer.  

Kudos to Amazon for not making a girl wait 7-10 business days to start getting a better body.  Cool feature!

Check out the trailer here: 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuAdmYbpUTA

Professional yogis don’t use yoga mats just to keep their feet on a soft surface during yoga postures, they use yoga mats because they are incredibly beneficial to help you stretch further.  Yoga mats, sometimes called sticky mats, are thick rubber-like surfaces, about 4 feet wide, designed to be under foot while you are doing yoga or Pilates workouts. 

When you place your hands and feet on a yoga mat, they almost stick (and sink) into the soft mat, keeping your hands and feet securely firm, with no worry of slipping out of your posture.  They are also fabulous for doing stretches, enabling you to stretch deep into your stretches with your feet and/or hands essentially glued to the mat.  It truly makes a difference in your workouts. 

Also great to stimulate the spine.  How to:  Lay on your back, hold your bent legs to your chest, wrapping your arms around your bent legs, and rock in a boat pose from head to feet.  The thickness of the yoga mat keeps it comfortable for your spine.  It will feel like a back massage!

Kiss the carpet goodbye, and try using a yoga mat during your next yoga/Pilates/stretching session.  It increases your flexibility by 25% to even 50%.  (Those aren’t scientific percentages…it’s just what I can feel in my own workouts.) 

Go ahead and prepare yourself to be envious and/or inspired.  Want to see what it takes to have a rockin’ body?  Check out my girl, Zuzana, and her grueling workout.  That’s what it takes.  Arms and abs like Zuzana’s doesn’t come for free.  But, if you look at it in a different perspective, it’s a relatively small price to pay to feel and look so amazing.  I love Zuzana’s workouts!   Check out her site at www.BodyRock.tv

 httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR7h60fW-QA

Working out is one of the most effective stress relievers.  Researchers recently found that after spending 30 minutes on a treadmill, their subjects scored 25 percent lower on tests that measure anxiety and showed favorable changes in brain activity.

If you only have time to do one thing for yourself, make it sticking to your workout routines. If you can’t hit the gym or trails, even a brisk 30-minute walk at lunch or getting up several times a day to stretch and walk around will help relieve stress.

If you only have five minutes for exercise today, try this five minute yoga stretch with Tara Stiles.  She’s beyond flexible….and ultra-inspiring!  A great stretch will not only elongate your muscles to give you a long, lean look, but it also relaxes your mind and recharges your batteries. 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR4wvCYNlvk

Bethenny Frankel has been looking fabulous…even pregnant.  I can promise you, that’s not easy to achieve.  The 39-year-old, who is having her first child late in life, says she has always been obsessed with her body image.

“Since I was 8, I was obsessed with every single diet ever because I came from a very toxic, dysfunctional household with a complete emphasis and obsession with food and being fat,” says Frankel.

“It was absurd and moronic to be an adult and to be worried about dieting.”

Bethenny says she wrote her best-selling diet book “Naturally Thin” last year and finished her second book, The Skinnygirl Dish, filmed and made her her first exercise DVD this year.

Frankel says she works out up to three times a week doing Pilates, yoga and/or running.  But the compulsive exerciser says she has learned to embrace moderation in exercise, with better results.

“I’m 10 years older [now] but 10 to 15 lbs. lighter [than I was in my 20s],” she says. “I used to work out obsessively five to six times a week. Now, I work out maybe two or three times.”

In order to achieve a killer physique like Bethenny, you definitely have to incorporate healthy eating into your regimen.  Check out her book, Naturally Thin, to take a peek at what she eats to keep looking fab (again, even pregnant!)

Factoid:  If you don’t rest enough between hard cardio or strength workouts, you’ll stop making progress and may even lose some of the fitness you’ve gained. You’re also likely to burn out on exercise.  Additionally, don’t marry your fitness routine.  Nothing will bring your workouts to a screeching halt like a  repetitious workout routine that offers no change up or fun. 

Be sure to alternate shorter, tougher cardio workouts (for instance, 20 minutes) with longer, easier days (40-60 minutes).  Don’t go all-out more than twice a week (how happy does that sentence make you?)  Keep in mind that the more intensely you train, the more time your body needs to recover.  

It’s a good idea to do a couple of tough workouts and take 1 day completely off each week.  On the strength-training front, take at least 1 day off between sessions that work the same muscle group.

“We write to taste life twice, once in the moment and once in retrospection.”  Anais Nin

Journaling is my thing.  I started journaling when I seriously started working out, about six years ago.  Initially, it was for tracking purposes only; Wednesday I do cardio, Thursday I do upper body, Friday I do lower body, etc.  Then I realized how beneficial it was to record my meals.  When you start keeping track of your caloric intake, it gives you a huge look inside yourself.  When your skin is starting to look bad, you can look back and see what’s going on in your life.  Are you eating too much junk food?  Too many glasses of champagne?  The answers are all right there, you just have to find them.

My journaling went one step further.  It started innocently enough, just notating if I had a headache that day, noting any blemishes or anything strange happening.  Not only did I get to know my body really well, I got to know my own mind better. 

Why did I always seem to be super moody one day a month and very weepy?  Why do I get a blemish about every third or fourth month right in the same place?  Why did I feel like I could eat like an animal some days, while other days I’d barely take any calories in and felt great?  Why was the libido through the roof on some days of the month?  Well, the short answer is hormones.  But I was never able to understand why my body was doing what it was until I started tracking it in my journal.   It turns out, those problems happened the same day, month after month.  It’s sort of like a science experiment.  Guess, test, and revise. 

You can also go one step further and write your feelings down.  It’s really cool to reflect on old postings and say to yourself, this is where I was, then.  This is what was happening in my life, good or bad, and this is how I dealt with it.  As if it’s a guide saying, this is what worked in the past for me….this is what didn’t. 

Journaling is definitely one of those things that you don’t “get” until you try it.  It’s a huge gift to have that sort of insight, to reflect on yourself.   Try to wrap your brain around it and get started.  You’ll love it once you get going. 

There are online journals, such as www.LiveJournal.com.  I generally prefer to type over handwriting, but in this instance, I like writing things down.   It just feels more cathartic somehow.   I can appreciate a beautiful journal.  I adore beautiful books and journals, and it’s always the perfect gift for me. 

Check out the journal section next time you are at the bookstore and purchase your favorite one.  Get into journaling.  It’s like a window, looking inside yourself.  It’s an easy and powerful way to accelerate your personal development.

This is one of my favorite yoga stretches, albeit, one of the hardest stretches.  It’s an amazing hip opener.  If you are a woman, you should be able to bend down further than the man in this video.  We are just programed to be more flexible than men, so go down as far as you can…and breathe into it.  Just when you feel like you can’t take it another second, take a deep breath and breathe again.  Try to stay in the pose for a full 30 seconds.  The more you breathe, the more you’ll feel your hips relax. 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i0d78nx2DY