Flatter ABS are just a crunch away!

Stability Ball Crunch
1. Sit in upright position on stability ball with feet flat on floor.
2. Walk feet forward allowing stability ball to roll underneath body until it is positioned on lower to mid-back region. Raise hips slightly to create a "table top" position parallel to floor.
3. Place hands across your chest. Head should be in a neutral position with a space between chin and chest.
4. Leading with the chin and chest towards the ceiling, (abs in towards the spine and up towards your heart) and raise shoulders up.
5. Return to start position.
6. Remember to keep head and back in a neutral position. Hyper extension or flexion of either may cause injury.

Beginner: 1 set of 20 reps

Intermediate: 2 sets of 20 reps

Advanced: 3 sets of 20 repetitions

Principle #3: Make Peace with Food

Once you've mastered honoring your hunger the next step is to make peace with the food that you are eating.

Call a truce, stop the food fight!! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. You read it right-UNCONDITIONAL PERMISSION TO EAT!!! If you tell yourself that you can't or shouldn't have a particular food, it will lead you to having intense feelings of deprivation that can build into uncontrollable cravings and bingeing. When you finally "give-in" to your forbidden food, eating will be experienced with such intensity, it usually results in Last Supper overeating, and overwhelming guilt.

Tips for Making Peace with Food:

1. Give yourself unconditionall permission to eat WHATEVER you want. There is NO SUCH THING AS A BAD FOOD!!!

2. Beware of giving yourself "psuedo-permission" by telling yourself you can eat what you like, but continuing to hold onto guilty thoughts when you do eat forbidden foods.

3. Do not deprive yourself of any food that sounds appealing.

4. Observe how your body feels when eating this food and how satisfying it is to your tongue. Write it down or make a mental note of these feelings.

5. Keep an ample supply of all the foods that you think you might like to eat. Restock when supplies get low.

Alot of people feel that this step will actually lead to weight gain and uncontrollable eating. The truth: at first it may but as you truly allow yourself freedom with food and you have made complete peace with food and know that what you like will always be available to you, you'll be able to stop after a moderate amount.

Kid friendly Thanksgiving breakfast idea

Picky eaters at your house?

Try this "Turkey" for a healthy, delicious, and creative way to start the day!

To make pumpkin flavored pancakes, use regular pancake mix, and made it according to the package directions, but add 1 cup of pumpkin puree, and then another 1/4 cup of the pancake mix. I'll bet if you added some pumpkin pie spice these would taste like pumpkin pie!
We cooked them like we regularly do, shaping them as seen above.
Use orange segments for the beak and feet, raisin (or chocolate chip) for the eye, bananas cut length-ways for the feathers, and jam to make them look like turkeys. We topped them with cool whip and jam and/or syrup.

Thanks to Sharla for the awesome idea! Click on the link below for more!
http://mygratitudeattitudes.blogspot.com/2008/11/pumpkin-flavored-turkey-pancakes.html

Hate the LOVE (handles!) aka obliques

Modified Triangle Pose

(Repeat...The Holidays are HERE people! I'm reposting this to save ALL of our waistbands this Thanksgiving!)

This is a yoga pose designed to strengthen the obliques (love handles).

Start by laying on your side, shoulder in line with your elbow.

Feet are stacked on top of each other.

Use your top hand to push your body up into THIS pose. Top arm reaches to the ceiling.

**LIFT YOUR WAISTBAND TO THE SKY** (this is THE trick!)

Eyes can look up to the ceiling like THIS pic. OR down to the ground like the first pic.
Hold this pose for 30 seconds.
FOCUS: 1. Lifting waistband to the ceiling 2. breath slow, deep in through nose, out through mouth.

HAPPY TRIANGLE-ing!

Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious Brownies

BROWNIES...

healthy Style :)

Be PREPARED!! If you Lu-uuuve dessert like I do, here is an awesome recipe to take to holiday parties. This way, YOU are in control! You know there will be a healthy dessert option for you!! Ahhhhhhh, goodbye sabotage!!

These brownies are low in calories (only 133 per brownie) and saturated fat. They're also packed with 3 grams of fiber (which is just crazy for a brownie!), while spinach and carrots provide two powerful antioxidants.

Ingredients:

•Nonstick cooking spray
•3 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate
•1⁄2 cup carrot puree (After peeling and trimming the ends, steam carrots for 10-12 minutes and then puree in a food processor for 2 minutes)
•1⁄2 cup spinach puree (Steam for 30 seconds, then puree in a food processor for 2 minutes)
•1⁄2 cup firmly packed light or dark brown sugar
•1⁄4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
•2 tablespoons trans-fat-free soft tub margarine spread
•2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
•2 large egg whites
•3⁄4 cup oat flour, or all-purpose flour
•1⁄2 teaspoon baking powder
•1⁄2 teaspoon salt
Preparation:

1.Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Coat an 8x8-inch baking pan with cooking spray.
2.Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or over a very low flame.
3.In a large bowl, combine the melted chocolate, vegetable purees, sugar, cocoa powder, margarine, and vanilla, and whisk until smooth and creamy, 1 to 2 minutes.
4.Whisk in egg whites. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt with a wooden spoon.
5.Pour the batter into the pan and bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely in the pan before cutting into 12 bars.
Yield:
12 brownies

Nutritional Information:
Per brownie: 120 calories, 2 g fiber, 2.5 g protein, 19 g carbohydrate, 4.4 g fat, 1.7 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 149 mg sodium, 31% of calories from fat.

Honoring Your Hunger

Principle #2 is to Honor Your Hunger. This principle entails keeping your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. If you tend to eat off of triggers other than your hunger you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Learning how to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for rebuilding trust with yourself and food.

Tips for Honoring Your Hunger:

1. Begin to listen to the smallest noise or feeling that indicates you are experiencing hunger.
a. these include a growling or grumbling stomach, slight headache, lack of mental focus,
grouchiness and lack of energy

2. Take to time to eat as soon as recognize your hunger

3. Don't neglect your hunger signals this can lead to overeating. On a scale of 0 to 10 try
eating around a 3 or 4. A zero is when your stomach is completely empty, a 10 is when
your are stuffed to the max, therefore a four is about the time when you first start to
realize you are getting hungry

4. Many people state that they can go for hours without feeling hunger. You have specifically
trained your body to do this so now you have to untrain it. If this is you, start by eating on
a schedule, your body will learn this and then you will be able to recognize your hunger
cues.

5. Be prepared-make sure you are prepared for all kinds of situations.

Lunge

If your thighs are burning after a quick run up the stairs, this one is for you!

Lunge: Glutes, Quadriceps

Start:
-Align feet shoulder width apart, then scoot one foot back until you have a LONG distance between the front heel and the back toe.
-Pull bellybutton in towards the spine and up towards the heart.
-Stand tall, pelvis tucked under
Next: Slowly bend both knees, lowering the entire body down to the ground.
**Front knee stays on TOP of the front ankle or BEHIND. Never allow the front knee to extend over the front ankle

Last:

-Go as far down as is comfortable for YOU. You should NOT feel pain, but fatigue.
-As you come back up, squeeze your "cheeks" aka glutes. I ALWAYS say in my classes, "Pretend you have a $100 bill in your crack! Squeeze tight!"

Switch Feet and repeat the above to tone the other leg!

REPS:

Beginner: One set of 8 reps on each, 10 reps on each. Rest between reps

Intermediate: Two sets of 12 on each leg, rest. 1 set of 12 (holding weights) on each leg. Rest between reps

Advanced: Add weight, holding at your waist. 3 sets of 12 on each leg. Rest between reps

REMEMBER: This is using a large muscle group which will increase your heart rate=burning calories. To keep heart rate up while resting muscles between sets, walk, jog in place.

I can NOT wait to hear how awesome your legs feel and LOOK!!

Enjoy~ Lacee

Easy Chicken Pot Pie

Light, hearty, and DELICIOUS!
Here's an awesome recipe I found from Taste of Home cooking magazine.

Easy Chicken Pot Pie

1 can (10-3/4 oz) reduced fat, reduced sodium cream of chicken soup (undiluted)
1 can (10-3/4 oz) reduced fat, reduced sodium cream of mushroom soup (undiluted)
1/2 cup plus 2/3 cup fat-free milk, divided
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/8 tsp. poultry seasoning
2 pkgs (16 oz each) frozen mixed veggies, thawed
1-1/2 cups cubed cooked chicken breast
1-1/2 cups reduced-fat biscuit/baking mix

In a large bowl, combine soups, thyme, pepper and poultry seasoning. Stir in vegetables and chicken.
Transfer to a 13x9 inch dish coated with cooking spray. In a small bowl, stir biscuit mix and remaining milk just until blended. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto chicken mixture.
Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes or until filling is bubbly and biscuits are golden brown.

ENJOY! -Lacee

Nutrition Facts:
1-1/3 cups chicken mixture with 2 biscuits equals 342 calories, 5 grams fat (2 grams saturated), 36 mg cholesterol, 871 mg sodium, 53 g carbs, 7 g fiber, 21 g protein

Dieting: That's for other birds!

Intuitive Eating Principle #1: Ditch the Dieting




Go against everything you've ever learned about dieting and discard it. Get rid of the diet books and magazine articles that offer the promise of quick, easy and permanent weight loss through dieting.



Tips for ditching the diet:


1. Commit yourself to a new way of thinking and rediscover your


inner intuitive eater. It's in there you just need to find it. Take


the example of a toddler, they are the perfect intuitive eater.


2. Throw out all the diet books, articles, videos, etc that promote the ideas of dieting

3. When people talk about the newest fad diet, avoid getting drawn in. Reaffirm your commitment to ditching the dieting

4. Protect your food boundaries by refusing to allow others to tell you what to eat, when to eat, or how much to eat. Don't allow comments about your weight or body derail you.

5. If you start to notice your are feeling rebellious or beginning to eat unconciously, check in with yourself to see if you're still holding on to diet thinking and rules.

Principles and Tips from Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works

Intuitive Eating VS. Calorie Counting

Intuitive Eating Vs. Calorie Counting

A question was posed on if you can combine both intuitive eating and calorie counting to help you lose weight or if you would do them seperately. The answer really isn't an easy one because it's both. The intuitive eating process is a combination of 10 steps (kind of like in AA) that once you master them should result in changed eating habits that you will carry for a lifetime and not have to worry about the day to day watching of calories.

These steps are:
1. Reject the Diet Mentality
2. Honor Your Hunger
3. Make Peace with Food
4. Challenge the Food Police
5. Feel Your Fullness
6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor
7. Cope with your Emotions without Using Food
8. Respect Your Body
9. Exercise-Feel the Difference
10. Honor Your Health-Gentle Nutrition

In all reality these steps may take months to years (yes years!) to master. So in the meantime it really is important to be at least subconsciously aware of what you are putting in your body and what you are burning off. The common question during the process is "If I let myself eat whatever I want, won't I eat uncontrollably and gain lots of weight and be unhealthy?". The Answer: "When you have made complete peace with food and know what you like will always be available to you, you'll be able to stop eating after a moderate amount" The authors of the book have found " in case after case, that giving yourself permission to eat whatever you like ultimately results in a 90-10 balance of food choice. You'll find, after you have finally made peace with food, that about 90 percent of your food choices will be fairly light and nutritionally healthy and 10 percent will be play food." At this point watching calories doesn't become an issue because you have mastered the intuitive eater in yourself. It's always important though to keep the food guide pyramid in the back of your mind and continue to exercise.

I hope this has helped. If people would like me to I will post in the next couple weeks some tips on how to begin and master these 10 principles, just let us know if you feel this would be beneficial to you. -Jalaine

Quotes taken from the book Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works

shoulder, upper body

Shoulder

Start:

1. Feet shoulder distance apart, abs in and up, pelvis tucked under.

2. Hold a weight in each hand (or modify by using resistance only. NO weights) 1-10 lbs.

3. Raise weights to shoulder height.

4. Bring elbows together to the center of your body
5. REPEAT! Out, in, out, in, etc!!
Do 8-12 reps, 3-4 sets, at least 3 X week!

I hope your exercise program is increasing and your strength is, too!! If you have been using
3 lb weights or less for at least 3 months, MOVE TO 5 lbs!!! Don't hold yourself back!!

Try to get at least 25 minutes of cardio in today,sugar detox my friends!