Chair Yoga -- If you can breathe, you can do it!

It's been quite a while since my last post!  A lot has happened!  First and foremost, I'm a new grandma!  It is truly one of most amazing things that can happen to a person.  Of course, being a mother is my most valued gift, but when you become a grandparent, all of the pressure of having total responsibility over this little life is gone and you can focus on being a support for the new parents and having fun!!!

Since my son and daughter in law live about 3 hours away, I decided to give up teaching my step class on Saturday morning so that Rick and I could be free to go visit on Friday night or early on Saturday and spend the most time with them that we could.  We are also empty-nesters again (at least for the school year) since Greg moved to the city in September, so if we want to go somewhere for the weekend, we are now free to do that.

Is my life any less busy?  Heck no!  Yes, I do sleep in on Saturdays now whenever I can, but I still teach 9 classes per week one of which I'm going to talk about today.

I began teaching Chair Yoga at my church, Our Saviour's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Arlington Heights, IL in January of 2015.  I took over the class when the current instructor could no longer do it.   I had no idea what a blessing this class would be!  Not only does it help me to slow down and focus on my mind and body connection, it introduced me to a wonderful group of people that I probably would not have otherwise met.

My two main mantras for this class are, "If you can breathe, you can do Chair Yoga," and "Focus on what you can do, not what you can't."  When I took over this class, there were about 15 people who came, we are over 30 strong now--it's AWESOME!!!

I'm sharing a video here for those of you who aren't quite sure what Chair Yoga really is.  Let's get clear what it isn't--it isn't just for seniors, it isn't just for the disabled, it isn't just for those with injury, it even isn't just for those that have a hard time doing traditional standing yoga--IT'S FOR EVERYONE!!!

If you want to increase your flexibility, enhance your posture, balance, and mind/body/spirit connection, then this class is for you!  If you are in the Arlington Heights area, feel free to drop in and give it a try!  We meet every Wednesday morning from 11:30 - 12:30.  A free will offering of $3.00 per class is encouraged.  Hope to see you there!

Namaste,

Happy 4th!!!

With the 4th of July just a couple of days away, I thought I'd share some lighter, healthier recipes to make and share at your picnic or barbeque.  All of these recipes are via Cooking Light Magazine and MyRecipes.com.

For starters how about a refreshing Watermelon Margarita?  It's only 105 calories and has very little sugar.

Next, doesn't this  Fire-Seared Antipasto Platter look amazing?  291 calories--you can make it veggies only and save quite a few calories.

Grilled chicken is a staple at any picnic, how about changing it up with this Grilled Chicken with White Sauce recipe?  Only 252 calories--less if you remove the skin before eating--leave it on to grill to maintain moistness in the chicken.

And a barbeque just isn't complete without Grilled Corn (there are 9 ways shown).

  

Lastly, we've got to have dessert!  How about a Blueberry Crisp -- only 217 calories!

or a Bourbon Glazed Grilled Peach with yogurt?  only 201 calories!

ENJOY!!!

Fitness 101 -- Aerobic vs Anaerobic Exercise

First of all, we have to answer the question, what is aerobic and anaerobic exercise?

I'm going to give you the simple answer.  Aerobic exercise means in the presence of oxygen, and anaerobic means without oxygen.  How that translates to exercise is simply this, when you are exercising aerobically, you can breathe and you can talk in at least a sentence at a time--you are exercising "with oxygen".  When you are exercising anaerobically, you can't breathe and you can only utter a word or two without having to take another breath--you are exercising "without oxygen".

There are all kinds of things that happen to your body physiologically, but this is really all you need to know.

I think the picture below describes it perfectly.  The runner on the right is working aerobically and at a steady pace.  The shadow on the right is what the runner would look like if they just sprinted all out to the finish line, gasping for air.

So, which is better?  My personal answer to that is neither.  They are both important and they both serve different roles when it comes to health and fitness.

Aerobic exercise is usually done for a longer period of time at a steadier pace.  Examples of this would be long distance running/jogging, walking, an aerobic exercise class such as step or zumba, swimming and biking.  The reason that this type of exercise is good is the fact that it can be done for a longer period of time, therefore increasing endurance.  Also, oxygen is needed in order to burn fat, so when working out aerobically, you are also burning fat--but more about this in a future post.

Anaerobic exercise is done in bursts.  For example, many sports are anaerobic because the running and/or jumping is done in spurts--soccer, football, basketball, tennis--the pace changes from slower to faster--it would be impossible to keep up the super fast pace the entire game.  This type of exercise challenges the muscles--especially the heart; the increase and decrease of heart rate is a workout in itself.  This type of exercise also burns more calories because more energy is needed and expended to do it.  But, because it's so hard to maintain this type of intensity, an anaerobic only workout would have to be relatively short in duration.

My solution?  Do both.  Mix up your workouts to include both aerobic and anaerobic exercises and here are a few ways to do that.

1.  Do Intervals.  During an interval workout, the pace/intensity changes at set "intervals" throughout the workout.  For example, during a walk, you would walk at a very fast pace for 1 minute followed by a slower pace for 2 minutes.  This is usually a strictly cardiovascular type of workout.  Your goal is to progess to the faster pace for longer and longer periods while decreasing your slower pace to make the interval look more like 2 minutes at the faster pace and 1 minute at the slower pace.  This can be done with any type of aerobic workout that I mentioned above.

2.  Cross train.  This is really important.  If you do the same workout over and over again negative things can happen.  1.  You can injure yourself due to overtraining (doing the same thing over and over again will take it's toll on you and your muscles)--trust me, I know about this one.  2. You can stop progressing--meaning that if you do the same thing over and over again, your body and your brain know what to expect--you will plateau in both weight loss and endurance.  So pick a completely different workout to do and alternate it with what you are doing now--take up a sport, take a different type of class, do some strength training.

3.  Circuit train.  This is the type of workout that I prefer to do.  It mixes aerobic exercises and strength training exercises to get a total body workout.  This type of workout can be done by setting a timer and doing an exercise for that specific amount of time and then moving onto another exercise for the same amount of time, or it can be done by counting repetitions--10 pushups followed by 20 jumping jacks, etc.  Because these exercises are done for short periods of time--usually not more than a minute, you can work out at a higher intensity and that is going to burn more calories.

Even though this is my preferred way to train,  I still cross train by going on hikes or bike rides, or doing yoga to keep my body as healthy as possible.

Next--Strength Training 101