The combination of staying up far too late, working too much, spending too much time in front of my computer, rushing to eat meals while working in a commercial gym exposing myself to a cocktail of germs, finally took it’s toll on me.  My energy output far exceeded my input, and after a month of constantly being in hyper-drive, my body said, “Uh uh, girl, you need to slow down”.

Needless to say, the last week has lacked in the workout department.  Keeping in mind that exercise is a stressor on the body, I will adjust my workouts while I am sick to allow my body to heal.  And for me, that usually means refraining from strength and cardio based exercises.  I do, however, keep up with my pilates workouts which I find help regenerate, rather than deplete me.

Often times, we are so focused on our physical body (what we look like on the outside, how much weight we’ve lost, what size we are, etc), we forget that we also have a mental, emotional, and spiritual body as well.  And just like as our physical body needs to workout, so do the others.

It’s a bit disappointing for me to admit to you and to myself, but I’ve found that it usually takes a cold or sheer exhausation for me to stop and care for the mental, spiritual and emotional bodies, mainly because my physical body just can’t do much.  So over the last few days, I was pretty much forced into slowing down which made a little room for me to take care of my other bodies.

That being said, here are a few exercises that we can do to keep our mental, emotional and spiritual bodies in shape.  The Non-Workout Workout, I call it.  Enjoy!

Mental Workout

This is the intellectual body,  the body that generates ideas, the body that is responsible for our capacity to learn.  Here are some exercises we can do to stimulate this body:

1. Read a well balance of fiction vs. non-fiction material.  Different genres stimulate different areas of our brain.  Non-ficiton material helps us accumulate more knowledge, and can be very practical, this stimulates the left side of our brain.  The side that’s more analytical, logical and fact-based.  Fiction material on the other hand, taps into the right side of the brain, which is personally where I function 99% of the time.  This is our creative, feeling and intuitive side.  Reading a mixture of both non-ficion and fiction material keeps both sides of our brain in shape.  I mean, you wouldn’t do lunges on just your right side without the left, right?
2. Play with crossword puzzles, Sudoku, Words with Friends, etc.  Research has shown that intellectually stimulating activity is known to have the potential to stave off Alzheimer’s and other brain disease.Learn more:Brain exercise works: crossword puzzles stave off Alzheimer’s

Emotional Workout

The emotional body is the accumulation of all of our, well, emotions!  This is where we feel, where we love, where we feel anger, hurt, pain, disappointment, joy, fear, excitement, etc.

Just like our physical body, it is also important that we exercise our emotional body.  I find that as a society, we  place a lot of negative stigma on expressing our emotions  and this can be quite challenging to deal with.  Men have to be “strong” and tend to withold fully expressing emotions in the fear that it may de-masculanize them.  As a woman, we are meant to be emotional, but if we’re too emotional, we’re crazy, or PMS’ing, or have hormonal issues.  If we’re not emotional enough, we’re just a straight up bitch.

I feel that our general suppression of emotions and even the supression of our sexuality, has created unneccesary stress and anxiety on us, which I believe has lead to a lot of our societal and inter-relationship issues.  Here are some ideas to help exercise your emotional body:

1. Talking to friends and family or even going to therapy.  By addressing our thoughts, feelings, and conerns verbally and sharing it with another human, we can release unneccessary anxiety surrounding our emotions.  Sometimes just saying things out loud is enough to mitigate a situation.
2. Journaling.  If you are not ready yet to express your emotions to someone else, keeping a journal that you confide in is an effective tool that can be used in your emotional workout program.  You’ll not only be able to get emotions off your chest in a constructive manner, but you’ll be able to keep a record of these emotions so that you can look back to find any patterns that may pop up in your life.
3. Perform some chakra based exercises.  If there is an area of your life you are struggling with, relationships, money, love, sex, etc, performing various body weight exercises that bring energy back into the corresponding chakras can help.   The following are links to the varous chakra posts:

• 1^st chakra – Perform these if you are struggling with finances.
• 2^nd chakra – Hit these up if you’re having issues with sex or sexuality.
• 3^rd chakra – Struggling with your self-power and self-worth?  Try these.
• 4^th chakra – Relationship woes?  Gotta do these.   
• 5^th chakra – If you’re stressed because you can’t get something off your chest, or if you’re a writer and hit a block, check these out.
• 6^th chakra – This is your vision.  If you’re stumped about what’s the next step in your life, read about it here.
• 7^th chakra – Sorry guys, I’ll be posting this blog next week.  However, since the 7^th chakra is tied to our spirituality, the next section will give you a better idea on how to tap into this chakra.

Spiritual Workout

1. Meditation.  There are many ways we can define meditation, and there really is no right or wrong way.  Whatever you consider to be meditation works.  The point with meditation is to get you connected back to yourself, and in doing so, connects you back to the world around you.  Whether you go for a walk, garden, cook or sit in silence while listening to flute music and burning incense, it’s all good.
2. Attending retreats or partaking in spiritual practices.  Spirituality means something different for everyone.  It could mean going to a storytelling group, a church, or if you’re like me, it means banging on a drum with a Peruvian shaman.  Regardless of your spiritual practices, being involved in a group of like-minded individuals provides a level of connection that we all seek and need on a very primal level.  Heck, I’d even consider sports teams and even Crossfit a little cultish “spiritual” since these groups bring people together to accomplish a shared goal.

I know this was a little off the track from the last several posts I’ve done on workouts, but I felt that it was necessary to talk about given the week that I had with resting my physical body.  I strongly feel that when we can begin to look at the body as one unifying entity that houses various different aspects of existence can we truly achieve lasting health and happiness.  And as I said earlier, even for me it usually takes a big blow to my physical body that makes me stop and pay attention to the emotional, spiritual and mental aspects that I tend to neglect.

I hope that this posts was helpful to you in some capacity, and I’d love to hear what your thoughts.  Leave me your comments below.  Thanks my friend!

As a quick reference guide, I’ve listed the basic description of the the sacral chakra as well as the physical, mental and emotional ailments of each, along with healing modalities.

Descriptions:

Sanskrit name: Ajna or to perceive, to know

Location: Above and between the eyebrows

Associated color: Indigo

Main Issues: Intuition, Wisdom

Endocrine Gland: Pituitary

Body parts: Eyes, and the base of the skull

Astrological sign: Sagittarious, Pisces

Sense: Sixth sense

When the root chakra is too open, or spins too fast, we can become authoritarian, arrogant and highly logical.

When the root chakra is blocked, or sluggish, we can set our sights too low and fear success.

When the root chakra is balanced, we are charismatic, highly intuitive and may even experience unusual phenomena.

Healing Modalities for the 6th chakra

Crystals: Amethyst, Fluorite, Azurite

Fragrances: Rose geranium, Violet

Meditations for the 5th chakra:

• I recognize the need for silence and stillness in my life. Translation: I need “me” time.
• Making mistakes enables me to learn, grow, and develop.  Translation:  I’m not perfect, and its totes cool to mess up every now and then.
• The answer to all my questions lies within me.  Translation: I am the captain of my own ship.

Self-Reflection Questions for the 5th chakra:

• When was the last time you sat in silence and listened to your inner voice?
• Do you look outside yourself for answers?  Recollect a time that you looked outside yourself for an answer, and dissect what happened in that situation.
• Do you trust your instincts and intuition?  When was the last time you did so?  What happened?

 Movement Therapy for the 6th chakra

Instead of a physical exercise for the 6^th chakra, we can use colors and mandals to develop a better vision for our 3^rd eye.  A mandala is a sacred art form that consists of geometric shapes that are used in meditative practices.  One way to use mandalas in practice is by actually coloring them.  Below is an example of a mandala that you can print and color using crayons, pens, markers or colored pencils.  You can also find mandala coloring books online.  Here’s a link to one that I use:  Everyone’s Mandala Coloring Book

Anywho, back to the beets.  Well, the real ones that is.  As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been experimenting a bit with my food which have included eating foods with more Vitamin A, hence the carrot salad, and reducing my starch intake.   Beets, however, seem to be a great choice as they have anti-bacterial and anti-fungal qualities which is great for digestion.

Thus, the reason behind today’s recipe.  I did a little research online and found several recipes that included goat cheese (which, you could very easily do) yet since I do not tolerate dairy very well, I opted out.  This would be a great side dish, you could toss it in with a salad or just eat on it’s own…much like I’m doing right now.

Enjoy!

Raw Citrus Beet Salad with Mint

Ingredients

• 2 raw organic beets
• 2 organic oranges (I used 1 blood orange and 1 navel orange)
• ½ organic lemon
• Fresh organic mint
• Fresh organic parsley
• ½ tsp. sea salt

Directions

Grate the beets in a big mixing bowl.

Squeeze the juice of just 1 of the oranges into the beets.

• Save the other orange to add in the actual salad. Peel and cut up the orange in small triangular shapes like the picture below shows.
• Add the juice of ½ a lemon
• Remove the mint and parsley leaves from their respective stems and chiffonade the leaves.  Chiffonade is just fancy lingo for cutting herbs into long strips.  Chiffonade baby. Chiffonade. Throw into the mixture.
• Add the sea salt and stir until everything gets mixed together all nice.
• Top off with some extra mint and parsley, and a few orange slices so it looks pretty.

So it is not uncommon to see titles like:

• Ab Blaster
• Tighten and Tone Your Arms
• Feel the BURN!

And words like this: Extreme, Intense, Attack.

In media, we see something similar with our wording:

• The “battle” of the bulge
• The “fight” against cancer
• The obesity “epidemic”

It’s as if we are in a war against our own bodies and I got to thinking: Why are we attacking and almost, punishing our bodies when most of us are overworked, overstressed, undernourished, and lacking love in our lives.  Why do we find the need to punish ourselves even more?

I mean really.  Do you really want to “blast” your abs?  When I hear this I think of blasting the side of a mountain with dynamite.  Do we want to blast the very part of our body that gives us structural integrity?

I dunno, maybe I’m just rambling a little, but it just does not make sense to me.

Its marketing like this that conditions us to think that “pain” is “gain”.  That being completely debilitated after a session is a sign of a good workout.  That a trainer is a good trainer because he or she can make it difficult for you to squat and pee after a class.

Its all pretty silly to me.

I posted a few weeks back on Facebook that I just don’t get what our fascination is with bragging about how sore we are after a workout.  And it stirred a little commotion at the gym amongst my co-workers.  I mean, I get it.  It means that change is occurring in the body, we tear our muscles to build them back up, yadda yadda yadda, yeah I get it.  But its more so the mentality of how we view our workouts that I’m trying to get at here.

I mean, even the term “workout” implies that we are giving up some part of us.  But aren’t our workouts suppose to be giving us something?  Like better health, a better body, and a better sense of being?

It’s no wonder with a mentality like this that we feel our bodies are working against  us.  We are dieting like crazy and working out like crazy, and yet we’re not seeing any results.

For instance, just this week I started working with a nutrition and lifestyle client who was struggling with this.  She had a typical story, a 33 year old stay at home mother of 3, she wasn’t overweight by any means, but she suffered from fatigue, anxiety, GI issues and cardioitis…you know, that deadly condition of being addicted to cardio and yet not losing any weight.  She came to me so that she could learn how to eat better, to have a better relationship with her body and just to feel better.  But what was her workout schedule?

5-6 days at the gym at the ass-crack of dawn to do 30 minutes of cardio on her own BEFORE a 60 minute cardio class.

Uh, no wonder she was tired.

She even admitted that she didn’t actually like cardio – that she forces herself to do it.  And just as if we were to force an animal into a corner, our body will defend itself.  If that’s the case, good luck trying to get your body on your side.  Yet, we continue to slave away forcing ourselves to stick to workouts and diets that give us no pleasure.

I mean, is this what we’ve come to?

I just don’t get it.

So what I trying to say in this post is that I think it’s time for us to take a step back and re-evaluate how we look at our attitudes towards our workouts and our bodies.  Instead of attacking our body and causing pain on our body, why don’t we look at ways to be in harmony with our body?  I mean, we live in our body, it is ours, we own it, why do we treat it like a red-headed stepchild? (no offense to my red-headed readers).

Let’s find ways to nourish our bodies, to heal our bodies.

Part of that may actually mean not working out.

Part of that may actually mean eating more calories.

Part of that may actually mean being honest with yourself about what you want with life.

And a part of that may actually mean addressing emotional issues that are causing you poor health rather than hopping from one program to the next trying to find your “answer”.

So, the next time you head to the gym, ask yourself: Am I at war against my own body?

Since most of us spend a good portion of our time hunched forward in front of a laptop or sitting in a car, our chest and shoulders tend to take a beating and our back tends to get neglected which can lead to all sorts of postural and muscular imbalances.  Hello forward head and rounded shoulders.

No wonder your back hurts. (Picture courtesy of http://www.primeoflifefitness.com/)

As a trainer, I take this into consideration with my clients, and will focus more on developing a stronger back through rowing and pulling type of exercises as well as exercises that focus on thoracic extension.  On average, I will general tend to do a ratio of 2:1 or even 3:1 pulling to pushing exercises.  Meaning for every 1 pushing based movement like a push up, I will do 2 or even 3 pulling, rowing or extension focused exercises.

In today’s workout you will find a great combination of mobility, strength and pilates exercises that focuses on rowing, pulling, extension, and spinal rotation to help bring more strength and mobility to our back.  Oh and as an added little treat, I throw in a little jump roping to kick up the heart rate a bit.

To make it easy for you to follow along, I’ve also included a downloadable PDF that you can print out and take to your gym to follow along.  As the weeks go by, you’ll soon have a file of workouts that you can use and then rotate when it’s time to progress.

Take a stab at the workout, and let me know how it goes.

If you’d like more workouts and downloads like this, leave me a comment below so that I can keep you up to date!

As a quick reference guide, I’ve listed the basic description of the the sacral chakra as well as the physical, mental and emotional ailments of each, along with healing modalities.

Descriptions:

Sanskrit name: Vishudha or “purification”

Location: Centrally at the base of the neck

Associated color: Blue

Main Issues: Communication and self-expression

Endocrine Gland: Thyroid and parathyroid

Body parts: Mouth, throat, and ears

Astrological sign: Gemini, Virgo

Sense: Sound/hearing

Ailments

Physical ailments: Sore throats, neckaches, low or over-active thyroid, asthma, tinnitus

Emotional dysfunctions: Inability to express emotions, blocked creativity and perfectionism.

When the root chakra is too open, or spins too fast, we can become dogmatic, self-righteous, and arrogant.

When the root chakra is blocked, or sluggish, we feel that we can’t fully express ourselves, we feel like we are not heard, and we can become unreliable.

When the root chakra is balanced, we find it easy to express our thoughts verbally, we are good communicators with others, and are artistically inspired.

Healing Modalities for the 5th chakra

Crystals: Turquoise, Aquamarine, Lapis lazuli 

Fragrances: Chamomile, Myrrh

Meditations for the 5th chakra:

• What I have to say is worthy of being listened to.  Translation: My opinion matters.
• I listen to others carefully and consider their thoughts and feelings.  Translation: I understand that being a good communicator means being a good listener. 
• I always speak from the heart.  Translation: I say what I mean, and mean what I say.

Self Reflection Questions for the 5th chakra:

• When was the last time you spoke up in a conversation that you did not agree with?
• Do you feel you are able to express yourself verbally without hesitation to your partner, friends, family and co-workers?
• How do you express your feelings?  Do you journal? Write poetry? Or hold it all in?

Movement Therapy for the 5th chakra

The following video has 3 great exercise, the first called a Windmill uses the foam roller to increase mobility in the upper back,  the second, is a pilates exercise called “roll-over” and the 3rd is called “jackknife”.  These 3 exercises can be used to bring energy back to your throat chakra.  You can do this whenever you are feeling stressed, during your warm-up in a workout, in the morning, or right before you go to bed.

This is where I draw the line.

As much as I love bacon, there are times where I could use something a little different.  And when you’re looking for a protein source in the morning, eggs can get boring, smoked salmon just doesn’t taste as good without a bagel, and Jimmy Dean sausages don’t exactly make it on the my meal plan.

Thus, in an effort to come up with a quick, yummy and convenient breakfast option, I thought, “Hey, why don’t I make my own sausages?”.  Then I thought, “Hey, that’s a great idea!”.  And then this recipe happened.  Enjoy.

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ground organic turkey
• 4-6 sprigs of thyme
• 4-6 sprigs of rosemary
• 1/2 cup chopped parsley
• ½ tbs. sea salt
• ¼ red onion

Directions:

1. Chop a bunch of parsley, like a good handful of parsley.  Probably about ½ cup.
2. Remove the thyme and rosemary from their twigs, and choppity chop chop into really fine pieces.
3. Dice up the red onion.
4. In a big mixing bowl, combine the ground turkey meat, the parsley, thyme, rosemary, red onions, and sea salt.
5. Mix together as if you were making meatloaf.
6. Form 1” meatballs by rolling them in your hands and then flatten them out until they almost cover the size of your palm.
7. Place them neatly on a cookie sheet.
8. This mixture will make about 14-16 patties.
9. Put an oven rack to the highest slot and turn your oven broiler on high.  Yes, we will use the broiler for this so they get crispy and golden brown.
10. Place the cookie sheet in the oven and cook for about 4 minutes, take out the cookie sheet, flip the sausages over and cook for another 4 minutes.
11. After about 8 minutes they should be done, but it’s always a good idea to check first.  The juices should run clear and the turkey should not be pink.

**A note about cooking with the broiler.  Since the purpose of the broiler is to mimic the effects of cooking on a grill, you will need good air supply into the oven, so when you are cooking the sausages be sure to leave the oven door slightly open.  You will not be able to walk away when you cook these.  As a saftey precaution, keep your eye on these suckers.  Unlike boiling water, these will cook up fast.**

 Cinnamony Coconutty Pears Recipe

 Ingredients

• 1 organic ripe Bosc pear
• 1 tbs. coconut oil
• Cinnamon

Directions:

1. Heat the coconut oil in a large skillet on medium heat.
2. While the pan is heating, cut the stems off the pear, cut in half and scoop out the seeds.
3. Slice the pear into ¼” thick slices.
4. When the pan is hot, place the pears in the pan and cook for 3-4 minutes on the first side.
5. Sprinkle cinnamon over the top side and then flip over, cooking for another 3 minutes.
6. Sprinkle cinnamon on the first side.
7. Flip over one last time for about 1 minute.
8. Serve with your favorite breakfast protein and a side of carrots.

When you begin to heal your metabolism from the inside out, there is a lot that goes on in the body that we cannot see like re-building muscle, replenishing your glycogen stores, repairing tissue, and re-building bone mass.  And guess what…they all weigh something.  Meaning, there is a chance that you may not lose a lot of weight at first, or you may even (gasp!) gain weight.  However, this is all part of the healing process and just the first step in your journey.

Aside from weight, circumference measurements and body fat percentage (yes, I do use weight and will continue to use this as only 1 small part of the assessment process), I also use photos as a way to track progress.  Since I have all of my clients take photos,  I have some seen some pretty interesting interprations of “before” pictures.

Now, you don’t have to have the latest SLR or any fancy lighting equipment to take good pictures.  However, there are some things that we can do to make sure that we have quality photos so that you can see your progress clearly.  By taking the time to get set up, we can avoid photos that look like they belong on MySpace.

But first here are 2 of the biggest things to avoid when taking your photos:

1. Do not stand in front of the mirror, lifting your shirt and take a picture through the reflection in the mirror.  That’s cheesy and makes for really crappy photos.  Just don’t do it.
2. Even if you have the latest iPhone, do not take pictures on your camera phone.  Quality is just so much better with an actual digital camera.

Great abs, but she should probably be focused on watching the kids. We'll talk about them later in this post.

Ok, now you know what not to do lets move on to how to take quality before photos  For starters, here is what you will need for equipment:

1.  A decent digital camera.  As I mentioned you do not need to  have a fancy schmancy camera.  The pictures you’ll see later in the post were taken with the very first digital camera I bought back in 2007.
2. A tripod.  This will allow you to take leveled pictures.  I highly recommend a tripod because you can easily adjust the height to make sure you get most of your body in the picture.  Plus a tripod is a lot steadier than a hand…clearly.
3. A bikini for girls, or short swimtrunks for guys.  You really want to show some skin for this.  That is the whole purpose.  Even though we will be mostly tracking how your body composition changes, we’ll also  be able to see changes in skin conditions (acne, rosacea, psoriasis, etc) as well as postural changes.  The more skin the better.  Heck, if you want to take photos in the nude, go right ahead…but you may want to keep those to yourself.  You also want to wear the exact same thing for every progress photo.  This is muy importante. If you change clothing, it can affect the way your body looks like if a swimsuit is tighter around the waist, it will give you more muffin top than what may actually be there.  So, be sure to wear the same thing so we can see how the clothing fits on you as your body changes.

This is why you'll want to get a tripod.

For your environment, you’ll need this:

1.  A blank wall free of any major distractions like pictures, furniture, a window, your dog, your boyfriend, or your pile of dirty laundry in the corner.  Seriously, clear some space and stand in front of a blank wall.  The less distraction the better.  (Remember those kids playing in the bathtub?  Cute, but they don’t belong in your progress photos!)
2. Good lighting.  You want to make sure that you are in an area that has light shining directly on you, and not coming from behind.  I don’t know much about photography, but I do know that you do not want the light source to be going in to the camera, you want the light source to come from behind the camera.
3. Even surface area.  This is where having a tripod comes in handy.  Make sure that you are standing on even ground so that your pictures don’t look like a drunkard took them.
4. I will also recommend that you take your photos at the exact same time of day to make sure that the lightining is the same.
5. Also, it’s a good idea to mark the ground with tape to make sure that your feet are placed the same distance apart.

Ok, now this is how you actually take the pictures:

1. Set up your tripod so that you can see the whole body at least down to your knees, ideally all the way down to your feet.  Again, we can also look at skin and postrual changes along with how your body is changing shape.
2. Make sure your hair is tied back and off or your neck.
3. Put on your bikini and swim suit.
4. If you are taking your photos alone, then use the timer button on your camera to take your pictures automatically.  If you have someone with you, I still recommend to use a tripod so that we minimize any shaking.
5. Take multiple photos of each side during each session so you have a few choices to pick from.  You’d be surprised how often one eye will look smaller than the other, or how lighting can change.  I recommend to take 2-3 in each position. Then when you upload your photos to your computer or laptop, you can pick the one that looks the best.
6. You want to take 3 sets of photos:

a. Front – stand hip width distance apart with your arms straight to your side with your hands facing your hips. Don’t worry about sucking in, or trying to stand, just let your body take position.

b. Right side – Same as front, hip width distance, palms facing in.

c. Back – ditto.

Other tips to make them even better:

1. Take your pictures at the same time of day during the same day each week.  I suggest to take your pictures during the middle of the week like on a Wednesday morning.  Typically, most of us are going to go out to dinner or to a party on the weekend, so taking your photos on a Sunday morning may not give you an accurate view.  However, if you took your before photos after a night out, your afters will just look that much better, hee-hee.
2. For women, I recommend to take your photos immediately following your cycle, between days 7-10.  Since rises in estrogen can cause bloating, its best to take the photos when estrogen is on the lower point, which is during menstruation and right beforehand.  However, I find that most clients are bloated right before and during menstruation, so doing it immediately after seems to work best.

Here are some photos to give you an idea:

My latest progress photos from January 17th, 2012

A note about uploading photos:

If you noticed here, I have cropped the photos and placed them side by side.  This really gives us a better view when it comes to looking at the body.  Instead of e-mailing 3 different jpegs, put them all in one Word document so that you just upload one file.  This will make it easier for us to organize and track your photos.

And to help make it even easier for you, I’ve created a Word Document that you can literally plug-in your photos, crop them to fit, and send them off to me.  Yay for efficiency!

If you are planning on participating in the next Lean Body Challenge, or if you have progress photos to send me for our private coaching, please use this template.

—–> > > > Progress Photos Tracking Template < < < < —–

Now that we’ve taken care of the progress photos, I’ll post a blog about how to take accurate measurements.  If you’re a trainer or coach, please feel free to download the template and use for yourself as well.

If you have been following us on Facebook then you know that over the last month we’ve been involved in a 28-day nutrition and lifestyle make-over called the Lean Body Challenge.  I had friends and clients from Boston to as far as D.C. participate in this virtual coaching program, and everything that we did was all online, from the food tracker, the measurements, the progress photos as well as personal coaching via e-mail.

Once everyone completed their final online assessment and updated their online Measurement Tracker, I sat down and narrowed the finalists down to 3.  I based the winners off 3 categories:

•     The percentage of inches lost
•    The quality of the before and after photos (meaning, you could see a noticeable difference in body shape)
•    A final essay question

I did not want to base the winner off the percentage of weight lost since weight can fluctuate on a daily basis.  I also did not want to focus on weight either since I find that we can get so caught up in this number, when it really does not give us the whole picture.  Since this program is based off making long-term lifestyle changes and healing the metabolism from the inside out I felt that inches, the photos and the essay question were much accurate measurements of progress.

It really came down to the 3 finalists and after mulling it over Sarah F., came out as the overall winner.  She is now the recipient of a $100 cash prize.  Woot woot!

Here’s what Sarah had to say:

I should win the LBC because I stuck very closely to the diet, and felt great!  I was able to see how my body reacted to a clean and healthy digestive system.  I was able to get into some meditating at the end with my new yoga class and felt great.  I started doing interval training and will definitely keep it up.

Most importantly, I became more disciplined with my eating habits, introduced WAY more fruits and veggies in my diet than I have before and ate only lean, organic, free range protein.  I discovered the way I should feel on a regular basis and have decided to use the LBC diet as the basis for my diet from now on.

I recognize that I probably will have cheese and ice cream and wine again, but I think if I can do that only on special occasions and use the LBC diet as my diet to stick with at home.

Even though we had to announce one winner, the race was so close that we decided to award 2 additional prizes for the 2 runner ups, who were Sheila D. and Aliza S.  Both Sheila and Aliza will receive one month of our Maintenance Plan, that includes unilimited e-mailing coaching, daily feedback with the online food tracker, bi-weekly assessments, diet and lifestyle modifications and fine-tuning, as well as a customized workout.  Not too shabby if you ask me.

To everyone who participated in the Challenge, I want to express just how proud and excited I am for you and all the changes that you’ve made in your life.  As a coach and a friend, I was really touched by all of your e-mails, notes, and messages on Facebook.  This has been an amazing experience and I am so grateful that I was able to come along for the ride and support you through your journey.

Congrats Sarah, you rocked it.  Let’s show Sarah some love by leaving her a comment below!

Now, I’m not denying that heavy squatting and dead lifting won’t help promote hypertrophy in your derrière, yet, based off the results I’ve seen in myself and my clients, I have found other ways to effectively train the glutes, as you will soon see.  All of these techniques have been put together to what my clients and I call “The Firm Butt Society”…more details on this elite group in a future blog.

From playing around with different workouts and protocols, I’ve found a few things that have worked in regards to effectively targeting and re-shaping the glutes:

1.  If the gluteal muscles are weak or inhibited, most of your hip extension is going to come from your hamstrings.  Meaning, when the glutes can’t be used to extend the hip (which could be for many reasons) something has to create movement, and typically that means the hammies take over.

2.  Running on the treadmill can exacerbate hamstring dominance during hip extension since the treadmill helps to extend the legs back which takes work away from the gluteals.  Ever notice that a lot of long distance runners or those girls at the gym that slave away on the treadmill typically have really well developed hamstrings, but no butt?  Well, this is partially why.

3.  Super fast hill sprints are great for the butt.

4.  So are single leg variations of anything, like single leg RDLs, single leg hip bridges and single leg squats.

5.  An anteriorly tilted pelvis can make it very difficult for the leg to move smoothly inside the hip socket, and this can inhibit hip extension.  When the pelvis is tilted forward, whether this is from tight hip flexors, a locked psoas, or weak abdominal muscles, the leg cannot  fully extend, which makes it harder to fully activate the glutes.

6.  Foam rolling the hip flexors before any sort of glute dominant exercise can help to release some tension which can improve hip extension thus recruiting more glute work.

7.  Sitting on your butt all day really can flatten your butt.  Sorry.

8.  Your digestion can actually affect the shape of your glutes.  Hear me out for a second on this one:  When you have gut dysfunction (could be from anything like food intolerances and leaky gut syndrome) the added pressure from inflammation can not only the inhibit abdominal wall but can also inhibit firing the pelvic floor muscles.

When these things happen, instability is created in the pelvis. And as a way to regain stability, the gluteal muscles kick in to provide support.  However, this creates false stability and over time, this can atrophy the larger butt muscles and lead to what is called “heart bottom syndrome”, which creates pancake butt.

9.  Oh, I should also mention that c-sections can do the same thing.

10.  A well-fitting pair of Lululemon’s can make any butt look good.  It’s like magic.

To give you a quick peak as to what we do in the FBS (Firm Butt Society), I’ve put together an effective lower body workout for you with emphasis on the booty.  You’ll even find videos for all of the exercises and the warm-up stuff on my YouTube channel and a free workout you can download at the end of the post so you can take it to your gym, ah yeah.

—–>>> Click here to download the workout for FREE <<<—–

If you’d like more workouts and downloads like this, leave me a comment below so that I can keep you up to date!