I really do love to walk, because you can walk anytime, anywhere, and it’s FREE —my favorite four-letter word.  There is nothing that clears and works my mind and body more than an invigorating power walk at the beach in Santa Monica pumping my pink 2 pound dumbbells.  Did you know that walking is the #1 most popular exercise in America?  According to Prevention Magazine, 1 in 4 Americans use walking as their primary mode of exercise.  Here are my personal top trainer tips to get you out there stepping strong, and connecting your mind, body, and spirit too. 

1. Get Inspired!  Find one or a few awe inspiring walking routes, which will help motivate and inspire you.

2. Recruit a Walking Buddy.  Find a friend to walk with to give you support and motivation when you are feeling weak.

3. Calendar Your Walking Times.  Accountability is key to establishing any new behavior.  Make a plan.  Write your walking times on your monthly planner, http://www.google.com/calendar.

4. Add Upper Body Resistance.  Holding a pair of 2 pound dumbbells will create upper body resistance, and sculpt your chest, back, shoulders, and arms.  Plus, studies show power walking briskly with 2 pound dumbbells may increase your calorie burn by up to 40%!

5. Wear the Right Gear.  Wear sunscreen and sun protective clothing, especially a broad brimmed hat.  Excessive sun exposure causes cancer along with prematurely ageing your skin.  Check out Solumbra for great sun protective, active wear (Http://www.sunprecautions.com). Wear proper reflective clothing if you are walking early in the morning or evening when it dark outside.

6. Add Incline.  Find a set of stairs or climb a hill.  Incline ups your heart rate, which in turn ups your calorie burn—both during, and after you are walking.  It’s also a great way to tone your tush, and help you build a better butt.

7. Break Up Your Workout with Resistance Stations.  Resistance training builds lean tissue to create a sculpted physique, and helps your body burn more calories per day. Try 12 reps each of push-ups to side plank hold on a park bench, tricep dips on a park bench, lunges, and side lunges.  Carry a green SPRI resistance tube http://www.lindalarue.com/store_linda.html then, loop it around a tree for some standing rowing and horizontal core wood chops.  With a resistance you’re your training move possibilities are infinite.

Work Your Confident Muscle!
Provided by Maura Barclay

		Maura is a certified personal trainer, certified self-defense instructor, senior Sensei, Budokon teacher trainer, and one of the first people in the US to earn both a blue belt in Budokon and a Yoga Tune Up® teacher trainer. Presently, she is the Group Fitness Manager of the flagship Equinox Gym in Westwood, CA, where she teaches Budokon and Yoga Tune Up® classes. Unbreakable Woman™ is a mind-body practice that was born out of a deep desire to help women walk through the world in peace by combining martial arts and yoga. Unlike their portrayal in films and television, martial arts were created to help people transcend their aggressive ego-state to live in a more peaceful Zen-state. Yoga, a close cousin of martial arts, helps people surrender themselves to the art of living blissfully.

In a world where we are constantly bombarded by images of impossible physical standards, it’s easy to get wrapped up in what is not you.  Realize that the women you may subconsciously be allowing to define your standards of beauty are paid to have unrealistic bodies, and spend the majority of their time tending to this expectation. 

It’s completely valid that we should want what these women appear to have.  The truth is, the most beautiful and magnetic people share one glorious trait:  Confidence.  AND , confidence is not affected by age, lighting, or a few more pounds that we feel we may need to lose.

Instead of being confident in ourselves, we fear that we are not enough.  Most people’s “I’m afraid” muscle is over-developed, while the confidence muscle is loose and tentative.  Starting with very basic movements and concepts is a great way to begin to flex your Confidence Muscle.

Learning how to handle your own body weight will sculpt and tone your whole body, and teach you how to develop your confidence too!

Here are a few techniques I give to my client’s 1:1, and in self-defense seminars:

1. Counter Push-Ups – So named because they are push-ups done with your kitchen counter:)  Step your feet back from the counter about 3-4 feet.  Lean forward with your arms slightly wider than shoulder distance apart, hands forward.  Tuck your tail (scoop your hips like you’re trying to paste your belly button to your bottom ribs), engage your entire abdomen, and hold your body in a perfect plank position alignment as you slowly bend and straighten your elbows. 
   
   > 3 sets 10-12 – regular pace
   
   > 2 sets 8-10 – 3 counts to lower, 1 count to push away quickly
   
   > 2 sets 8-10 – 1 count to lower quickly, 3 count to push away slowly
   
   
2. Kickin’ Cat and Cow – This is a great core definer, and is excellent for your balance and coordination.  On all fours, with hands under your shoulders, knees, and hips.  Inhale, arch the back, and look up.  Exhale, pushing away from the floor and rounding your back.  Then, reach the right hand in front of you and extend your left leg behind you with a flexed foot on inhalition.  Exhale, bringing your knees and elbows under your body to touch, inhale extend again.
   
   > Cat/Cow – 10 repetitions
   
   > Reach/contract – 5 repetitions right arm/left leg
   
   > Reach/contract – 5 repetitions left arm/right leg
   
   
3. Pack a Punch! – This simple front punch is a great way to work up a sweat and your confidence.  Standing with your feet wider than shoulder distance apart in a comfortable stance, bending your knees no more than 90 degrees, sitting down into a squat.  Make fists with your hands ensuring that your thumb is folded over your middle finger.  Extend your right arm out for the punch, aiming for your midline (slightly inward) palm down.  Pull your left fist, palm up, to your waist.  This is called the "chambered" position."  As you punch, make sure your fists are rotating a half turn from palm up in chamber position, then, palm down when extending for the punch back to palm up at the hip in chamber position.  With each punch, exhale sharply making a loud “ssshhhhhh” sound, like steam escaping from your lungs.
   
   > 3 sets - 20 single punches (10 each arm)
   
   > 1 set – 20 single punches high (punch to opponents eye level)
   
   > 1 set – 20 single punches low (punch to opponents hip level)

For more great confidence building inspiration click here.

3 Tips Why Yoga Helps You Lose Weight
Provided by Jill Miller

		Jill Miller is the creator of Yoga Tune Up®.  She has over 2 decades of expertise in the movement arts, teaching classes, workshops and retreats internationally.  She has appeared in more than 36 DVD programs, including Pranamaya’s Yoga Link: Easy Access to an Ageless Art, Gaiam’s Yoga for Weight Loss Workout Kit DVD, www.gaiam.com, and her soon-to-be released Yoga Tune Up® At Home Program. For more information about Jill visit, www.yogatuneup.com

1. Because yoga also helps us to be totally present, we can also use mindfulness while we are eating, paying attention to the taste of food, and learning how to savor our bites instead of wolfing our food down unaware. Yoga teaches us to feel true satiation, instead of feeling stuffed
   
   
2. On the physical level, yoga is a terrific calorie burning exercise that strengthens and tones every muscle of your body, waking up deep muscles that you never knew existed. By recruiting all of the body’s muscles and using them to move the body in dynamic and static stretches, yoga uses more of the body more intelligently than many other exercise modalities. Couple that with correct breathing, proper posture, and relaxation techniques, and you have a system that acknowledges your total health every time you practice. Stressed out body’s are overloaded with cortisol, which packs on intra-abdominal fat. The stress reducing properties of yoga help you relax more effectively so that fat cannot accumulate.
   
   
3. The physical changes from yoga are evident immediately, your muscles burn, you begin to sweat, and you feel looser and relaxed for hours afterwards. But it’s the mental transformation that really keeps the weight off. A mind tuned in to the body’s deeper thoughts and feelings about itself, is a mind that is no longer willing to accept extra weight, or excess mental baggage.

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