Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The April digital e-Issue of Make Healthy A Lifestyle is here!


Don’t Let April Fool or Foul Your Workout and Weight Loss Goals

April is an early spring transition month that can frustrate and foul all your weight loss and workout intentions and goals. Seasonally our bodies are intuitively yearning to get outside and move again. However, the weather oftentimes brings April showers or maybe one last big snow storm to foul our best laid intentions for a walk, hike, or jog. One minute it's beautiful and sunny—the next dark storm clouds and rain.

That’s why this in this month’s issue of Make Healthy we’ve designed Part 2 of
MH Lifestyle’s How to Create Your Best Ever Home Workout with indoor and outdoor workout options. Plus, we’ve given you a great breakfast recipe, my high protein blueberry pancakes, from The SOUPer Slim Diet to start your day out right, and an article about a very important muscle, Confidence, by my friend Maura Barclay. Confidence is the new, hot commodity to have today.

Check out our new, Weight Loss, Nutrition, and Fitness Applications column featuring Lose It!. I’ve been using this free app for the past couple weeks, and plugging in my food and workouts every day. (It’s always an eye opener to actually record what you put in your mouth. Yikes! Did I really eat that many cookies throughout the day?!?) I like the fact that with a only a couple quick strokes I can input all my food and workout data then, get immediate Caloric and weight loss feedback.

As part of our “How To” plan to help you achieve optimum health and your best body ever, we’ve added a male perspective by well known NYC Fitness and Wellness expert Celebrity A-Lister and owner of The Madison Square Club Workout and Wellness Center
David Kirsch. Many of you guys have emailed about getting a guy onboard to give their wellness, training, weight loss, and nutrition views. David is one of the best-selling mind-body wellness book and workout DVD experts in the industry today. We are honored that he is reaching out and contributing. I love David’s line in his article about riding thru the streets on his bike in Manhattan early in the morning alone. It paints such a simple, bold picture.

Hibernation time is over. Although summer (and bathing suit) season is only weeks away, you still have plenty of time to lose a couple dress or bathing suit sizes and get in shape if you commit and start now. Our Best Ever Workout Plan along with Lose It’s! free and easy accountably app will keep you on track, and will help you steadily achieve your goals.

If you feel that you need a little 1:1 attention, plz contact me at info@LindaLaRue.com for some personal training.




Monday, March 30, 2009

Being in the Now: A Great Way to Begin Your Monday

This is a great post on Intent today by one of my spiritual hero's and avatar, Dr. Deepak Chopra.  What a great way to begin your Monday...

Question

You can teach us about the "now" and we can think about being in the "now", but in order to be in the "now", we cannot be thinking about it. How do we reach this mind frame if we cannot force ourselves into being there?

The very act of thinking puts us out of where we desire to be, and it seems almost impossible to stop thinking and just "be". Therefore, the instant you realize you are in the "now", you have just brought yourself out of it.

What can we do to allow ourselves to "be"?

Answer

You have astutely explained why using the ego directed mind could never take us out of the mind’s realm. What the sages have told us is that we must first transcend thought through meditation where we experience our essential nature, our pure Being in the now. In the beginning, this state of being and silence will be lost after we come out of meditation. However, over time that state of pure consciousness in meditation becomes so firmly established that it is not lost even when we are engaged in our daily activity. This is explained with the analogy of dying a cloth. The early method of dying involved dipping the white cloth in a vat of dye then, putting it in the sunlight where the dye would fade out. But some of the color would remain even after being bleached by the sun. The cloth would be dipped in the vat again and put out in the sun. Again it would fade, but this time a little more of the color would remain than the last time. And so the process of dipping and exposing to the sun would continue, each time making the color stronger and more colorfast. Eventually a time comes when after dipping the cloth in the vat of dye, the sun does not fade it anymore, and it has become completely colorfast and permanent.

This is what happens when we dip our awareness into pure consciousness during meditation and then come out into our daily activity and it fades away. But each time a little more of that silent witness, or that presence of the now remains. Eventually the time comes when we engage in all our normal behavior, but we effortlessly maintain that inner attention that is always seated in the present moment. It is a quiet presence of Self that keeps awareness open and unconditioned regardless of what we are doing.

Love,
Deepak


Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Happy Birthday Elisabetta!

Today is my dear friend, Elisabetta Rogiani's birthday, so I wanted to post a recent photo of Elisabetta, top Hollywood fit biz photographer Todd Vitti, and me.  

She's having a birthday party on the roof top of Le Petite Hotel in Hollywood tonite which should be fun.  Hope to see my friend fitness icon Kathy Smith there too...

Happy birthday E.

XOXO,

L.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Hugs: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly...

Hey Everyone-It's Friday, so couldn't we all use a hug?  Thought I would post this Vlog and Intent piece by irreverent yoga teacher, friend, and a fellow Intent contributor, David Romanelli.  

Here goes...

We all have crushes. Sometimes they are innocent...like when you're in 3rd Grade. And sometimes they are not as innocent...like when you're married and lust for another. Can you relate?

In my book
Yeah Dave's Guide to Livin' the Moment, there's a chapter sharing a fool-proof way to determine if the other person reciprocates your crush. My hugs Vlog is based on that chapter, and teaches how to decipher the body language of a hug.

So the next time you have a crush, keep it simple. Let a good hug be your saving grace. What you can never tell from another's face, you can tell from their embrace.

I invite you to check out my book,
click here, to get a taste for some lighthearted fun + feel-good inspiration in these dark times. Think irreverent humor (aka Saturday Night Live) fused with heartfelt insight (aka Eckhart Tolle) mixed with a touch of Cheech and Chong..

Thursday, March 19, 2009

My Favorite, Fast-Fix Vegan Entree: Vegetarian Meatloaf

I thought I would offer my favorite, fast-fix vegan entrĂ©e for you vegan fans. This is such a quick and easy main dish. I buy the Boca Burgers in bulk at Costco—real frugal and stores in the freezer for a couple months. This recipe also freezes well in individual servings.

Ingredients
16 Boca Burgers, thawed
1 ½ 16-ounce can of garbanzo beans, drained and chopped
1 cup red peppers, chopped
1 cup green peppers, chopped
1 cup onion, chopped
2 tsp. garlic, minced
3 T fresh basil, chopped
½ cup fresh parsley, chopped
¼ cup egg whites or Bob's Egg Replacer
½ cup plus 2 T low sodium, sugar-free barbecue sauce

1. Process Boca Burgers and beans in a food processor. In a mixing bowl, combine the remaining ingredients, except 2T of barbecue sauce. Add the burger mixture, and mix well.
2. Place the burger mixture in a loaf pan, and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit, covered, for 30 minutes. Top with an additional 2 T barbecue sauce, and bake, uncovered, for an additional 15 minutes.
Yields: 10. Serving size: 1 inch slice. Nutritional content: 125 Calories per slice, 0g fat, 14g protein, 16g carbohydrates, 255mg sodium.

*If you'd like more great recipes click here.  

Thursday, March 12, 2009

March Top Trainer iTunes Workout Playlist


Keep some spring in your step as we move away from those cold, winter months. These jams are sure to save your workout on a tired morning, or push you to sprint when you didn’t think you had it in you. That’s why once again I’ve gotten together with some of my hottest, Hollywood exercise friends Keith Irace SoCal group Exercise Manager and Liz Marmesh, Top Personal Trainer in Century City, CA at EquinoxFitness to create the perfect Top 10 Hottest Workout iTunes Playlist for you.

We’re also giving you a couple old skool tunes with songs by R.E.M., The B-52’s, and Lynyrd Skynyrd as a tribute to my Southern Skool roots then, ending with Jai Ho from my favorite movie this year, Slumdog Millionaire. Use all 10 songs in this order to get you through a 35-minute uphill walk, interval workout on the elliptical, or a circuit training session. Get out there, girl!

  1. Shiny Happy People by R.E.M. time: 3:46
  2. Bottle Pop (feat. Snoop Dogg) by Pussycat Dolls time: 3:30
  3. Untouched by The Veronicas time: 4:14
  4. Change (feat. Wale) by Daniel Merriweather time: 3:20
  5.  Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd time: 4:45
  6. Love to Love You Baby by Tom Novy and The Tom Toms time:
4:00
  7. My Life Would Suck Without You by Kelly Clarkson time: 3:31
  8. Love Shack by B-52’s time: 5:21
  9. American Boy (feat. Kanye West) by Estelle time: 4:44
  10. Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire Soundtrack by AR Rahman time: 5:19

A great workout tune tempo should be between 120 and 140 bpm, which roughly corresponds to the average person’s heart rate during a workout routine. A beginning walker’s bpm should be between 110 to 114 bpm, intermediate below 120, and advanced walker/jogger up to 150 bpm.

If you want to be guaranteed a consistent beat, I love downloading pre-mixed Digital Fitness Music album compiled by the fitness pros at
Dynamix  or iSweat. Both offer hundreds of Digital Fitness Music Albums available in 30, 45 or 60 minute workouts.

Each Dynamix music album offers a variety of music styles including dance, disco, country, rock, with well-known popular songs, in various speeds for different fitness levels. The music plays non-stop on your iPod or MP3. Each album is pre-programmed to keep you on pace to achieve your cardio or strength workout goals. (Yes, this means no cheating since the music speed keeps you going!)

For more great training tips, contact me at info@LindaLaRue.com or subscribe to my monthly E-Magazine, Make Healthy A Lifestyle click here.


Sunday, March 1, 2009

How to Create Your Best Ever Home Workout



















Hey Everyone-Wanted to let you know that the March e-issue of Make Healthy A Lifestyle is all about how to help you create your best ever home workout.  First, you need to know how to get prepped, which is our lead story written by my friend, Top Tier 4 Equinox trainer, Liz Marmesh.  

We’ve dedicated both March and April’s issues to helping you create and successfully achieve your best ever, home workout routine. Hey, whether it’s a newborn baby or a 24/7-hour work day/work week schedule, sometimes making it to the gym is out of the question. That’s why the idea of a two-part issue designed to help you create a working out in your living room sounded ideal to us—no commute, no waiting for machines, no fighting for blow dryers in the locker room—and you can be in the shower then, to work in only 20 minutes flat.

We invite you to join The Make Healthy A Lifestyle E-Magazine movement by clicking here. Now you can receive expert advice from some of the fitness industry’s leading professionals, such as fitness icon, Kathy Smith, without leaving the comfort of your own home. Each monthly issue will deliver top trainer health, fitness, and nutrition info that will easily and quickly help you truly get fit and lose weight forever. We’re passionate about creating a health and fitness mind-body online experience that’s new, fun, and exciting for you. Making Healthy A Lifestyle is unique because we’re a FREE, open source based online community E-Magazine that’s published and written by healthy lifestyle fitness professionals who not only write about the latest info, but we also teach it, preach it, live it, and love it. Making Healthy A Lifestyle is our passion. We invite you to join our FREE community today!