Showing posts with label pilates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pilates. Show all posts

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Pie and lattes


Remember everything in moderation... including moderation!




Top 5 Things I LOVED This Wk:

1. A bouquet of home-grown kale and parsley from a gorgeous friend.
2. Taking a pair of scissors on my afternoon walk around the block so I can help out my neighbours by trimming their jasmine for them.
3. The beach this morning: pods of dolphins riding waves, happy dogs bounding around and finding perfect whole cowrie shells.
4. The red, orange, yellow and pink poppies at the roundabout in town. They look like butterflies fluttering in the breeze.
5. The return of that handsome husband of mine who’s been sailing around the ocean in Indonesia for the past 3 weeks. He returned with a few stitches and scratches but wearing a smile and carrying a bottle of French perfume.

Emma the Naturopath xx

PS. An incredibly special mention to a beautiful Sicilian man, Tony Locandro. 

He took me to his yoga classes with him when I was five.
He gave me my first chai in a tepee at the Body Mind Spirit Festival when I was eight.
He patiently (and sometimes impatiently) taught me to drive a manual car. 
He would “forget” to tell me when boys called.
He bought me my first toolbox and a bag of cable ties for Xmas one year and then proudly explained how to use each device.
He paid for my naturopathy degree because he knew this was how I was meant to spend my life.
He proudly gave me away 18 months ago to my loving husband who promised from the bottom of his heart to be the one to take care of me now. (picture: )

Life doesn’t come with instruction manuals, which is why we have fathers xx



*NEW MEDITATION GROUP IN COFFS*
The lovely Maree Loprete will be running a meditation group the first Monday of every month at 7pm at her house. Cost $15 and all welcome.





Chocolate Zucchini Brownies

These are the most deliciously dense little morsels. They only rise a few inches and are really rich and moist so cut them into small squares for the perfect accompaniment to a peppermint tea as an after dinner treat or lunchbox snack!

1 ¼ cups almond meal
¼ cup cacao powder
1 teaspoon baking sodahttp://aff.nuts.com/aff_i?offer_id=68&aff_id=33&url_id=60
2 eggs
¼ cup coconut sugar
2 tablespoons coconut oilhttp://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=elanaspantryc-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B000AN36I0
¾ cup zucchini, grated (one small-medium zucchini)

1. Throw all the ingredients in a food processor and blitz til smooth.
2. Grease 6.5 x 4 inch loaf pan with coconut oil or line with baking powder.
3. Bake at 180 degrees in a preheated oven for 35-40 minutes.

Dairy free
Wheat and gluten free
Paleo friendly
High protein




Top 5 Things I LOVED This Wk:
1. Discovering Tumblr. No seriously, JUST found it.
2. Those yellow papery flowers that grow on headlands. Does anyone know what they’re called?
3. Freshly ground nutmeg in Wednesday night’s gluten-free tuna pasta bake.
4. A guilt free day off after an overbooked day of clinic on Thursday. In a nutshell: yoga, beach swims, chiro, new top, chai with a gf, afternoon nap, baking, date night.
5. Stifling giggles during yoga with my husband as we pulled silly faces at each other. I usually meditate deeper than a Buddhist monk except when he’s in class with me. We are the perfect balance: I keep him safe, he keeps me wild.

Emma the Naturopath xx

“I’ve learnt that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel” –Maya Angelou.

No matter what you do for a living or whose path you cross this week, try to keep this in mind. Spread the love this week by being a little kinder than expected. The simplest gesture can change the course of someone’s whole day.



Here’s the honest truth… 

I cringe a little when people tell me they take a multi. High five for making an effort in the health department but the majority are synthetically produced and have sprinklings of EVERYTHING but NOTHING at the same time if you know what I mean. If they made a multi with the correct therapeutic amounts of vitamins and minerals it would be the size of a GOLF BALL!

Firstly, try and eat a diet full of unprocessed wholefoods: free range chicken, fish, eggs and meats with a variety of fruits, veggies and wholegrains, as well as healthy oils. That goes without say!

If you still need an extra BOOST then look at something like SPIRULINA. Spirulina is an aquatic microalgae that is considered more of a food than a manmade vitamin, therefore it absorbs 16 times more effectively.

I recommend spirulina to customers and clients who feel like they don’t have enough energy and need a bit of a ‘pick me up’. It’s particularly helpful for vego’s and vegans as it contains iron (58 times riches than spinach), protein and B12. Due to its high chlorophyll content, it’s an excellent blood cleanser (detoxifier) for glowing skin. It comes in tablets and powder that you can throw in your morning smoothie.

Have you tried spirulina before? Do you take a multi? What are your thoughts?



CONNECT FIVE
There is a song by Sheryn Binks that is on one of our mixed cds at the shop called Connect Five. Every time I hear the chorus while I’m working I smile to myself. It’s so simple and sweet, like the way love should be.

You would never leave me in the cold
you would never think my jokes are old
you would never give me bad directions
you would vote for me in the elections
You would write about me in your diary
if I was your employee, you wouldn’t fire me
you would put my picture in a frame
you would sit beside me on the train
And if we played connect 4, you would connect 5
and if I let you in you’d
change my whole life



*FREEBIE ALERT* 

You will receive a full sized Kora Organics by Miranda Kerr valued at $37.50 
for any product you purchase from the range!!





Top 5 Things I LOVED This Wk:

1. Our undies hanging in a tree to dry after an impromptu river dip.
2. Drinking a giant mug of hot chocolate* while watching a DVD in the bath on my laptop.
3. Being read to by my husband each night. Even if Occy’s biograpghy is not my bedtime story of choice.
4. The moon on Tuesday night. It looked like the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland was grinning down at me.
5. The inundation of bubs and kiddies in my clinic the last few weeks! And all their mummies deserve shiny ‘Super Mum’ badges for organising time off work to come in, bravely filling their lunchboxes and dinner plates with new foods and sneaking substances into their smoothies.    

Emma the Naturopath xx

PS. “Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside of you that is greater than any obstacle”-Christian D. Larson. Rest assured that you are stronger than you know. Just have faith and patience.

*Hot choc =Pure Harvest ‘Coco Quench’ organic coconut/rice milk heated on the stove with raw cacao powder.

Essential Health
Boulevard Arcade (opp. Blush), Coffs Mall
0266 514 533
Facebook: Essential Health Coffs
Insta: emma_the_naturopath

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Twenty-twelve.

Last year I made an agreement with myself that I would have a life outside of the business. So I fell deeply in love with pilates, joined a new yoga class, took more road trips North and met some awesome new friends.

As a result, my life is now richer than before.

I’m a huge believer that every decision we have ever made has lead us to exactly where we are in our life at this very point. The strength of our relationships, our job, our health, how much money we make, the person we’ve become, but most of all: how happy we are.

So this year (2012) I endeavour to:
*get married to my other half and travel to Fiji
*run 10 km
*have more dinner parties
*buy a 12ft board with my man so we can surf tandem and stand-up paddle board
*be true to myself by letting go of old ways of thinking that don’t serve my life in a positive way

Oh and get lots more reflexology treatments!

Happy New Year everyone xx

Have a read about how I got a life in 2011 here!

Monday, May 16, 2011

head over heels.



You know that feeling when you’re first in love? You wake up thinking about them and when you talk about them you get a little sparkle in your eye. You get excited about when you can see them again and when you’re with them it’s the best feeling in the world.

This is how I feel about pilates. Seriously. My boyfriend often talks to me about the “surfing bug”. Well I have the pilates bug.

At the beginning of the year I was pondering a new hobby to enrich my life a bit more. Yoga felt too slow and I’ve never really been a team sports person. Then Suzanne McCarty dropped in to the shop with a stack of brochures for her new pilates and gyrokinetics studio in Sawtell so I thought I’d give it a try. To be honest I was expecting a bit of an abdominal workout. What I was not expecting was to fall head over heels for this new passion. As I write this I’m even rolling my eyes at myself at how ridiculous this must sound, but it's honestly how I feel!

If I could give somebody a massive high five, it would be Joseph Pilates, the pioneer of pilates, who dedicated his life to improving the health and vitality of others. This dude was born in the 1880s to his professional gymnast father and naturopathic mother and was obsessed with anatomy as a child, constantly studying physiology books and animals stretching in the forest of Germany. By the age of fourteen, Pilates had such a rig that he became a model for anatomical charts.

As a young man Pilates moved to England where he began teaching self defence and boxing at police schools and performed acts in the circus. After becoming imprisoned during World War I, Pilates began acting as a physiotherapist by disassembling the camp bunk beds and using the springs to create resistance to rehabilitate the injured and bed-ridden prisoners. This concept then went on to become the basis of the equipment used today in pilates studios. As the flu epidemic swept through populations of the world in 1918, it was reported that not one of the prisoners who followed Pilates’ routine fell ill.

Once released Pilates returned to Germany where he worked with dance and movement experts then immigrated to New York where he met his wife Clara, a nurse who he then went on to develop holistic ‘Contrology’ methods that incorporated deep breathing, proper posture and the correction of various physical ailments.

The studio they opened was situated below a ballet studio which attracted the dancers to quickly recover from their injuries while maintaining their flexibility. One professional ballet dancer was Romana Kyrzanowska, who went to Pilates in 1941 for help with an ankle injury. She then went on to become Pilates’ protégé and taught my teacher Suzanne, a ballerina from The Vienna Volksoper Ballet.

I could ramble on forever about the benefits of pilates that I've noticed in my own life on not just a physical but mental and spiritual level. But how about you go try it for yourself.


"After 10 sessions you will feel better. After 20 sessions you will look better. After 30 sessions you will have a completely new body.” ~ Joseph H. Pilates



Check out Suzanne's pilates studio on the link below and get inspired.

http://beyondmovementstudio.com.au/