exercise

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Thursday, 3/18

Exercise: Walked 3-4 miles outside, 1+ hours

Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs with Spinach and Toast with Peanut Butter
Snack: Fruit (not pictured because I can only post so many pics)
Lunch: Manicotti with Salad
Snack: Tostitos–snacked on handfuls throughout the afternoon (not pictured)
Dinner: Three slices homemade pizza (Tonight I made bruschetta, olive and four cheese pizza. I used the extra goat cheese from my salad. People should put goat cheese on pizza more often.) and a soda

More FoodMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:35:26-04:00

Mind & Body

Remember that what you do with your body effects your mind. I see this constantly in myself. If I skip exercise, I start to feel frustrated and antsy. When I keep active I have more energy, stamina and am considerably happier.

But it works the other way too. What you think with your mind effects your body. If you think you can’t do something, you won’t be able to. If you think you can, you probably can. So next time you go to a challenging class, or take a long walk, or whatever you do physically, tell yourself you can.

Mind & BodyMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:35:26-04:00

Spine

Joseph Pilates was known to say:

“You’re only as young as your spine.”

SpineMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:35:27-04:00

A Nurturing Thought

When I took the anti-gravity yoga class, I was really impressed by the instructor, Kevin. I like the way he worded his thoughts and I enjoyed one line in particular.

At the beginning of class he asked us to think about something that we’d put a lot of energy in or that had been taking a lot of energy from us that we did not want to continue having in our life. With each exhale we were supposed to blow this item/idea further away from us. Admittedly, the non-meditater in me thought this was a little cheesy, but I was willing to go with it.

Then he asked us to think of a thing or an idea that we wanted in our life. We went through the entire class before he brought it up again. While lying in corpse pose suspended in the hammock, he brought our attention back to the item we wanted in life. With each inhale we were supposed to draw that thing closer to us. Again, a little cheesy for me. But then […]

A Nurturing ThoughtMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:35:27-04:00

Fluidity

Last week I went to NYC to visit my sister and try some new types of exercises classes. The first class I tried was Fluidity, which had been recommended to me by Susan (one of our instructors at Personal Euphoria).

The exercises are done on a bar and reminded me of dance and Pilates combined, but they are designed to work every muscle in your body to the point of fatigue–an incredible sensation if you like that kind of pain, which I do (sometimes). Certainly that is not a sensation everyone wants to feel and you don’t need to feel agony in order to get a good workout.

No pain, no gain is not actually true. And one thing I have learned in my practice of Pilates is that when you come to understand and feel subtleties in the body (small muscles groups for example) and you work the muscles with awareness, they fatigue much quicker. In fluidity, I felt like I had to stop feeling my body so much, stop being fully aware or I never would have gotten through the class. Six years ago I would have loved it, but I wasn’t as aware of […]

FluidityMaggie Downie2014-08-04T18:05:16-04:00