Fit Prescription for Radiant Skin

I'll have what she's having!

Your skin is a reflection of your lifestyle (and genetics)- here's some advice on looking more luminous than Christmas lights!
Start with your nutrition - no need for cleanses and detoxes. Your body is an amazing machine that naturally cleanses and detoxifies itself. Put down the expensive bottles of "detox" formula and make some good choices instead.

• Eat plenty of vegies and make sure you are including all the colours: green, red, orange, yellow, white (go easy on the starches like potato though!)
• Eat berries - antioxidant powerhouses and really high vitamin C (boosts collagen production, plumping the skin)
• Eat omega 3-6-9 fats - your body needs healthy fats to absorb vitamins and feed the skin (excellent sources are salmon, sardines, avocado, walnuts and flaxseed)
• Get your B vitamins (good for energy and fighting the effects of stress) which are in oats, grains and cereals
• Your hair and skin are made up of protein so give your body the highest quality of good proteins (organic red meat, fresh seafood, tempeh, greek yoghurt, milk)



Fit food

• Vitamin D - get a daily fix from 10 minutes in peak sunlight

And get physical. Working up a sweat is brilliant for your circulation and a healthy heart, lungs and muscles. Even a brisk walk mornings and evenings should do the trick if you're too busy for classes or working up to something more strenuous.
The catch? WASH YOUR FACE after you exercise! All that sweat will trap dirt and dust. Use something gentle - carry travel-sized cleanser and moisturiser in your gym bag. Use non-comedogenic products (they don't clog pores - the packaging will state this). I trust mineral products, and recommend Garnier BB cream - cheap, good coverage, SPF 15+ and I don't break out!

Yoga shoulder stand

Finally, deal with stress and rollercoaster moods. Whether it's yoga, pilates, meditation, dancing or just stretching and singing while you vacuum - find an outlet. Inversion poses in yoga, where your head is below your hips, allows blood to rush to the head and face - it's a free, feel-good facial. If you can headstand, do it!

I know this hurts, but if you have really dry or spotty skin, CUT the alcohol and try not to do more than 2 coffees a day. I swear by green tea, but if that's not your thing, any herbal tea is a good alternative.

Party Perfect!

Here they come - the Christmas parties. You'll have tray after tray of fried this and sugared that passed right under your  nose.

If you are hosting a party yourself, consider offering mostly light, easy-serve options. It doesn't mean no taste and no fun! There are ways to make your favourite traditional party foods healthier - make your own dips for a start.

Kids will eat healthy food if it looks fun and colourful and not "HEALTHY". Mini carrot juices in little clear cups? Cute!

Here are some ideas - and if you don't want to take too much time, why not stock up on vegies and set up a "make-your-own" salad area with chopped vegies, meats and various dressings?
Top to bottom: garlic-chicken spring rolls; big-mixed-salad with beetroot and spinach; vegie sticks for snack-and-dip; turkey, ham and cherry tomato kebabs; fruit salad

garlic chicken spring rolls

mixed salad

vegie sticks

turkey ham kebabs

fruit salad

Frazzled More Than Festive?

Anxious

It's mid-November and the christmas puddings and reindeer toys are already on display at supermarkets. If you're wondering why your shoulders and neck are feeling tense, every noise is making you snap and you wake up feeling like you might not have slept more than half an hour...the idea of Christmas is stressful! Go easy on yourself.

I'm battling with trying to write up a business plan for the first time, contemplating failing at my dream job (working for myself!) and also watching my savings dwindle as I drift into the fourth week of unemployment. Not feeling so festive. Fortunately, I have been browsing a copy of Mim Beim's "natural therapies to boost the mood and mind".
Mim Beim is a Sydney naturopath who also features in body + soul on Sundays. I'll be adopting her recommendations to improve sleep, energy and fight adrenal fatigue. If you're feeling frazzled, take all or some of these ideas.

Vitamins

• Reminding myself to have perspective - how you THINK about a situation makes it what it is - can you put any decisions on the backburner while you go and read for 20 minutes or take a walk?
• Sticking to a twice daily Mega B supplement (all the B vitamins at breakfast and lunch)
• Taking a magnesium supplement at night (assists in muscle relaxation and calcium absorption)
• Taking passionflower rather than a sleeping tablet (proven to be EQUALLY as effective as oxazepam without the side effects; no drowsiness)
• No caffeine - this has been so much easier to give up than I thought and I was a 4 - 5 black coffees per day person
• Practicing at least 10 minutes of yoga daily - sun salutations and rotations

Caffeine is in coffee, tea, chocolate, cocoa, yerba mate, guarana drinks and sports supplements

Share your festive or frazzled state and how you're going to approach it!

Caroline Pemberton: Body Image Ambassador

Caroline Pemberton

With orphans in Timor

Caroline Pemberton is an Australian model who was crowned the 2007 Miss Australia. For the past 4 years she has run an upbeat, positive healthy body image program called ‘Real Body Image’ which teaches media literacy to teenagers in high schools. It covers the pressures we face to have the “perfect” body and how they affect our body image and self esteem.  We chatted for an hour last week and she is insightful, inspiring and intelligent.

Caroline attributes her adventurous nature and passion for a challenge to her "incredible family". Aged 19, three months in Nepal was her first overseas experience, where she met up with her brother Rex, the youngest Aussie to climb Everest, aged 21.
Modelling since the age of 16, she was convinced by her agent to contest Miss Australia and won in 2007. She discovered, in the ensuing media exposure, "the power to tell a story".

Though she began a psychology degree, she was drawn to travelling and media roles. Caroline praises her studies for her ability to recognise the pressure of media and society on not only the public, but those in front of the camera in particular. Despite being 6 ft, blonde and beautiful, Caroline was regularly being told to lose weight during modelling casting calls. She didn't concede and recognised the "negative thought pattern" that threatened to take over if she allowed herself to focus on it.
Having travelled extensively, she noted "the extraordinary differences in what beauty means to various cultures, especially in the Asian and African regions". This proved to her that "beauty is incredibly subjective".

Caroline pre and post airbrushing

Real Body Image

 'Real Body Image' is a non-for-profit program that scrutinises the airbrushing of images, explores cultural beauty differences and how our ideals of beauty have changed throughout centuries of history. Her approach is "we are all susceptible to feeling overwhelmed and negative about our bodies. Let's TALK about it!"

Her own relationship with health and fitness is a fabulous example. Caroline aims for balance and feeling good as a measure of her wellbeing. She eats a rich and varied diet, and happily admits her weight fluctuates over the year depending on the season and the type of foods she is craving. As a high-energy type, Caroline does boxing 3 times a week and goes for interval training designed to be short and high impact.

We discuss at length the fact that media relies on profit, and therefore advertising to exist. Advertisers need to constantly find new products and new messages - faults and flaws that we need to fix to be beautiful, healthier, better. I mean, "pore minimising" serum? Really?

What we both acknowledge is the immense power of the mind to influence the body. Every day, remember that your body is an "incredible machine". Thinking about how it serves you and how many amazing functions are going on just to allow you to exist. Encourage the men and women you love to see how beautiful they are.

If you fear that the "negative thought pattern" that inevitably leads to an eating disorder and/or depression is affecting you or someone you know, be aware that it can't just be gotten over like a flu and no amount of "positive thinking" will be enough. Speak to your GP and find support and information at The Butterfly Foundation

EXCLUSIVE: Workout mix for my gym bunnies!

Thanks to the insanely talented electro-music guru 4Watt for producing a kick-ass mix to power you through a sweaty gym session.
Or a home abdominals workout.
Or a walk/jog/run out in the open air!
There's some Calvin Harris, some Gotye, Tiesto and even PSY makes a cameo! Remixed, of course!

So go here, scroll down and click on "Download episode"

Short on time? Get results in under an hour!

Swissball for circuit moves

Need to be in and out of the gym in under an hour? I hope so! Unless you're taking extra time to stretch, there's every chance you're not spending your time as effectively as you could be.
Nat had 40 minutes this morning due to limited creche hours for her little one and I had the same - dental appointment (ugh.)
So we started with the sweat-inducing circuit for 20 minutes and finished with 20 minutes on the summit (climbing) machine. Here's how you can do it:

Renegade row

• Make a plan - spending time thinking about what on earth to do is WASTING time!
• Try to keep your circuit to a small area so that you don't waste time looking for equipment and waiting for others to finish
• Base all your moves around limited equipment, like a fitball, a bench or a medicine ball
• Allow for some flexibility in the circuit moves - if the step or the weights you planned for aren't available, have some alternatives in mind!
• Use the "clock" function on your phone as a timer - this way you can just keep going without needing to check the clock or counting down the minutes
• Instead of doing lots of repetitions with smaller weights, go heavier and do less repetitions
• On machines, push the level up and do moderate/high intensity intervals rather than going at a moderate pace for ages (you do NOT need to spend an hour reading Women's Weekly on a bike)
• Make up a 40 minute playlist of intense music to drive you through your workout and when the music stops, game over



Stopwatch function

• OR work out with a friend who's up for the challenge and notice how 40 minutes flies by when you're sharing the struggle

Reverse curl

 Using a bench, do reverse curls - then get up and do step ups on the same bench, turn around and do tricep presses off the bench and then repeat until your timer goes off.

TIP: Working the upper body followed immediately by lower body maximises calories burned by forcing blood to rush from muscles in the upper body to lower and vice versa!

Aloha Inner Thighs!

The most common areas I get asked about are how to tone "flabby thighs", "saggy butt" and "my little belly". Now, you cannot spot reduce fat so doing squats until your butt is numb will not actually make it smaller! What you CAN do is build lean muscle in the legs and butt, which makes you look stronger, tauter and enables you to burn more energy 24/7. Muscle uses up a lot of calories JUST to exist! 

And, mind you, for every woman who has complained to me about her saggy this, or flabby that, I have looked at her and seen a fabulous, healthy body. Before tackling these moves - remember that you're working out to build strength, look and FEEL better. Your body is beautiful when it can do what you need and want it to do.

Sumo Squat to Calf Raise

Sumo squat to calf raise

1. Stand with your heels outside hips and toes turned out (plie position in dance-speak)
2. Pull your belly button in and up, engaging the pelvic floor and deep abdominals
3. Hands on hips for balance and keep your chin parallel to the ground, eyes ahead
4. Squat down as low as you comfortably can, but NEVER let your hips be lower than knees!
5. Raise onto the balls of your feet, hold for 2 counts, drop your heels and raise to standing
6. Repeat 10 - 12 times, rest for 30 seconds and do 3 sets.

Advanced: add a dumbbell or hold a weighted medicine ball out at chest height

Four Point Squat

Four point squat

1. Stand with your heels directly under hips
2. Pull your belly button in and up, engaging the pelvic floor and deep abdominals
3. Bend your left leg and rest the ankle ABOVE the right knee
4. Keep your chin level with the ground, eyes ahead and extend arms out as if holding a beach ball
5. Squat down as low as you comfortably can, but NEVER let your hips be lower than knees!
6. Hold for 2 counts then slowly rise to starting position
7. Repeat 10 - 12 times, rest for 30 seconds and do 3 sets.