Free Ballet Beautiful: Transform Your Body and Gain the Strength, Grace and Focus of a Ballet Dancer by Mary Helen Bowers Page A
Authors: Mary Helen Bowers
pinpoint how your body feels and begin to listen to your body with new awareness, you will be able to make connections between what you are doing (eating, exercising, and so on) and how you are feeling. You can then use this insight to self-monitor and adjust your workouts. As you will soon see, there are many options for workouts—single workouts, combined workouts, short workouts, and long workouts—and several areas of the body to target during your workouts. The more aware and attuned to yourself you are, the better able you’ll be to design a specific workout for any given day or week and the more engaged you’ll be in it. And enhancing your engagement will not only reinforce your commitment but help you achieve your Ballet Beautiful goals!
Here is a quick checklist you can use to isolate how you feel:
1.Are you energized?
2.Do you feel fatigued?
3.Do you feel irritable or grouchy?
4.Are you generally happy and content?
Once you’ve pinpointed how you feel, take a step back and think about your day: Do you feel good about what you ate? Did you treat your body well with a healthy breakfast and fresh, whole foods throughout the day? How does this make you feel physically? If you ate a lot of unhealthy or processed foods, what’s the correlation toyour emotional state? Did you move your body? How did that make you feel? Stepping back a couple of times a day and really taking the time to focus on how you feel will help you find the elements in your day that contribute to your well-being.
One important lesson I’ve learned is that it’s possible to learn to truly like healthy foods and exercise. Many of the women I work with have been shocked at not only how good they feel once they change their eating habits, but how good real food actually tastes. Begin by paying attention to the way certain foods make you feel. If you are feeling good after you eat something, it’s probably good for you. If you feel heavy, sleepy, or bad about yourself, the reason could be the high starch or sugar content or the additives and chemicals (yes, the chemicals in processed foods do have physiological effects!) of food you’re eating that is unhealthy or perhaps best enjoyed in moderation. You can learn to enjoy indulging in such food, savoring each bite, but then move on!
Mental Balance: The Key to Your Baseline
Physical and emotional balance are closely intertwined, and both kinds of balance begin by eating well and often, making healthy food choices, and paying attention to how you feel. When these habits are in place, you give yourself the opportunity to maintain mental balance, defined as thinking clearly, staying focused, and following through on your goals (whether a daily, a two-month, or a lifelong goal).
Mental balance is the key to your baseline—that sense of being connected to the inner you, grounded in real feelings, centered in yourself, and confident as you approach each and every day. When you build mental balance, you are better able to manage challenges, withstand setbacks, and keep charging ahead.
Ballet Beautiful Balance Checklist
Let’s do a quick review of how to make sure you’re living in balance:
1. Are you taking care of your body ? Make sure you work out at least three days a week, with five or six days being optimal. A workout can be as brief as one15-minute Body Blast or as challenging as a 60-minute Classic. Or it can be a well-targeted hybrid workout focused on arms and legs, combining two 15-minute segments.
2. Are you keeping your emotional eating in check ? Are you developing awareness of your habits? Are you making sure you’re really hungry when you reach for a snack? Are you pausing to tune in to any uncomfortable feeling that may be triggering a craving?
3. Are you regularly rewarding yourself ? As you’ve learned in this chapter, becoming familiar with the difference between hunger and anxiety, stress, or fear enables you to choose doing something nice for yourself as a reward
Here is a quick checklist you can use to isolate how you feel:
1.Are you energized?
2.Do you feel fatigued?
3.Do you feel irritable or grouchy?
4.Are you generally happy and content?
Once you’ve pinpointed how you feel, take a step back and think about your day: Do you feel good about what you ate? Did you treat your body well with a healthy breakfast and fresh, whole foods throughout the day? How does this make you feel physically? If you ate a lot of unhealthy or processed foods, what’s the correlation toyour emotional state? Did you move your body? How did that make you feel? Stepping back a couple of times a day and really taking the time to focus on how you feel will help you find the elements in your day that contribute to your well-being.
One important lesson I’ve learned is that it’s possible to learn to truly like healthy foods and exercise. Many of the women I work with have been shocked at not only how good they feel once they change their eating habits, but how good real food actually tastes. Begin by paying attention to the way certain foods make you feel. If you are feeling good after you eat something, it’s probably good for you. If you feel heavy, sleepy, or bad about yourself, the reason could be the high starch or sugar content or the additives and chemicals (yes, the chemicals in processed foods do have physiological effects!) of food you’re eating that is unhealthy or perhaps best enjoyed in moderation. You can learn to enjoy indulging in such food, savoring each bite, but then move on!
Mental Balance: The Key to Your Baseline
Physical and emotional balance are closely intertwined, and both kinds of balance begin by eating well and often, making healthy food choices, and paying attention to how you feel. When these habits are in place, you give yourself the opportunity to maintain mental balance, defined as thinking clearly, staying focused, and following through on your goals (whether a daily, a two-month, or a lifelong goal).
Mental balance is the key to your baseline—that sense of being connected to the inner you, grounded in real feelings, centered in yourself, and confident as you approach each and every day. When you build mental balance, you are better able to manage challenges, withstand setbacks, and keep charging ahead.
Ballet Beautiful Balance Checklist
Let’s do a quick review of how to make sure you’re living in balance:
1. Are you taking care of your body ? Make sure you work out at least three days a week, with five or six days being optimal. A workout can be as brief as one15-minute Body Blast or as challenging as a 60-minute Classic. Or it can be a well-targeted hybrid workout focused on arms and legs, combining two 15-minute segments.
2. Are you keeping your emotional eating in check ? Are you developing awareness of your habits? Are you making sure you’re really hungry when you reach for a snack? Are you pausing to tune in to any uncomfortable feeling that may be triggering a craving?
3. Are you regularly rewarding yourself ? As you’ve learned in this chapter, becoming familiar with the difference between hunger and anxiety, stress, or fear enables you to choose doing something nice for yourself as a reward
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