As many of you know, I interviewed Dr. Barry Sears, author of The Zone, on my radio show, Today's Woman, last week. We talked about his program for reducing inflammation. (If you missed the show you can click here). Dr. Sears spoke about silent inflammation, the kind of inflammation that you aren't aware that might exist within your body. You are aware if you have inflammation from an infected cut or swollen glands because they hurt but what about the inflammation that increases our risk of heart disease or diabetes or even obesity.
Dr. Sears recommended a balanced diet to decrease this silent inflammation. A balanced diet, according to Dr. Sears, includes equal amounts (in terms of calories) of healthy fat, carbohydrates and protein. So using his advice, here is what I am having for dinner tonight: Rick's Tuna Salad My husband makes the (read: THEE) best tuna salad. Here is his secret recipe. SSSSSShhhhh.... don't tell him I gave it to you but he deserves this little divulgence. If you had been in the studio this morning you would understand why. He actually 'corrected' my form today while I was doing my own Pilates workout. Yes, I knooooooow. Can you believe he would correct me?? And the studio was full... of Pilates instructors. It was good they were there. Lisa, after siding with Rick....really....it was a conspiracy, wisely told him to step away. I would have taken him down....with correct form, of course. So here it is: Rick's SECRET recipe: 2 large cans of white albacore tuna
2 green onions
1 apple
4 T of Mayo
Tomatoes
Avocado Yep, that's it. Now here are some of the details.... - The Secret: Buy all of your veggies at the local Farmer's Market: Apples, Onions, Avocados and Tomatoes. If you live in my area, Lombardi's has tomatoes for another month or so. Buy fresh, fresh, fresh. Makes all the difference in the world. My certified organic buddies, if you can't buy organic peel, peel, peel. I love to peel my tomatoes. It makes them super-easy to slice and much easier to work into a salad or sandwich.
- You can buy Mayonnaise that contains extra virgin olive oil. Olive oil is the good fat. So is avocado, by the way. Remember Dr. Sears advice if you only had 15 seconds to spend on your health everyday? His advice was to guzzle as much fish oil as possible in that 15 seconds. Why? Because the healthy oils would help to dispel the toxic fats in your system. Cool, huh?
- Use the entire onion from tip to tip. Mix the tuna, onions, apples and mayo together. Serve over dark green leafy veggies (also a great anti-inflammatory food) and garnish with tomatoes and avocado on the side.
- I just recently bought a really nice olive oil. I like to drizzle olive oil over all my salads including this tuna salad. It gives all my salads an extra anti-inflammatory kick and as we know, olive oil helps to increase your HDL cholesterol or your good cholesterol. Dr. Sears was saying you can't buy a good olive in the United States. Wrong. At our Farmer's Market here in the SCV on Sundays (over at COC) you can buy fresh pressed olive oil. Yep. It's the REAL deal. The name of the farm is Joelle and you can visit them at www.Joelleoil.com Check them out.
Last Updated (Sunday, 18 October 2009 18:57)
This clip comes from our PBS special and DVD, Pilates for Healthy Bodies. For more information or to purchase the DVD, please click here Your Pilates breathing will probably be different than how you are used to breathing.
Well, actually, breathing is not something we are used to paying a whole heck of a lot of attention to is it? If you are alive you are breathing. (Good news every day here on my little blog...) If you are alive then your body has found some way to get oxygen. It's interesting, though, how the body can make compensations for past injuries and especially for stress that, in turn, changes the efficiency of breathing. If you are asthmatic, you understand this. But what about back pain? You'd be surprised at how much back pain, or any pain, creates long-term changes in how we breathe. Stress and any compensations that we make for current or past pathologies, make breathing more labored. So you are could be making the simple act of breathing harder than it needs to be. Weird, huh? How hard can you be making it if you don't have to think about it? You'd be suprised.
For instance, did you know that the poor little diaphragm (okay, yes, it is actually quite a large muscle) could be doing (SHOULD be doing) a large part of the work for breathing. The diaphragm should be working mindlessly to help you breathe. But for most of us, it could be working more. The diaphragm is supposed to lower and move out of the way so the lungs can expand on the inhale. If the diaphragm doesn't move out of the way then something else has to... something north of the lungs... something that we are always complaining about being tight and sore... something that your arms are attached to... Are you getting it? Yep, it is the shoulders and the base of the neck. But more about that next time.
For now, focus on breathing into the sides and backs of your ribcage when you are doing Pilates exercises. You have to mentally direct the breath into these places before it will happen. There are a couple of easy ways to make this happen. One is to lie on your back with your knees up and the soles of your feet down. From this position, breathe deeply so that the lowest ribs on your back are trying to reach for the mat. Another way to try this is to curl up in Child's Pose. Child's Pose is a yoga position that places you on your knees, sitting on your heels and then your head drops down over your knees. Your arms are by your sides or reaching in front of you. Now, breathe deeply into the lowest ribs of your back. In this position, the rest of your body is essentially trapped so it makes it much easier to breathe into those low ribs.
Please note that in the video, the shoulders of our model are rising. This is typical but also what we are trying to avoid when we are breathing into the backs and sides of the ribcage.
Why do we breathe into the back of the ribcage in Pilates? Breathing so that the shoulders rise and fall with each breath, is simply ineffective. Diaphragmatic breathing (which this also is not) expands the tummy on the inhale. In Pilates, we are trying to keep those abdominal muscles working for us during the entire session. If we inhale and expand the abdominal area then we are essentially stretching the stomach muscles on each inhale and it makes it difficult, if not impossible, to keep those muscles working for us. I'd be happy to help you with any questions. Karena
Last Updated (Wednesday, 30 September 2009 20:49)
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In some cases, you can exercise 'til the cows come home (does anyone know where this expression came from? Really? 'Til the cows come home?!) and you still get no improvement in your bone density. So is it all a huge waste of time? No. Especially not if your fracture rate was reduced 300% compared to your peers who didn't exercise.
These are the results of a study by the Mayo Clinic. The 10-year follow-up of the initial study was done in 2002. Twelve years prior, the study began. Fifty post-menopausal Caucasian women were divided into two groups: an exercise group and a non-exercise group. The exercising group were given a spine extension exercise to perform 5 days a week for two years. The spine extension exercise performed by the exercising group is similar to the picture below. But instead of the weights being hand-held they were placed in a backpack over the upper back (between the shoulder blades). Progressively the weight was increased to 50 pounds. I know.... it does seem excessive but I am just reporting on what was performed in the study.
The results of the women performing this exercise were pretty remarkable. Exercisers increased their spine extensor strength 70%. The amazing thing? After 10 years of not performing this exercise, the exercisers lost only 16% of their strength. The non-exercisers? They lost 27% of their strength. Isn't that amazing? That the exercisers were able to retain so much strength after they stopped. So many people tell me after they've been sick that they feel that they've lost everything they've been working on. How wrong could they possibly be? You might be sick for a week or even a month and that doens't even remotely compare to not exercising for 10 years. And these women only lost 16% of their strength! Remarkable. 
Last Updated (Wednesday, 30 September 2009 18:47)
.....Somebody from Texas loves me even more now.  Sometimes salads don't cut it. I eat a lot of salads but I am by definitely not a vegetarian. ...Okay, I realize pulled pork is a stretch on a Pilates blog but Pilates people actually really, really, really like to eat. Why do you think we exercise so much???
So for our recipe, enter Chef Lance Toro. Chef Lance Toro is currently the personal chef to celebrity Christina Aguilera and he joined us for our radio show on 9.9.09. Thanks again, Chef Lance! 
Here's the recipe from Chef Lance:
3 pounds of pork butt or beef shoulder
S&P the Slab O' Meat
1/2 cup of white wine vinegar
1 1/2 cups of Chicken stock
1/2 cup of natural sugar
Put everything in a Pyrex pan and cover it with
Aluminum Foil
Bake at 425 for 30 minutes or until liquid boils
Reduce heat to 350 and bake for another two hours or until the meat shreds easily with a fork.
BBQ Sauce: Add 3/4 of a bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce after shredding the pork
This stellar picture shows pulled pork topping a plate of nachos. Which looks spectacular and probably what I'll do with the leftovers I have from tonight. I would have taken my own picture of what I made tonight but I just discovered that there is quite an art to photographing food. As yummy as our dinner was tonight, my pictures make our dinner look like nothing you would ever actually put in your mouth.Directions for the non-cook. I think I embarrassed myself more than once asking for clarification on this 4-ingredient recipe but the less guessing the better when you are not a cook let alone a chef. First off, I bought a pork butt at the local butcher. And don't worry if you buy a butt or a shoulder it actually doesn't look like either one. I know, I know; I was worried too. Anyway, I got the butt home (hee-hee-hee) and put salt and pepper on it and then poured the rest of the ingredients on top. As for the white wine vinegar, I used the same stuff that I use to wash the windows. Not after I washed the windows but you know what I mean, the same stuff-- plain old white wine vinegar.
Chicken Stock: I actually did buy chicken stock, not chicken broth. I am reading 'Heat' by Bill Buford and it is all about the real world of cooking and chefs. I have found that when a chef says chicken stock he/she probably totally does not mean chicken broth or chicken bouillon cubes or what I've been known to use in a pinch: the liquid from the Chicken Noodle soup can. Chicken stock means chicken stock.
As for the next ingredient, Chef Lance says that natural sugar is like turbinado, so I bought turbinado. I don't know what other natural sugars there are so I thought I'd stick with what he suggested.
Pyrex Pan. Okay, so this is where I really blew it. No pyrex pan was dirtied in the making of this recipe. But a crock pot was. I'M SORRY, Chef Lance! But I had a doctor's appointment followed by a meeting about my website and I wasn't going to get home until 6pm which means I wouldn't have had dinner ready until 9pm. And I hardly get to see my son anymore because he's almost 19 and never home and leaving for college so I knew if it wasn't ready withing a certain time frame I could kiss the chance of seeing him for dinner good-bye. ..... And Chef Lance, if you are really disgusted by my substitution: Kristy suggested it. Really, I don't know enough about cooking to replace pyrex with a crock pot. It was all Kristy.
I pulled the pork out of the... eeeerrrr... crockpot after about 4 hours on high. Placed it on a cutting board and started pulling it apart. Okay, so, this pork was SO good it really did not need the BBQ sauce. In fact, I think I may have preferred it without. My husband started hovering at this point as well and started eating prior to the BBQ sauce application as well and totally loved it. Even my son (YES! He was still home) came and ate with us and that's after just finishing an entire meal only 30 minute prior). Anyway, I did add the BBQ sauce and it was still just as good. Your choice. Enjoy! Chef Lance Toro joined us on our radio show, 'Today's Woman', this past Wednesday. If you want to podcast the show the date was 9.9.09. Got to www.hometownstation.com and navigate through the podcasts. If you have trouble, drop me a line. Lance helped us start each segment with a new recipe. Each recipe is low on numbers of ingredients and high on quality. Thank-you Chef Lance!!! Please visit Chef Lance's website: www.ChefLanceToro.com
Last Updated (Sunday, 18 October 2009 18:57)
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Friday, 02 October 2009 16:08 | Author: Karena Lineback | 
