Thursday, 14 April 2011
Our tree has blossomed!
The tree we decorated in celebration of International Women's Day is awash with the most glorious pink blossom, and nestling between the blossom are our celebratory pom poms! It looks so positive and beautiful!
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Fitness fun for Stokey Ladies
The sun is shining, the trees are almost in bloom, ladies, that can only mean one thing: The dreaded bikini season is almost upon us!! Thank goodness for the WI! Last Monday we all enjoyed a session with the lovely Holly Davidson. Holly is a personal trainer who has worked professionally as a PT for the past 8 years working with clients to tone up and lose weight.
The session was a balance between fitness and diet advice. She started off by showing us a game that anyone could play at home or in the park to tone up those ‘problem areas’. All you need is a bit of space, and a pack of cards. If you pull out a diamond that would mean squats, clubs mean arm dips, hearts means lunges and spades means press ups. So if you pull out a 4 of hearts you would do 4 lunges on each leg, 5 of clubs, 5 arm dips on the back of a chair or bench etc. The queens, jacks and kings would be either running on the spot for 30 seconds, sits ups or jumping jacks. You could pretty much make up your own versions and mix and match. Simple,
yet effective.
Holly then gave us some dietary advice on what to eat and what not…! It was really informative. Holly gave us tips on what to cut out, and what to replace it with. Was actually shocked to find out all the foods that I assumed were ‘healthy’ and how much sugar they all contained. She gave us a really good tip; look on the back of packets, the ingredients are listed in order of content, and if sugar is in the top 5, then there will be loads of it in there. Natural sugars found in fruit are alright as the body can process it easier.
Anyway, enough about science… she also gave us some treats! Chocolate nonetheless! It was a dark chocolate called Plamil, which was dairy free and gluten free- but despite first impressions, was really nice. The second one, which was even tastier, was called ‘Ombar’ which was raw chocolate and tasted like Green and Blacks.
Another alternative healthy snack was called Yokon root (which in fact I am nibbling now!) and it is like dried fruit- which you can get from a website called ‘Tree Harvest’.
If anyone is over London Fields way, there is also a shop called ‘The Happy Kitchen’ which sells delicious, healthy cakes and biscuits and also lots of the things I have mentioned.
Holly’s wesite is: www.hollyactive.com – she’s lovely and I recommend her to anyone who
needs a little help to get healthy and fit. Dust off your trainers and go for it!
The session was a balance between fitness and diet advice. She started off by showing us a game that anyone could play at home or in the park to tone up those ‘problem areas’. All you need is a bit of space, and a pack of cards. If you pull out a diamond that would mean squats, clubs mean arm dips, hearts means lunges and spades means press ups. So if you pull out a 4 of hearts you would do 4 lunges on each leg, 5 of clubs, 5 arm dips on the back of a chair or bench etc. The queens, jacks and kings would be either running on the spot for 30 seconds, sits ups or jumping jacks. You could pretty much make up your own versions and mix and match. Simple,
yet effective.
Holly then gave us some dietary advice on what to eat and what not…! It was really informative. Holly gave us tips on what to cut out, and what to replace it with. Was actually shocked to find out all the foods that I assumed were ‘healthy’ and how much sugar they all contained. She gave us a really good tip; look on the back of packets, the ingredients are listed in order of content, and if sugar is in the top 5, then there will be loads of it in there. Natural sugars found in fruit are alright as the body can process it easier.
Anyway, enough about science… she also gave us some treats! Chocolate nonetheless! It was a dark chocolate called Plamil, which was dairy free and gluten free- but despite first impressions, was really nice. The second one, which was even tastier, was called ‘Ombar’ which was raw chocolate and tasted like Green and Blacks.
Another alternative healthy snack was called Yokon root (which in fact I am nibbling now!) and it is like dried fruit- which you can get from a website called ‘Tree Harvest’.
If anyone is over London Fields way, there is also a shop called ‘The Happy Kitchen’ which sells delicious, healthy cakes and biscuits and also lots of the things I have mentioned.
Holly’s wesite is: www.hollyactive.com – she’s lovely and I recommend her to anyone who
needs a little help to get healthy and fit. Dust off your trainers and go for it!
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