by Jasmine | Sep 7, 2012 | eStore, Reviews, Stuff I like
What are the best yoga mats and how do you choose one?
Now that I have been practicing yoga for almost 2 decades I have probably used, bought or borrowed almost 100 yoga mats. When you are a yoga beginner I usually tell my students to just go to Target and get a $10 mat. Some of my students have told me they went to Tj Maxx and got a mat for $5.
I am not a big fan of borrowing a mat from a friend or a yoga studio. Most yoga studios do not regularly clean the mats and at the power yoga studios they often are drenched with dried, caked sweat…..making them smell like the plague.
If you borrow one from a friend you also have no idea how many times they put their sweaty butt or dirty feet on the mat where you are putting your fingers, hands and face. Germaphobes beware of the borrowed mat! I know that sometimes you have to pay a few bucks at a studio to borrow a mat and that is cheaper than buying one so it’s tempting to just delay buying one. When I used to borrow mats at yoga studios ( I haven’t for years now) I used to smell the mat like a bloodhound to inspect when it was cleaned last.
So how do you choose the best yoga mat for you?
There are a lot of things to think about when getting a yoga mat.
Thick yoga mats
If you are a yoga beginner and a bit out of shape then I recommend a very thick yoga mat so when you are going to be kneeling and on all fours you have a lot of cushioning. You can also roll up your yoga mat from the back for your knees or just a bit from the front for your wrists to have some cushioning.
Portable yoga mats
If you are traveling a lot then you want a really thin mat that rolls up nice and tight and doesn’t take too much space in your luggage. You can also buy Yoga gloves and yoga booties for your hands and feet. You just wear special gloves and booties so you can do your practice on any kind of surface with no risk of slipping.
Yoga props when you are traveling
If you want to be eco-conscious then you can get a mat made from sustainable materials like bamboo. There are also yoga rugs out there which are quite traditional but I am just not fond of.
If you are doing hot or power yoga then you want a mat where you won’t slip and slide a lot and you want your feet to “stick” to the mat.
There are also all kinds of yoga designs besides just a regular purple mat you can get. I’ve seen mats with butterflies, sunsets and Yogamatic makes custom mats where you can put your own photo on it. I bought one of these for a friend’s wedding and it was around $90 plus shipping.
What matters most to you when buying a yoga mat? Portability? Thickness? Stickiness? Sustainability? Aesthetics? Post your answers below.
by Jasmine | May 2, 2012 | Alternative Health, eStore, Gluten-Free, Gluten-Free Desserts Book, Reviews, Stuff I like
If you feel powerless to resist these sweet morsels of the devil in a plastic-wrap like I do, then why not make them in a way that is clean, pure but still tummy-rubbing satisfying? Fat-burning brownies? Pizza? Cheese Stuff rolled? Focaccia? Muffins? Crepes? New York cheesecake with raspberries on top? All Gluten-free? I can feel the drool leaving my mouth just thinking of these things…
Author, and diabetes coach Kelley Herring whips up foods for those in a healing crisis such as diabetes, cancer or just overweight with low-glycemic, low-sugar foods for healthy living. At this stage of the game, we all know the culprits are things like blueberry muffins, Dominos, …. anything cheesy or sugary seems to be satan to our butts and thighs. But just imagine a…fat burning brownie!! She includes this in her gluten free desserts book.
Gluten-Free Desserts Book
Kelley Herring is the Editor-in-Chief of many clean-eating cookbooks including: Eat to Fight Cancer, Eat to Beat Diabetes, Eat to Lower Cholesterol and Eat to Boost Fertility. Her books which are available online as downloads are: Guilt-Free Desserts, Better Breads, and Awesome Appetizers.
She taught me about a fiber which adds a “cotton-candy” sweetness and creamy mouth feel to desserts that feeds good bacteria in the gut as well as covering the bad side of artificial sweeteners (Equal, NutraSweet might as well be Lysol in a pretty packet that you can sprinkle on your coffee).
She describes an alternative to sugar that have zero calories and no glycemic impact which will be critical for diabetics or anyone that wants to lose some blubber around the middle. In her recipes, you’ll see how to add “invisible fiber” to your desserts that doesn’t change flavor, texture or preparation.
She even substituted the evil ingredients with “metabolic power ingredients” which help to keep your blood sugar stable and even “stoke your body’s fat-burning furnace:. Many conventional comfort food recipes such as chocolate mousse, cheesecake, pizza, muffins, creme brulee and mucho mucho others were given a “total health makeover” while keeping all the taste, texture, moisture and decadent sweetness.
Some of the ingredients will be trickier to find such as non-aluminum baking powder, organic coconut flour, agar agar powder, chia meal, erythritol, xanthan gum, pasture-raised eggs, SweetLeaf Stevia Vanilla Creme Liquid Stevia, Organic Sunbutter and a few others. Most of the other ingredients call for organic ingredients and often will be chemical-free, processed sugar free and they contain ingredients that are minimally refined or processed (if at all) in this gluten free desserts book.
You probably won’t be able to find these ingredients at your local average supermarket and will have to get many of the ingredients at a specialty health food store such as Whole Foods. You might be able to get some of the ingredients at a local farmer’s market such as the pasture raised eggs. She often gives resources for where to get some of the ingredients online.
I chose to make the brownies and there were about 2 sticks of pasture raised butter and 6 pasture raised eggs in there. It was a simple recipe to make and I always love to lick the bowl and beaters after I have mixed up all the ingredients. After about 25 minutes in the oven, my steamy brownies came out and the perfume of chocolate was wafting throughout the house. The texture was like a brownie, mousse and souffle……. light, dense and moist all at once. It is taking every once of my limited will power to just not eat the whole pan right now (If I did that, could I lose a few more pounds?)
Often when I make low-fat or gluten free baked goods, there is something missing in the texture or the sweetness is off. Not so with the brownies…. only problem is that they are TOO yum-yum. When I am God, I am going to make broccoli taste like cheesecake, and cheesecake taste like broccoli.
Probably the most unusual ingredient in a cupcake is organic cannellini beans for the Yellow Cupcakes. (It’s so strange though that it has to be good)
Have you ever cooked a gluten-free, or naturally sweetened (with Stevia or coconut sugar dessert)? If yes, what results did you get? What did your friends and family think?
So if you want to cook gluten-free desserts or gluten-free fat burning brownies, cupcakes, breads or any other yummy things then start cooking with Kelly Herring’s gluten free desserts book.
by Jasmine | Apr 26, 2012 | Stuff I like, Yoga Teacher training
- Benefits of Yoga for Depression and Anxiety with Viniyoga
I just got back from my first Viniyoga training with Gary Kraftsow at the NYC Yoga Journal conference last weekend. I’ve been practicing hatha yoga for over 15 years and have mostly gone to classes that just had a bunch of sun salutations in them.
Yoga has been a way for me to release tension and tightness but I think I was not trained in proper alignment and anatomy and after doing thousands of up-dogs, down-dogs, shoulder-stands and warrior poses without proper body mechanics, I have a feeling I injured my body pretty badly. I’ve had chronic neck stiffness and headaches for many years now and the last year my knees have been pretty bad. I was starting to dread teaching so much since I would have to ice my knees after my classes and I would not be able to sleep due to my screaming knees.
Yoga Positions and Styles for Headaches and Stiff Necks
I started to take some Iyengar classes and that seemed to help my throbbing knees. I went to a doctor that specialized in athletes and knee pain and based on his recommendations and my Iyengar classes I was finding a higher level of manageability for my knees but my neck and headaches were persistent ( despite rounds of holistic practitioners and conventional western medicine I could not figure out how to get rid of my head-aches and neck stiffness)
Imagine having someone whack you on your head with a sledgehammer all day long and just about every day. Now imagine someone is sticking a little knife at the back of your neck.. Welcome to my body. I used to want to run away from my body but there was no where to run to. Deep sleep provided the only vacation from my body. I used to hate waking up in the morning since I had to wake up to my neck and forehead screaming at me.
Enter Viniyoga…..
I am not sure if I had ever heard of Gary before this weekend. I think his name was familiar to me from Yoga Journal. I remember reading once about Viniyoga but whatever I read didn’t grab me and I was never interested in exploring it any further.
I went to his first workshop on upper body, neck and shoulder pain. We did some unusual poses that were similiar to other poses I had done before but there were key differences. Gary kept emphasizing coordinating our breath to our movement, (otherwise it’s just calisthenics) . We twisted, We triangled. We saluted and we warriored. After about 30 minutes of breath-centered poses, I slowly but deeply started to feel some relief. It would take hours for my body to integrate what we did and later I started to feel more relief.
Yoga Workshop for headaches, neck pain and shoulder tightness
I was comfortable just being in my body. I felt present. I felt at home. I didn’t want to run away from myself or my body.
I went to Gary’s all day intensive even though the title sounded uninspired. ” Yoga for Depression and Anxiety.” We dove deeper into some of the physical and emotional mechanisms behind anxiety and depression. We explored chanting and breath centered movement. It was like a moving meditation. I could feel deeply ingrained patterns of limitation, pain and constraint being worked though levels of my fascia and psyche.
I felt a sense of liberation. I was freed up to have new thoughts and new feelings.
I taught some of these methodologies the next week in my classes and was delighted to see the look of relief on my students’ faces after I had introduced them to viniyoga.
I can’t wait to dive deeper into the warm waters of Viniyoga.
by Jasmine | Apr 1, 2012 | Alternative Health, Spirituality, Stuff I like
Elephant Journal & Yoga
What yogi doesn’t love reading elephant journal for Yoga articles they have in there. I think I discovered EJ a few years ago when I was starting to do more blogging. I love how there is always a wide assortment of writers, bloggers about all kinds of topics about yoga, spirituality, love, sustainability. Sometimes there is some social activism viewpoint from the writer but more often than not, it is just a refreshing voice on a popular topic. It seems like there list of topics is always growing from having business-centric topics such as 10 Things to Consider before Opening a Yoga Studio, Part II to racier topics such as Sexus Plexus: 20 Ways to Light a Fire which have all kind of intimate partner stretches, moves and scenarios and also topics in Spanish such as Latin Yoga Para Ti.
The city guides are awesome as well since they cover some of the main progressive metro areas in the US such as LA, NY, SF, Portland and Boulder. I think my favorite name for any of their categories is NON NEW-AGEY SPIRITUALITY. I have written a few posts for Elephant Journal – Yoga blogs but they are pretty picky and do have some guidelines you have to adhere to in order to have your submission accepted. Here is another cool article I came across in EJ lately. How to Have a Killer Relationship. ~ Dr. Katy Poolewhich poses many love questions for you and your partners to consider.
Fun partner stretches
If you write for elephant journal on Yoga then you want to keep it very personal, casual and grass-roots sounding but don’t mistake any of that for meaning that it should not be well-researched, well-written and well-thought out. There are also certain stylistic guidelines that they post that you will want to adhere to as well. Bob Weisenberg is one of their main Editors and he contributes meaningfully to online conversations that are not just on elephant journal.
Their mission, which is stated on the site ” is dedicated to bringing together those working (and playing) to create enlightened society.” Most of their articles are not “How To” articles but rather are about someone’s opinion, viewpoint or personal journey that often elicits the response, hmmmmmmm and you can pause and reflect for a bit.
Most of the article make me smile or chuckle… occasionally laugh out loud…. for example in this post 10 Things I Will Never Do In Yoga. I love how the writer talk about “yoga porn”, where is where some yogia is doing some ridiculous balanacing pose while teetering on the edge of a cliff. He also mention how he will never get in a ” yoga competition” since yoga is about letting go of striving and if he did enter a yoga competition he would probably just “kick your ass” anyway. I’m sure he could kick my yoga ass, metaphorically speaking…. I’m not one of those yogis that can be super gumby like and do things like hyper extend into a backbend where my head almost touches my butt in a backbend. I almost want to laugh when I am in an “intermediate” yoga class and the teacher casually says, ” Ok. let’s do the splits now”. (When I look around the room only 6% of the students are in a full split and most of them are about the same level of unflexibility as me (despite doing yoga for almost 18 years) Just so you know, yoga is not about who can bend their joints the most and show that off to a group of people.
This kind of writing style is indicative of the other insightful, witty, personal, grass-roots, hmmmm-invoking writers that elephant journal draws on. Thank you Waylon Lewis (Editor-in-Chief and self-titled Errand Boy)
Jasmine Kaloudis teaches many yoga retreats near Philadelphia and is the author of the best spiritual websites list.
Elephant Journal & Yoga Poses
by Jasmine | Mar 14, 2012 | Alternative Health, Meditation, New Age, Reviews, Spirituality, Stuff I like, Yoga Health, Yoga Retreat, Yoga Teacher training
I set out to create a representations of the top spiritual sites for yoga, spirituality, meditation, holistic health and wellness. Over these subjects overlap and so many of the yoga sites I reviewed had all kinds of great content about health and wellness. Many of the sites were promoting teachers, products or places that I had a personal connection or experience with. I included many yoga teachers, studios or retreat centers that I had been to.
Top Spiritual Websites
Some of them of them were aspirational. I have never been to Rancho La Puerta in Mexico right near San Diego but since I used to work at SpaFinder and my parents have been there a few times, I feel pretty well acquainted with what they have to offer and the value they provide. When I used to work at SpaFinder, almost every single day I would come across a destination spa somewhere in the world that I just absolutely “had to go to”. I looked at so many pics and videos of the most luxurious properties and was just drooling all the time over these incredible sanctuaries of luxury and beauty.
Of course, I had to include places like Kripalu in Western MA in the Berkshires since that is where me and my hunky, Hellenic hubby saw our friendship blossom into romance and we met at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY in the Hudson Valley just outside of New York City almost 4 years ago. Even if these places didn’t play such a pivotal role in my own personal life history, I think they would have been included anyway since they both offer so many outstanding spiritual and personal growth seminars and workshops in idyllic locations.
Spiritual Sites for Mind-Body-Spirit, Yoga and Holistic Health
This top 100 spiritual sites listto be a great gateway into the holistic world of wellness and well-being, with lots of juicy yoga-centric links since I’m a yoga teacher. We, Yogis need special clothes, training, props, mats, music and equipment so I included some of my favorite sites to buy all things yogic-ally.
If you have been involved with the yoga community for a while you will recognize some of the sites on here and likely find a myriad of awesome resources. I encourage suggestions for other top spiritual websites that can be included in next year’s list. Some of the sites are just loaded with all kinds of free tips, articles, downloads and videos. Like yogadownload.com where you can get your down-dog on at home (or out and about on your mobile phone). I had to include Yogajournal.com but recommended the little know community section which is like YogaJournal’s own little Facebook where you can post pics, videos, blogs and comment on other members content.
While we all value directness and constructive criticism, please be professional and refrain from disparaging comments… no trashing anyone on this list or that will disqualify you from being considered for next year.
Ideally, you would nominate another company but I do accept self-nominations. I reached out to the webmasters
of most of the sites and if something is in quotes, then it is in their words and not mine. So this is my list of the top Spirit Mind Body Websites. I also include resources for yoga DVDs, books, clothing, retreats.
by Jasmine | Feb 15, 2012 | Alternative Health, eStore, Reviews, Stuff I like, Yoga DVDs, & Podcasts, Yoga Health, Yoga Teacher training
Best Yoga Videos – Jill Miller Yoga Tune-Up Reviews
Jill Miller Yoga Tune-Up Videos have made such a big difference for me lately. I think I found I found her while reading the latest issue of Yoga Journal magazine. Since I have been having bad knee pain for awhile and it seems like it was getting worse and worse. I teach about 5 -10 yoga classes a week. Most of them are gentle classes and I also teach a lot of couples yoga and partner yoga classes in Manayunk. I don’t teach a lot of vigorous yoga these days even though I was trained in that. I didn’t even do that many standing poses since I tend to teach a lot of poses where you are seated, laying down or even in a chair.
I did not get a lot of strong anatomy training in my yoga teacher training even though I kept asking for it all the time. I wanted to make sure first and foremost that I did no harm to my students and really didn’t know how to work with students that had a lot of injuries, pain, prior surgeries etc. I have been teaching more and more classes these last few years and my knees seemed to get progressively more painful. I saw a myriad of health practitioners from traditional allopathic doctors that gave me some quad strengthening exercises ( helped a bit) to the omre alternative healers who would invoke angels to heal me, wave crystals on me.. whatever it took. I didn’t care what method it was…. just wanted to feel better.
I would often wake up in the morning with my knees on fire… actually it was worse than that… my knee pain was so intense in the morning that the pain actually woke me up. Not a pleasant way to wake up. I don’t know why but it was always the worst in the morning.. ( can anyone explain that) I would often ice my knees… or they just throbbed so bad that my hottie, hunky hellenic hubbie would fetch me some ice so I could cool my knees down first thing in the morning.
I found her videos a few months ago and they have been a a gift from some higher power… I literally would pray to god to help me with the throbbing.
Best Yoga Videos – Jill Miller Yoga Tune-Up Reviews
I started to do the exercises in her videos every day….it took a while to do all the movements she recommended. Most of them involved massaging certain parts from you
r hip all the way to the bottom of your toes. These muscles can get dry and tight and when the muscles that affect how your knee tracks are dry, tight and out of whack, then that can affect how your knees track. So I went ahead and bought her special yoga therapy balls. At first I was just using tennis balls but wanted to really do the massaging and exercises properly so I broke down and just ordered her special Jill Miller Yoga Tune Up therapy balls. They’re kind of fun to play with, just don’t let your dog near them… they make for a nice chew toy.
Over the last few months I have also been studying how to do some of the classic standing poses so I can stop injuring myself. So slowly, I have been learning to keep my knees smiling and now there is less repair I have to do on them.
The poses, sequences and routines of Jill Miller Yoga Tune Up Program are designed to strengthen your weak muscles, stretch your tight and dry muscles and heal from head-to- pinkie toe. She has a focus on finding your body’s blind spots – areas that have become weakened due to overuse, underuse or misuse, and are now prone to stiffness, inflexiblity, pain and injury – these specialized routines will help balance out your entire physical being.
What kind of modalities have helped you find relief from tightness, chronic pain and stiffness?
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