Sadie Nardini is a popular yoga instructor, youtube queen and co-owner of The Fierce Club, a yoga studio in Soho. Nardini is an expert in yoga fitness and balanced living and is a columnist at GaiamLife and has written for YogaJournal and The Huffington Post. She teaches at all the big events like Yoga Journal and Omega.
Sadie Nardini will kick your flabby butt with inspiration with her Core Strength Vinyasa Yoga Series. Her style is more of a philosophy on yoga than an actual branch of yoga. I actually have taken classes in NYC with Sadie. Her classes were always completed packed with mats just a few inches apart. She even had students that wanted to take her class even if that meant they had to do the practice in the hallway. I also took her teacher training. So I know this practice well and know her gutsy style as well also. She demos the poses with confidences and integrates meditation into each practice.
This DVD includes six full workout sessions that last for an hour or more each, as well as twelve smaller, quicker sessions, each under fifteen minutes. It’s better to do 15 minutes of yoga every day then just one 90 minute session once a week.
Core Strength Vinyasa Yoga: Total Body Transformation
A highlight to this DVD is the ‘Learning How to Fly’ workout which focuses on building yourself to the readiness to do headstand, as well as other gravity-defying postures. I don’t recommend headstand though since that pose can lead to neck pain if you do it improperly without professional supervision.
The focus on weight loss is integral to each workout. In her Core Strength Vinyasa Yoga Series, Sadie does not treat body fitness as an obsession, but simply as a result of a balanced way of living. I love how she infuses living your life more authentically and how your practice is a metaphor for how you live your life.
Total Body Yoga Sculpt: Calorie Burn + Deeper Core Strength
Not another power yoga DVD that is just filled with a bunch of standard sun sulutations….. this 90-minute practice with a matrix menu with unusual poses and flowing sequences keeps you engaged while you activate deep core muscles for more sweaty weight loss. This yoga weight loss DVD is filmed in Sedona (no voice-overs)
I’ll start this review by saying that I am a huge fan of Sadie Nardini’s dvds. However, this is probably my least favorite for a few reasons. First, this dvd seems considerably less “athletic” than the others. If you are not a traditional yogi and you prefer athletic power yoga you might prefer some of her other dvds This video is considerably slower paced than Sadie’s others, and much more “chatty”. I will say that there are still some powerful, excellent strength-building sequences in here, but I found myself really missing the faster flow of her other DVDs.
I’ve done many of her classes before so I had an idea of what to expect. The matrix menu is great because on busy days it allows me to choose what I want to focus on (it’s divided into core, standing, floor, etc). This is so useful because I can build the practice I want on any given day.
This DVD is set up with a “matrix” menu, i.e. there are 8 individual segments that you can play from start to finish or pick and choose based on time and mood. The segments are:
However, I am giving the video 4 stars because it does contain very helpful, very detailed instructions, and awesome cueing. I can see how people looking for a more spiritual yoga video would love this one, but if you want a faster paced workout then stick with her other dvds.
Sadie narrates the whole workout while still doing the routine – no voice-overs. Her alignment tips are spot-on and her background in truly understanding anatomy shows through. She’s also very good at knowing when you’re likely to slip out of proper alignment and will remind you to straighten this or support that at just the right moment. More than just a yoga workout, this DVD truly encompasses the inner workings of yoga as well, helping you to focus and let go of things you no longer need to hold onto in your mind and heart.
The backdrop of Sedona makes for one heck of a beautiful and inspiring session. There is also no cool down segment and I really missed that. If you want to end your practice with Savasana (corpse pose) you’ll either need to do the Inversion segment (includes headstand and wheel) or you’ll need to add it on your own. I wouldn’t recommend this for pure beginners, however if you have some yoga experience there will be something for you in this.
Total Belly Transformation: Whole Body Tone + Deeper Core Strength
Yay! A core workout that’s creative, flowing and tones your whole body along with your center in 30- 45 minutes. . Her very detailed instructions and visualizations come into both my left and right brain through her use of physiological detail and metaphorical imagery (belly bonfire anyone?) . After just 3 meetings on my mat with this DVD, I am learning how to send different kinds of instruction to my core, using deeper muscles than have become my habit.
This series of abdominal/core flows are deep and tough. Because this DVD is easily done as either one continuous series of flows or 3 individual sections, it is very easy to insert into the middle of a longer practice when you want to focus more on core work.
If you have Shiva Rea’s Core series DVDs and wondered if this was worth having too, it is, absolutely worth having ( I have a few Shiva Rea DVDs…. her tummy toning one and her yoga trance dance one) It’s mucho different from Shiva’s work and would make a fine addition to a serious, yoga loving, core focused person’s collection that wants a gutsy workout.
If you have been practicing Bikram yoga for awhile and wanted a dvd you can do at home when you can’t make it to the hot studio. (or maybe paying $20 a Bikram class just isn’t in your budget right now) First thing I noticed is that the entire DVD is actually 45 minutes long as opposed to the 30 it says. There is a 15 minute warm up, a 15 minute standing series and a 15 minute floor series (you can pick and choose or do them all).
I wouldn’t call myself a beginner Yogi but some of these poses were too advanced for me to come close to completing on the first attempt. That being said: I am, again, more than ok with that. I will follow along as best I can and now I have an additional goal of learning to complete all the poses. It’s a nice change of pace from Bikram and if you follow her instructions about the way to hold your stomach and your lower spine, you can really feel your “belly bonfire” ( she does have a way with words).
My only other suggestion would be to watch this dvd through one time and watch how each pose is done if you are unfamiliar with this type of yoga. I think it would be much easier to follow along the first time you try if you have seen each pose done first.
This video is very different from her other Sedona video, as well – no repeats here. In fact, between the two Sedona videos, this one is definitely my favorite. I found this to be a very unusual yoga workout with several moves I have not seen elsewhere – it is almost like pilates in the sense that it is very targeted towards the core. My only complaint is that I feel as if the floor segment in particular could move a bit faster with less talking.
Overall I would say that this is a very solid intermediate level video with one or two advanced moves (crow and side crow), which make it different from other power yoga DVDs with a bunch of sun salutations. This is not a great fit for someone brand new to yoga…. you’ll probably feel overwhelmed unless you are very athletic.
Yoga was originally a system that was just designed to help you achieve self-actualization that was developed in India thousands of years ago. It was really just a seated meditation practice and the poses were designed later to help people feel more comfortable to be in the seated meditation poses longer. It was originally just men that taught and did yoga.
When yoga started to become popular in the west it ended up evolving into a hip, popular exercise system that made you feel so tranquil and compassionate and oh, by the way, your abs now look like Taylor Lautner. There are so many different kinds of yoga and it ranges from restorative poses where you can fall asleep in them because they are so passive and you are using a bunch of props like blocks, bolsters and blankets to have your body release tightness and tension to the uber-intense Bikram where you feel like you are being punished for killing people in your past life by being locked in a 104 degree room with a bunch of stinky people while you all contort your bodies into unfathomable shapes.
Depending on what kind of yoga you do, you can lose weight with your yoga loss weight practice. You will probably end up doing a bunch of sun salutations which consist of classic poses designed to heat your core up, make you limber and get your heart pumped up. Some of the poses in English are called, up-dog, down dog, warrior with variations such as Warrior 1, 2, and 3. Also there is chaturanga, which is a like a push-up and then you lower your chaturanga, which is basically a lowered push up and then later you will probably end up doing poses like side angle, lunge and it’s cousin high lunge and triangle. Most vinyasa and even hatha yoga classes consist of a a series of sun salutations where you just do these poses for about 30 minutes and then the last part of your class you might venture into some poses that are new for you. If my knees were not so cranky these days I would probably be going to other teacher’s classes or just doing more of these at home. Unfortunately, knees don’t like lunges and squats and there tend to be a lot of these in most yoga loss weight classes.
If you want to do yoga weight loss system at home, I recommend buying a few power yoga DVDs and also buying Charry Morris’ Yoga for Weight Loss book. She actually has a free guide that explains how yoga helps you lose weight by altering your metabolism and changing your perspective on food ( and your life in general) This is not a quick fix or take a few pills and just magically lose weight. It will require commitment, dedication, accountability and your attention and perserverance for you to really lose weight with yoga.
What weight loss programs have worked or didn’t work well for you?
At the start of this year, I figured I would revisit how to polish up various facets of my life. With the new year, all kinds of thoughts of rejuvenation and renewal and improvement come into our heads. I’ve been pretty frustrated with diet stuff. I feel like I have a fairly clean diet but I think one I can do is to cook with very high quality oils. I was under the disillusion that vegetable oil, soybean oil and some kinds of olive oil are the healthy fats. Most of these oils are highly refined so you are losing out any potential health benefits and you are better off using grass-fed organic butter than any of those oils. Organic coconut oil and cold-pressed Olive Oil will be my new cooking and salad dressing oil. This is a great tip I got from Mike Geary’s Health Newsletter
I started to look at Amazing Self’s ( excuse the cheesy name….. there are some worthwhile tips in there) about health, wellness, skin, personal finance, relationships and mind-set. It’s a long book, over 100 pages but the writing is a breezy read. I think there are almost too many great tips in here so you start to feel a bit overwhelmed. I wish it was broken out in 8 seperate books so that you can really take it all in and start to make some changes.
For the diet tips, they are pretty adamant about not having caffeine. I know there is a lot of controversy with caffeine and gaining weight. I think we can all agree that those froo froo drinks loaded with high fructose corn syrup and whipped cream will not be kind to your butt or your gutt. There is a big emphasis on eating unprocessed, non-farm raised, organic 1 ingredient food…. eating clean as I like to call it. They actually are pretty anti-vegan and very pro-meat so you won’t have to make any major lifestyle changes for all of us carnivores out there.
I think soda is one of the major downfalls of the American Diet. Cutting out all kinds of soda seems to be one of the first lessons for any wellness or gut-busting plan.
She is also a big proponent of eating fruit, which also has been a somewhat controversial food group in the health and wellness circle since there are sugars in fruit.
Tracy also talks about getting great skin… after all, what one thing makes you more attractive and youthful looking and she recommends to exfoliate like crazy but with only medical grade crystals. I went ahead onto EBay like she suggested and got 2 lb bag of this for $10 ( but the shipping was $12…. YIKES) …I wonder who long that will last me if I exfoliate every day. I love beauty experiments since I used to work in the medical aesthetics industry so this tip will be fun to explore.
Hot Yoga Benefits for Weight Loss
They are also big proponents of using heat when you exercise, meaning you exercise in a hot room or just hang out in a sauna. One of my 5 year goals is to have an infra-red sauna in my house and I know that nothing tones my body and gives me that cut look like a hot yoga class.
There are a number of food choices that can lead to an increased sense of purity, wellness and vitality. Since the modern diet, which is centered around convenience, speed and mass production, this does not always correlate to food that is clean and full of nourishment. Since we are grossly unprotected by our government to regulate cleanliness and nourishment in the food industry, we are left to our own devices to find food that gives us vitality and strength.
The simplest advice I could give is when you read a package of ingredients and you do not recognize the ingredients in them, then it probably means that they are synthetic chemicals that can only harm your body. Don’t rely on packaging that claims it is “healthy, natural, fat-free” since a pile of lard wrapped in MSG can claim that on the main packaging. The more unrecognizable ingredients, the worse it must be for you. I find that when I cook for myself with whole ingredients, instead of buying pre-made and prepackaged foods is when I tend to feel the most nourished. I endeavor to purchase organic foods from local purveyors in order to respect and honor our earth as well.
The more I learn about the harmful practices and foods that the worldwide food industry practices, the more diligent I become about what I purchase in the supermarket. I have read dozens of books about food production, diet, wellness etc. Each book I read, I endeavor to incorporate a few key lessons into my diet. I recently read a book where I learned the distinction between different production methods of olive oil which make a tremendous difference in how one assimilates this very popular and often used ingredient. Now, I will only buy cold-pressed or expeller pressed, first press extra virgin olive oil. Self-reliance and a determination to discover the healthiest ways to feed oneself are critical in an age where we rely on others to grow, prepare and regulate our food.
If you’re not sure if a food is good for you or not, cut it out of your life for 4 days and just notice how you feel.
