I am a Run-A-Holic.  During my days of serious addiction, I would run for hours a day on the trails ignoring the increasing pain.  On rainy days, I’d step on the treadmill, crank it up and run until I could run no more.  I would try to weave in “going for a run” with friends who were clearly uninterested.

I got a wake-up call after running my monthly 10K race through pain (again).  During the race, I seriously damaged the ACL, the outer ligament, on my right knee.  I couldn’t walk down the stairs, drive or even sit down for any length of time without suffering.

I sought outside help and started taking Yoga once a week.  My ligaments and tendons were so incredibly tight from their daily punishment that stretching on my own was futile.  But the instant release I felt and the core strength I built while practicing Yoga were absolutely divine!  My tight hip flexors and nagging lower back pain dissolved in what seemed like a matter of weeks.  And surprise!  My butt came back!

Next, I replaced some of the running in my daily exercise with a Personal Training session on the TRX.  The TRX, a simple pair of straps mounted on the wall gives me an incredible total body Drew Brees workout, but is still low-impact.   The increased strength and mobility have not only given me pain relief but have increased my stride, and reduced my time!

I am a Run-A-Holic but have gone without an injury for 365 days.

To give me the energy I need on the days I do run, I’ve added the high-fiber, healthy combination of Bulgur and Quinoa into my diet.  While Quinoa has only been available in the U.S. relatively recently, it has been an important part of the South American diet for thousands of years.  Quinoa is a great source of protein and one of the few plant foods that contains all nine essential amino acids making it a complete protein.  Packed with antioxidant materials, it gives me a great boost of energy.  Bulgur has more fiber and nutrients than other staples like rice, and as a low glycemic index food, it produces only small fluctuations in glucose and insulin levels unlike rice and potatoes.  My new fav easy mix: Garlic Clove Foods, developed by Norcross working mother, Amy D’Angelo.  It is a unique blend of fast cooking Bulgur & Quinoa, dehydrated vegetables, legumes, herbs and spices, is an all natural, preservative-free and delicious meal.

Fav combo, created by Atlanta’s own Everyday Chef (everydaychef.com):

Shrimp Santa Fe Pilaf Burrito
Total Time: 25 minutes
Mix 2.5 cups water/chicken broth & whole pack of Garlic Clove Foods.  Boil 20 minutes
Sautee shrimp in a little olive oil
Warm up the whole wheat wrap & scoop in some Pilaf & Shrimp
Wrap & enjoy!

Now, rewind that entire evening but add locally developed Garlic Clove Foods all-natural whole grain pilaf mix in the pantry.  You pull out one of the three delicious flavors from the pantry and simply add hot water or chicken broth to it.  Maybe quickly stir-fry some shrimp or tofu on the stove and pick up where you left off praising yourself.

Garlic Clove Foods, developed by Norcross working mother, Amy D’Angelo is the perfect way to compliment an exercise regiment with convenient healthy foods.  Its unique blend of fast cooking whole grains, dehydrated vegetables, legumes, herbs and spices, is an all natural, preservative-free and delicious meal.  After my long runs or an extra hard workout, these Pilaf mixes are a wonderful way to replenish my body and energy level!

Fav combo, created by Atlanta’s own Everyday Chef:
Shrimp Santa Fe Pilaf Burrito
Total Time: 25 minutes
Mix 2.5 cups water/chicken broth & whole pack of Garlic Clove Foods.  Boil 20 minutes
Sautee shrimp in a little olive oil
Warm up the whole wheat wrap & scoop in some Pilaf & Shrimp
Wrap & enjoy!

Amy’s inspiration and desire for Garlic Clove Foods is to revolutionize convenience foods and the way you get whole grains back into your diet.  Her mission is to offer quick, healthy and delicious foods for those passionate about what they eat.

Stop by the Space Market & Studio to pick up a pack or order a burrito from Everyday Chef.  You can enjoy their yummy Santa Fe, Garden or Spice Cajun Pilaf blends.
Not in Georgia?  Order online!  Visit http://www.garlicclovefoods.com/ and click on Online Store

Just remember this: Take One Step at a Time

It takes one step at a time to meet any goal you set out to achieve.  Looking at dropping twenty, thirty, forty pounds or more at once and believing those weight loss gimmick infomercials is overwhelming and will often lead to even more weight gain.  Instead, pick one or two eating or exercise habits that you know you can handle changing.  Master that then move on.  It could be reducing or eliminating something like soda from your diet, walking for a half-an-hour each day, taking up yoga, work out outside with a buddy, got aggression? Take up a kickboxing class!

I had the pleasure to talk with Personal Trainer: Elisha Quillen Smith about strategies to achieve health and fitness goals.  With a Bachelor’s Degree in Exercise Science and certified as an NASM Performance Enhancement Specialist, she understands fitness is a lifelong journey.  Packed with positive kick-butt energy, Elisha knows that if her clients truly want to reach their goals, they will.  Here are some words of wisdom she has imparted from her years of training clients:

Q: How should someone who isn’t active start an exercise regiment?
A: “[It is important to] find an activity you truly enjoy.  You can burn calories many different ways…Try different classes and training techniques to find out what YOU like and what works for YOU.”

Q: What is the most important piece of training advice you can give to someone?
A: Be accountable to someone.  Have a workout buddy, trainer or any person to support you in your efforts.  Having someone to meet for a workout makes you more likely to go on the days you feel like you just can’t drag yourself to the gym.

Q: What equipment do you personally use?
A: I combine running regularly, jump rope with the TRX.  It stands for Total Resistance Exercise.  It quickly builds tone and core strength through isometric work while greatly reducing chance of injury.

Q: What are your recommendations for diets?
A: I believe in trying to eat as natural as possible.  There are many factors that affect this but try to stay away from processed food.  [This always] makes me feel better.  It can get expensive eating all organic and natural.  I keep costs down by purchasing from my local farmers market and have joined a CSA.  So don’t beat yourself up and do what you can, just making some substitutions will help.

Q: What is your favorite quote that keeps you going?
A: When I completed the Rock N Roll Marathon in 2000, this quote was on the back of my shirt: “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you are usually right” - Henry Ford.  After crossing the finish line this really hit home.  Ultimately we have control over our own destinies and goals.  Knowing this gives me the energy I need to keep going and inspiring each and every client.

Elisha is a Personal Trainer with Holistic Strategies and trains at The Space Market & Studio at 195 Arizona Ave L/W  #7, Atlanta, GA 30307.  You can contact her at 678.478.9937 or elisha@holisticstrategiesinc.com

Healthy Eating and Diet Center on WebMD

Adam created Team Resurrection with the vision of providing the best possible fitness training available today to achieve maximum results.  Adam hosted a free class this past weekend teaching us the basics of punching and kicking.  His class was a blast!  We blew off steam by punching and kicking the bags.  Adam taught us proper form and how to hold the bag while our partners wailed on it.

Learning how to punch and kick is such a confidence builder and I recommend it to anyone (especially women). The release I feel when hitting with the bag (and yes, YELLING while doing it) is amazing!  I not only feel the endorphin release from getting my heart rate up but the catharsis of letting go of any pent up tension–WOW!!!

There is no other way to describe that feeling of release and just knowing “hey, I can really do this!”

Adam is offering another class on Saturday January 9th from 1 - 2:30pm.  Click here for more details on the event.

Adam and Holistic Strategies are pairing up to offer an early morning Muay Thai Kickboxing & Conditioning class 6am Mon-Thu & Sat 1pm with early morning TRX & Yoga on Fri at 6am.  Click here to see the full schedule of classes.

I have always followed my passions, always followed my heart’s desires.  For a majority of my life, I pursued a career in Opera, unfortunately my life’s dream turned into a life of anxiety and fear.  However, I learned and grew through the process and am grateful for the experience.  After taking some time off from that life, I returned back to one of my original passions: Yoga which had been a constant passion as well as my singing, though it always took the back burner.  Throughout my life I was always drawn to Yoga and eastern spiritual practices.  In my spare time I read about yoga philosophy, eastern spiritualities, quantum physics, and ways to live your inner truth.  After receiving my Masters in Opera, I traveled to India where I spent 3 weeks at a yoga ashram and a week of travel.

After doing some research on yoga teacher training programs, I found one that completely resonated with me.  Laughing Lotus Yoga.   A vinyasa studio filled with breath, spirit, sweat, dance, colors, music, and your own Divine love coming alive.   Teacher training was an intense 200-hour program from February 2009 - May 2009.  I loved every second of the experience.  The friendships, the practice, the strength, the flow, the inner truth.  I am so grateful to have been able to spend this time with such an amazing community of yogis.

While I wasn’t sure how this was all going to work.  As I slowly put myself out there and planted the seeds, things began to happen.  I feel through letting go, a whole new world of Allowing has opened up. I aim to be fully present in every moment not holding on to an expectation or attaching to an outcome and I think this has led to all aspects of my life flourishing from the initial seeds I’ve planted.  I am not sure what these gifts will appear as, but I am open to the possibilities!

Teaching yoga allows me the space to feel renewed before, during, and after each class.  I learn so much from my own personal preparation as well as from the amazing students who allow me to share and receive wisdom with them.  My classes are a mixture of movement and spirit.  Ultimately, the reason yoga has a ‘limb’ called Asana is to be able to attain a meditative experience without our bodies and minds aching in the process.   What a beautiful and freeing way to approach our yoga practice - and a lovely reminder to let go, and allow what is already within us: Life.

You can meet and experience Jocelyn’s playful and soothing style of Yoga around Atlanta.  She is beginning to incorporate her gifted voice through singing chants at the end of some of her Yoga classes and Kirtan (an ancient participatory music experience.  Without the work of mentally quieting the mind, kirtan can carry us effortlessly to a place of quiet, to stillness. One of the oldest sacred music traditions of the world, the kirtan call-and-response chanting genre comes to us from India. Using ancient Sanskrit mantras, the kirtan calls upon sacred energies which serve to quiet the mind, remove obstacles, and bring us back to the center of our being)

Jocelyn teaches Vinyasa Yoga at The Space Market and Studio, Nirvana Yoga and Brookhaven Fitness Studio, as well as privately.  She offers massage therapy services at her home office in Edgewood as well as Midtown Life Chiropractic Studio.

I have always followed my passions, always followed my heart’s desires.  So much so, that the practical grounding aspects of life were not considered important… Actually not really considered at all.  Most of my life I have chased my dream of being an opera singer with such vigor, nothing else even existed in my heart of hearts.  Every breath, every sound I spoke/sang/sighed was geared towards the health and support of my vocal cords.  The goal of achieving a life of an opera singer became less a truth and more something I felt I needed to prove, both to myself and to the world.  This need to prove myself caused much heartache and internal judgement.  While there were amazing moments and  feelings of bliss, most days felt like a struggle to stay afloat covered by a constant state of anxiety.

While I was able to perform in a few leading roles, the real reward came from the process itself, not the results.  However, I was so focused on the end-goal that I missed the amazing strength I had built up within. I have since learned that the art of practicing every day for so many years truly was a gift in many ways.  It built my discipline beyond what words can describe.  Through this discipline, I know I can achieve so much.

One year ago I decided to take some time off from the life I had been chasing for so long.  Charles, my life partner, was hired by the New York Philharmonic for a one-year position as a percussionist.  I decided to leave my voice teaching job, my performance opportunities, my voice teacher and lessons and my part-time massage therapy business - my life as I knew it here in Atlanta and moved to NYC with him for the year.  Instead, of continuing down the untrue path I had traveled, I listened to that inner voice deep within that knew I did not want to live that life anymore.

Freedom!  I felt as if I had been reborn/liberated!  Even simple things like waking up and speaking, rather than spending my first half hour in the mornings humming and warming up my vocal cords gently.  I started drinking coffee (something that I never did prior, since it dries out your vocal cords).   Everything felt new and open.

This freedom and openness to the possibilities led me back to Yoga which had been a constant passion as well as my singing, though it always took the back burner.  Throughout my life I was always drawn to Yoga and eastern spiritual practices.  In my spare time I read about yoga philosophy, eastern spiritualities, quantum physics, and ways to live your inner truth.  After receiving my Masters in Opera, I traveled to India where I spent 3 weeks at a yoga ashram and a week of travel.

After doing some research on yoga teacher training programs, I found one that completely resonated with me.  Laughing Lotus Yoga.   A vinyasa studio filled with breath, spirit, sweat, dance, colors, music, and your own Divine love coming alive.   Teacher training was an intense 200-hour program from February 2009 - May 2009.  I loved every second of the experience.  The friendships, the practice, the strength, the flow, the inner truth.  I am so grateful to have been able to spend this time with such an amazing community of yogis.

After our year in the city, Charles, I and Hazel (our chocolate lab) returned by way of a 7,000 mile cross country adventure back to our home in Atlanta.  Upon returning, I had no job and no clue how to even begin the process of looking for “work”.  So many more hours were available during the course of each day and yet the seeds of activity had not even been planted yet.  I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel I was working towards something, how was I going to feel a sense of accomplishment and productivity?

While I wasn’t sure how this was all going to work.  As I slowly put myself out there and planted the seeds, things began to happen.  I feel through letting go, a whole new world of Allowing has opened up. I aim to be fully present in every moment not holding on to an expectation or attaching to an outcome and I think this has led to all aspects of my life flourishing from the initial seeds I’ve planted.  I am not sure what these gifts will appear as, but I am open to the possibilities!

Teaching yoga allows me the space to feel renewed before, during, and after each class.  I learn so much from my own personal preparation as well as from the amazing students who allow me to share and receive wisdom with them.  My classes are a mixture of movement and spirit.  Ultimately, the reason yoga has a ‘limb’ called Asana is to be able to attain a meditative experience without our bodies and minds aching in the process.   What a beautiful and freeing way to approach our yoga practice - and a lovely reminder to let go, and allow what is already within us: Life.

You can meet and experience Jocelyn’s playful and soothing style of Yoga around Atlanta.  She is beginning to incorporate her gifted voice through singing chants at the end of some of her Yoga classes and Kirtan (an ancient participatory music experience.  Without the work of mentally quieting the mind, kirtan can carry us effortlessly to a place of quiet, to stillness. One of the oldest sacred music traditions of the world, the kirtan call-and-response chanting genre comes to us from India. Using ancient Sanskrit mantras, the kirtan calls upon sacred energies which serve to quiet the mind, remove obstacles, and bring us back to the center of our being)

Jocelyn teaches Vinyasa Yoga at The Space Market and Studio, Nirvana Yoga and Brookhaven Fitness Studio, as well as privately.  She offers massage therapy services at her home office in Edgewood as well as Midtown Life Chiropractic Studio

Ideas Are Us We met the founder of Ideas Are Us, a Fair Trade company, Ruksana Hussain when she stopped by our Market & Studio to tell us about her organization. Time and again, it has been shown that supporting Women-owned Micro-enterprises builds the entire community especially in developing countries. Read more about the organization…

Positively Intense Stephen Fusco, our newest trainer at The Space Market & Studio focuses his workouts to train your body, mind and spirit through Intensati Positively Intense…

Project S.L.I.D.E. Samantha “Cakes” Leigh, Founder and Artistic Director of Project S.L.I.D.E. is dedicating her company and herself to teaching youth the art of hip hop dance and use it as a form of therapy to inspire today’s youth to be better citizens. Learn about Project S.L.I.D.E.

Director of Operations: Elisha Quillen Smith Elisha Quillen Smith, our Personal Trainer has been promoted to Director of Operations. Elisha not only brings a wealth of knowledge in the world of training and fitness but she is also a FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH! Full of pure kick-your-butt, make-you-sweat, don’t-let-you-quit, find-your-strength, feel-your-best energy. Meet Elisha

Strength & Infinite Possibilities We leave you with these last thoughts and strategies for your life: Calvin Rouse, Owner of Everyday Chef recently attended our Tai Chi class taught by Chris Gonzalez. Initially, Calvin viewed Tai Chi as most people have: old men moving slowly. But in taking the class, the physical and mental energy he exuded was refreshing. He never knew Tai Chi was a fighting art but now understands how to apply the slow, graceful movements into effective offensive and defensive moves leaving him with added confidence and inner strength. Finally, we leave you with an article about guided meditation to bring you peace and opening you to the infinite possibilities: Peace & Infinite Possibilities

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Many thanks!

Sincerely,

Holistic Strategies, Inc.