Happy Monday to you,

I've had a lovely busy week teaching lots of strength based classes and looking after my little cheeky monkey. Had an interesting start to the week when I woke up with absolutely no voice whatsoever, but a quick cup of boiling water, lemon and ginger sorted me out so that my students could actually hear me!

One thing that came to my attention this week, is that a lot of people were asking if I have any tips for staying trim. I actually do have a few tips that I feel have helped me in my quest to find the body that I am now finally happy with. The first thing is probably the hardest;

- LOVE YOURSELF, stop being so worried about how you look and find things you love about your body. Send positive thoughts to every part of yourself and love who you are and how you look. That for me was a major milestone….the more you love yourself the less guilty you feel about wanting a little treat and then suddenly those little treats are no longer "treats" they are just food and because you know you are happy with or without them, then you find you become less and less tempted by them!

- GREEN TEA every single morning! Make it the very first thing you put in to your body, without fail. If you have lemons go ahead and stick a slice in, that will help boost the metabolism even more. I swear by this and always start my day this way, followed by a much needed coffee (my monkey sometimes gives me sleepless nights)!

- EVERYTHING IN MODERATION have whatever you want, whenever you want it, just don't scoff the whole thing!! Yes, much easier said than done, but when you know that you have probably had enough, boil the kettle and have a herbal tea instead.

- YOGA YOGA YOGA……I realise this should probably have been my first one hahaha! There are so many yoga poses that help to boost the metabolism. I have posted a pic in full wheel (urdhva dhanurasana) from my dog walk this week. I find this one is fab for sending fresh blood flow to the thyroid and you can even chin lock (jalandhara bandha) in the slightly less challenging version of this posture, bridge pose (setu bandha sarvangasana) for the ultimate metabolic boost. I will be teaching bridge pose this week in my classes.

- STAY ACTIVE, walk the dog (if you have one and if you don't, walk your partner or friend instead), dance around to MTV in your underwear, take every opportunity to move and burn energy!

So this week, as I have previously mentioned, I am going to be teaching lots of backbends and some metabolism boosters, but this also means MORE CORE to balance out the backbends and protect your spine!!! To be honest, the core is so integral to yoga practice, I hate to break it to you but you will never escape it! You may as well learn to love it! The multiple benefits of back bending include the undeniable strengthening and increasing mobility of the spine and most importantly, the spiritual sensation of opening your heart and allowing your vulnerability to be exposed. The beauty of this is that it takes courage to do so. Imagine the mat is a microcosm of life, if you can overcome your fears there, then why not in every situation, every single day.

So yogis and yoginis, the moral of the blog this week is to find a love for core strength work and green tea but most of all, open your heart wide enough to love yourself and everyone around you!

Namaste

Raquelle

ps I realise I refer to my little monkey quite frequently, just so you are aware, this is not a pet monkey, she is actually my daughter….she's just very cheeky sometimes hence the nickname.