Soul Food
Think for a moment of a food from your past, one that makes you feel great after you eat it for no specific reason. Maybe it is macaroni and cheese, slow-simmered tomato sauce, ice cream cones or potato pancakes. Eating comfort foods (every now and then) can be incredibly healing, even though your rational brain might not consider it highly nutritious.

Food has the power to impact us on a level deeper than just our physical well-being. What we eat can reconnect us to precious memories, like childhood playtimes, first dates, holidays, our grandmother’s cooking or our country of ancestry. Our bodies remember foods from the past on an emotional and cellular level. Eating this food connects us to our roots and has youthening and nurturing effects that go far beyond the food’s biochemical make-up.

Acknowledging what different foods mean to us is an important part of cultivating a good relationship with food. This month when we celebrate lovers and relationships, it’s important to notice that we each have a relationship with food—and that this relationship is often far from loving. Many of us restrict food, attempting to control our weight. We often abuse food, substituting it for emotional well-being. Others ignore food, swallowing it whole before we’ve even tasted it.

What would your life be like if you treated food and your body as you would treat your beloved – with gentleness, playfulness, communication, honesty, respect and love? The next time you eat your soul food, do so with awareness and without guilt, and enjoy all the healing and nourishment it brings you.

Food Focus: Beans
Beans, or legumes, including peas and lentils, are an excellent source of plant-based protein. Beans are found in most traditional cultures as a staple food, offering grounding and strengthening properties that enhance endurance. They offer a highly usable, highly absorbable source of calcium for the body. A very inexpensive source of high nutrition, beans can be rich, delicious and satisfying,

Lack of sexual energy is often due to overtaxed adrenal glands and kidneys. Beans are known for strengthening these organs (ever noticed the shape of a bean?) and can help restore vital energy as well as sexual energy.

Beans have a reputation for causing digestive distress, but this is usually because they have been undercooked or improperly prepared. To help reduce gas-forming properties, soak beans overnight prior to cooking, increase cooking time, add spices like bay leaf, oregano or cumin, or add kombu (a sea vegetable) when cooking.

Recipe of the Month: Easy Beans and Greens
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Yield: 2-3 servings

Ingredients:
1 can black beans (or pinto, red, kidney—your choice)
1 bunch collard greens (or kale, spinach—your choice)
Your favorite toppings, such as salsa, avocado or guacamole and sour cream

Directions:
1. In a medium saucepan, heat drained beans. Add your favorite seasonings, if desired.
2. Fill a separate medium saucepan with 1-2 inches of water and bring to a boil.
3. Wash and chop greens (you can use the stems, too) and add to boiling water.
4. Cook for 2-3 minutes until greens are bright green and tender. Drain off water.
5. On a plate, arrange a portion of the greens, top with a portion of the beans and finish with toppings of your choice.

Remember also to get excited in the kitchen and add your favorite seasonal fruits and vegetables to salads, main dishes or simply to snack on, in season now:
Purple Sprouted Broccoli, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Leeks, Brussels sprouts, Rhubarb, Kale, Celery, field mushrooms, apples, pears, cooking apples and lots more.

Matt Allen
The Yoga Health Coach
www.theyogahealthcoach.co.uk
h.living@hotmail.co.uk

Intensity: The higher the intensity the better the muscles are stimulated. Performing a Nautilus exercise to the point of momentary muscular failure assures that you’ve trained to maximum intensity. Muscular failure occurs when no additional repetitions are possible. As with any weight lifting it is the last few reps that count because the intensity is high.

Progression: The cornerstone of Nautilus Training is progression. Experience hads shown that at least 8 reps and mot more than 12 should be performed. If you cannot do 8 reps the weight is too heavy; over 12 then the weight is not heavy enough.

Form: Form refers to the speed and range of movement and is very important to your Nautilus Training Program. When repetitions are performed in a slow smooth manner steady force is applied throughout the entire movement. The range of movement of each repetition fromfull extension to full flexion – should be as complete as possible. To contract fully a muscle must always work through a full range of movement.

The Negative: In normal positive – negative exercise perfromed on Nautilus equipment you should always concentrate on the lowering – negative – part of the movement. If it takes two seconds to lift a weight smoothly it should take four seconds to lower it.

Duration: If each Nautilus exercise is done properly in a high intensity fashion brief workouts must be the rule. If high intensity work is followed by an adequate period of rest muscular growth and an increase in strength will result. Intensive work however must not be overdone. The advanced athletes must reduce their overall Nautilus exercise from 12 to 10 and train at high intensity only twice a week for instance Monday they might train hard, on wednesday less strenuous and on friday hard again. The wenesday workout does not stimulat growth but prevents muscle atrophy.

When Training With Nautilus…
1. Perform one set of 4-6 exercises for the lower body and 6-8 exercises for the upper body and not more than 12 exercises in a workout.
2. Select a weight for each exercise that allows you to do between 8 and 12 reps.
3. Continue each exercise until no additional reps are possible. When 12 or more reps are performed increase the weight.
4. Work the largest muscles first and move swiftly from one exercise to the next. This procedure developes cardiovascular endurance.
5. Concentrate on flexibility by slowly stretching during the first three repetitions of each exercise.
6. Accentuate the lowering portion of each rep.
7. Move slower never faster, if in doubt about the speed of movement.
8. Do everything possible to isolate and work each large muscle group to exhaustion.
9. Attempt to constantly increase the number of reps or the amount of weight, or both. But do not sacrifice form in an attempt to produce results.
10. Train no more than 3x a week on Nautilus. You can do a ‘light’ cardiovascular sessions on none weight bearing days .
11. Keep accurate records of your training; dates resistance and reps.
12. Vary your workouts

The event kicked off at 10am with Zomba, Barry incorporated a Thriller dance routine to get into the theme of things. This was followed by Break the cycle at 11am, a class mixed with Spinning and upper body circuit. At 12pm we had Yoga which was a great way to stretch out those muscles and relax!

1pm Toby, our Gym Manager, put people through their paces with 80′s Steps and the leg warmers were brought out … particularly scary!  At 2pm We had Killerbells where a couple of Zombies came along to take part and we finished off at 3pm with Coprse and Stretches with Jenny to round off our Spookathon!

Throughout the day we were selling yummy cakes and treats we ran a raffle all week, which was drawn on 31st October.

Alive’s lovely crèche was open for the day, and Maz was on hand face painting the kids.

In total we raised £588.41 and wish to thank everybody who contributed!  In all everybody had a great day and lots of fun!

Special thanks to some of our partners, who offered some amazing raffle tickets: Fear Brighton, Plumpton Races, Donatello, JOY, our very own Maz and Performance Foods.

So as well as keeping fit, you can also keep yourself healthy, with diet and lifestyle advice from Shirley
Shirley can help you:
• Improve energy levels
• Reduce stress
• Improve digestion
• Prepare for pregnancy
• Improve gym performance

How Shirley Can Help You:

There are many factors in our modern diet and lifestyle that can work against good health and contribute to a wide range of health issues Shirley can help by identifying these factors and addressing them through manageable tweaks to diet and lifestyle. Written advice is provided after each session, together with a selection of delicious and easy to prepare meal and snack suggestions
About Shirley:

Having been in private practice since 2008 Shirley has a wealth of experience in health improvement for a wide range of clients and their health issues. Shirley is fully insured and a full member of professional body BANT (British Association for Applied Nutrition and Nutritional Therapy) and as such abides by their strict code of conduct and practice

Want to start improving your health? Then book an appointment with Shirley on 07590 527665
(evening and weekend appointments available). For more information visit www.downtoearthnutrition.co.uk

We are extremely pleased to be offering Student Card UK members no joining fee (a saving of £20) when they sign up for one of our memberships! We offer great student prices already, so get in touch to see how much you could save!

Details of the offer on Student Card UK’s website are here: http://www.thestudentcarduk.com/brighton-and-hove