The Holidays are officially in full force! Last month I shared a few tips for helping you make balanced eating, working out and holiday style fun and easy. Now I want to share a few more tips to help you feel inspired and make it through this final stretch of holiday festivities in a way that allows you to indulge in your favorite traditions (and treats!) while feeling great and taking care of yourself!
Dress Up Your Workouts:
The New Year comes with renewed goals of wanting to make health and fitness a priority. It is a wonderful time to invest in yourself and see this as an opportunity to bring out your strength and beauty! Working out does not have to be seen as a chore and instead you should look at it as something luxurious where you are pampering yourself! Get excited about your workouts by treating yourself to feminine, elegant active wear.
By wearing beautiful active wear pieces when I am training, I feel like I am giving myself a special gift and it helps me view my workout so much differently. This is such a wonderful way to be inspired and feel beautiful while you are working out. Not only is our dancewear stylish and chic, it is super comfortable and made with top quality sport-wear fabric. It also reminds me to keep my stomach in, pull my shoulders back and have a nice posture.
Some of my favorite festive active wear pieces right now are: Red Halter Leotard, Navy Half-Sleeve Leotard, Slate Grey Slippers and Lily Legwarmers.
Working out and making your fitness a priority is something that should make you feel beautiful, confident and strong, and these stylish pieces help you feel just that! These are wonderful pieces to get you inspired for your workouts or as a special gift to get your loved ones inspired!
Kick Up Your Workouts:
The Holidays are a time of more indulgences and treats and you should participate and enjoy! A great way to balance out all the fun is by kicking up your workouts a notch. There are some new killer Ballet Beautiful workouts that are perfect for making sure that you fit in a hardcore workout!
If you are short on time, I recommend the Ultimate Super Model Workout bundle. These are challenging online workouts that you can do quickly wherever you are. They sculpt long lean, ballerina muscles in the legs, hips and thigh, and tone and lift the butt. These workouts definitely burn and you will feel the effects right away. If these really inspire you and you want to take it a step further, check out my blog post on what a week inside a VS Angel’s workout looks like – it will give you a week’s worth of inspiration on how to put together an incredible workout plan.
If you have more time, the new Backstage DVD Workout is a perfect choice! I LOVE this new killer workout that is super challenging and delivers great results. We move through each exercise quickly in this DVD and end with a nice, long stretch so before you know it you are finished and have completed an incredible workout. It is one hour of targeted power toning that builds strong, sleek ballet muscles and increases flexibility. I love how this workout really makes you feel that full body burn.
There are lots of different ways to train with Ballet Beautiful – from blasts, to streaming videos, to DVDs and our Custom Workout – you will definitely find an option that works best with your schedule and availability. Head to our website and see how you can kick it up a notch!
Healthy Treats:
There’s no escaping sweets during the Holidays. The Ballet Beautiful approach is to make them as healthy as possible, without sacrificing taste and fun. A few of my favorites for lighter sweets that can help keep you on track are ginger or gingerbread cookies (I cannot resist a gingersnap, cookie or gingerlady at the Holidays!), an oatmeal whole-wheat cookie and a guilt-free hot cocoa that can be adjusted to your personal taste.
The hot cocoa is a quick and easy recipe that will warm up any day! Many bakeries will also carry ginger and oatmeal cookies at the Holidays so keep an eye out if you are shopping for something pre-prepared or you could also try out the recipes that we found below.
Guilt-Free Hot Cocoa
Ingredients:
-1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
-1 cup organic low fat milk
-Raw sugar to taste
Instructions:
Place milk and hot cocoa mix in a saucepan over low heat whisking until cocoa is dissolved. Heat through, stirring occasionally and make sure to not let it boil. Add sugar to taste. Remove from heat, pour into your favorite mug and enjoy!
*I like to use unsweetened cocoa powder and add my own sugar because I can control how much sugar that I want and use the high quality sugar that is healthier. If I am drinking the hot chocolate at night or pairing it with a sweet treat, I will use less sugar.
Healthy Ginger Cookies
Ingredients:
-¾ cup coconut oil
-¾ cup brown sugar
-1 egg
-¼ cup molasses
-1 cup whole wheat flour
-1 cup white flour
-2 tsp baking soda
-1 tsp cloves
-¼ tsp salt
-2 tsp cinnamon
-2 tsp ginger
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine all the wet ingredients in a bowl. Then add the dry ingredients to the bowl and mix thoroughly. Roll dough into balls and roll balls into granulated sugar. Place balls onto baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Let cool and serve!
Oatmeal Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies
From Lexi’s Clean Kitchen
Ingredients:
-2 cups gluten-free rolled oats
-1 cup of almond flour
-½ cup grass-fed butter (8 tbsp), room temperature
-½ cup organic coconut palm sugar
-½ tsp baking powder
-½ tsp baking soda
-2 organic eggs
-¼ cup unsweetened organic applesauce
-½ tsp cinnamon
-½ tsp vanilla extract
-Dash of Himalayan sea salt
-1/3 cup dark chocolate chips
-1/3 cup organic raisins
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a food processor, pulse 1 cup oats until they are somewhat ground up. Cream together butter and coconut sugar (I used an immersion blender). Add in eggs and vanilla and whisk until combined. In a separate bowl combine oats, ground oats, almond flour, coconut sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add butter mixture to dry ingredients and mix well, add applesauce and mix again. Mix in chocolate chips and raisins. Roll into balls and gently pat down on baking sheet. Bake for about 12-15 minutes. Let cool and serve!
