catmoves2718
Forum Replies Created
-
Yes! The Veena Method teacher training is amazingly useful! I felt like I needed a “certification” for other reasons, but I learned a tremendous amount from Veena’s teacher training.
-
I just finished the PoleMoves certification. You can contact me to talk about it if you like.
-
Happy belated birthday! And thank you for the wonderful site!
-
I agree with Natalianyx that caloric balance is the cornerstone of weight-loss and maintaining a healthy weight. But I think there is probably a bit more nuance to the issue, especially in terms of maintaining health and energy levels. Some attention to macro-nutrient balance is probably going to be useful for most people. For vegans there are some additional issues related to how to obtain sufficient quantities of certain nutrients.
It’s really not difficult to get sufficient calories on an inclusive vegan diet, by this I mean not eating any animal products, but eating a range of foods, including vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, whole grains, and yes, even moderate amounts of oil and other processed vegan foods, as well as, the occasional treat. If you’re having trouble getting enough calories on a vegan diet, increased intake of nuts, avocados, beans, whole grains and/or fruit should take care of that.
For tracking calories, macro-nutrients, and other values, I like the website myfitnesspal.com . It’s free, has listings for lots of foods, and has a nice user-interface. You can also access it via an ap on your phone. It’s easy enough to log calories by hand, but logging calories, fat, protein, etc. gets to be a little tedious.
Note that a lot of Morningstar Farm’s products are vegetarian, but not vegan, as they contain eggs and/or milk. Pretty much all fake meat is considered processed. I guess you could make an argument for unflavored seitan being not-terribly processed, but anything Morningstar/Gardein/Bocca/etc. certainly counts as “processed food.” However, the labels are not going to say that, if anything they’re going to portray the foods as “natural.”
As far as what kinds of bread or anything else is vegan, read the label, if the product contains meat of any kind, eggs, dairy, gelatine, or honey it’s not vegan. Meat-derivatives can be kinda hard to spot, since it can be included with “other flavors.” Milk/dairy, eggs, fish, and shellfish are all easy to spot as foods that contain these must be clearly labeled because they are common allergens. There are also some food additives (dough conditioners, flavorings, etc) that are not vegan, some people exclude those, some don’t. Note that a lot of the healthiest vegan foods will not be marked vegan, for example, produce, dried or plain canned beans, and whole grains. For things like canned beans I recommend checking labels just to be sure, but for the most part, single or few ingredient items are going to be kinda obvious.
-
I really do hope that you see the changes you are hoping to see with the change in diet, but I also want to warn you that a lot of unrealistic claims about what vegan diets can do for people are made. I think in many cases, these claims are made with good intentions, by people who really are trying to help others, they just don’t happen to be well supported by nutritional and medical science. Despite what some people will try to tell you, there is no evidence that veganism is a magic cure for pretty much everything that ails us. Some people see improvements in their health on a vegan diet, others do not. Nor is veganism a magic key to weight loss. There are plenty of vegans, even whole foods vegans, who struggle to maintain their weight. From what I know about it, the Engine 2 Diet is a restrictive version of a vegan diet, designed in part to help people lose weight, so you may indeed lose weight on it. That said, it may be more realistic to hope for sustained, moderate weight loss, than rapid loss.
I am an ethical vegan, and the last thing I want to do is discourage anyone from becoming vegan, but I worry that when people go vegan with unrealistic expectations, they’re not likely to stay vegan. Despite the fact that they appear healthy, very restrictive vegan diets do have their own set of problems. One problem is that they can be more difficult to follow than more moderate approaches, for example, many of the recommendations made above may not be allowed on a whole foods plant based diet. These are just my opinions, but I am not alone in them. If you’d like to read more on this subject, written a Registered Dietician who is an expert on vegan nutrition (with citations to relevant research), there are links below. I do hope you will go vegan and remain that way. I also hope that you see the health improvements you would like to see.
http://www.theveganrd.com/2015/03/pinto-beans-or-tofurky-how-food-choices-and-motivations-affect-vegan-health.html
http://www.theveganrd.com/2015/01/why-do-some-people-fail-at-being-vegan.html
http://www.theveganrd.com/2015/06/will-going-vegan-make-you-look-like-christie-brinkley.html -
First, congratulations on going vegan! I’ve been vegan for 3-4 years now, and I was vegetarian for about 9 years before that. Honestly, I haven’t found either to be all that challenging. My reasons for going vegetarian and then vegan are ethical, so once I changed the way I thought about eating certain things, I didn’t want them anymore. That said, I don’t follow a super-restrictive diet. I eat a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as other whole foods, but I’m not raw, I’m not gluten/grain free, and I eat plenty of things that would not be allowed on a strict whole-foods vegan diet. Personally, I think I’m healthier and much more sane for it.
Its not a recipe book, but I highly recommend Vegan for Life: Everything you Need to Know to be Healthy and Fit on a Plant-Based Diet by Jack Norris and Virginia Messina. It’s is a wonderful, easy to read resource for evidence-based information on vegan diets. I hate to say it, but there is a lot of not-great information about vegan nutrition out there, so I think it’s really useful to have a resource that is very focused on providing the best, science-based information currently available. Both authors also have websites/blogs: http://www.theveganrd.com/ and http://jacknorrisrd.com/ .
I’ll second recommendations for Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, Vegan Cookies Take Over Your Cookie Jar, Vegenomicon, or pretty much ANY book by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I really like the vast majority of recipes from her I’ve made, and she’s also funny. She also has a website, Post Punk Kitchen: http://www.theppk.com/
For family-friendly recipes, I really like the Peas and Thank You cookbooks. There used to be a blog of the same name that was fantastic, but I think the cookbooks are all that remain.
For recipes I also like the blog http://ohsheglows.com/ . Her avocado pasta i amazing, and fast. There are lots of other good recipes there too.
As for substitutions/products, etc., once you start paying attention, you will find that a lot of things on the super-market shelves are vegan. Obviously fruit and vegetables are, but also a lot (but not all) pastas are vegan. Beans are going to be your new best friends. I also really love tofu and tempeh. If you can find it, there is a company called Wildwood that makes a Super Firm tofu that is amazing–it’s so good that when we moved to a place where we couldn’t buy it, I found a local store that would order it for me, and since then, they’ve tried it and now carry it. If you can find it, tempeh bacon is also amazing (it’s easy to make yourself if you can buy tempeh), it doesn’t have the texture of bacon, so I don’t really like it straight, but you can put it into a BLT or something like that and it’s amazing. For a fast dinner I will make us warm avocado, tempeh bacon, and tomato sandwhichs on french bread.
My husband is not vegan, but he really likes a lot of the Gardein fake meat products, as well as Field Roast sausages. He also likes the new Chao cheese from Field Roast. These aren’t the healthiest foods, so I don’t recommend living on them or anything, but they’re nice to have as an option, I think especially for people who are new to not eating meat.
If you have any specific questions, please let me know!
-
I really can’t thank you enough. I know how much work goes into teaching, and your knowledge and dedication shines through in the Studio Veena lessons. So I am overjoyed to see that you are sharing your teaching knowledge and wisdom. That you are doing it for free shows your generosity and dedication to our community. I can’t wait to start learning. Thank you!
-
I am so sorry you had to experience that! Please don’t let terrible things those people said discourage you! Moving your body, and enjoying moving your body is a beautiful, wonderful, healthy thing, no matter what you weight. Please do not let narrow-minded people take that away from you. If you consistently practice pole, you will get stronger.
As others have said, this is not typical behavior in pole studios. I understand that it is scary, but if you have the opportunity, please try another studio. While learning at home is perfectly viable, and a lot of people are very happy doing it, a good studio can be a really wonderful experience.
As a side note, if students in a first-time/intro class are routinely taught to invert the instructors are emphatically not the best, and are not really concerned about safety. The majority of first-time students are not ready to invert.
-
Vent away! I think a lot of us have those days. For me taking a day or two off usually helps a lot. For you also coming back at a better time of day will probably help a lot.
-
Of course there are! Years ago I was in a class where everyone–instructor included–had some history of relationships with women.
-
I don’t think that there are any standards. Between moving and traveling I’ve been to a number of studios in different states, but all in the US. My experience is that studios that have been around for a while tend to have 50mm poles, while newer studios are more likely to have either a mix, or 45mm poles. I’ve only ever been to one studio that has brass poles, but that might just be me. A lot of studios have poles that have static and spin modes, but it seems to be more common to start on static and then learn spin later. However, I did recently visit a studio in Florida and they keep all their poles on spin all the time, the instructor told me it was “a Florida thing.”
-
In the winter I like to warm up in thigh-high legwarmers and a long-sleeve t-shirt. I love my thigh high legwarmers except they fall down. I may try the body-wrapper, but I muffin-top like crazy in almost anything, so yeah…
-
You’re welcome. I’m glad you found it helpful!
-
Congratulations on opening your studio! I really love the theme/message for your studio.
I know that you weren’t asking for advice, and please forgive me if I am over-stepping, but I saw something in your message that you might want to give some additional thought to. In the middle of your beautiful, positive, affirmative message to women, you say “not only will you lose weight…” I think your positive message might be enhanced if you replaced references to weight with messages about improved fitness or physical strength. As I’m sure you know, weight can be a sensitive issue for some women. Women are constantly bombarded with messages about the weight they should be and the ideal of thinness, and I think for some women, this is what leads to a lot of negative feelings about their body. I believe pole can help women feel more sexy and confident, even if they never lose an ounce. Also, not all women need, or want to lose weight. Finally, doing pole, even regularly is no gaurantee of weight loss. Some women will lose weight, others may gain weight (often from muscle), and others will stay about the same.
Best of luck to you with your new studio!
-
Is the process used in the current Lil Mynx PC poles different from the one that was used in the Veena pole? (I’m guessing this is the case.)