Ella Ben-Aharon, Master Trainer for Pilates Sports Center, has just launched her first Israel Program. She has been teaching for PSC for more than 8 years and has lead the program at Reebok Sports Club/NY and at the University of Florida at Gainesville.
The new webpage for Studio Naim for our Mat certification: http://www.naim.org.il/psc-mttc/
First 3 weeks of May 2011.
Address: via Solomon (Selma) 46, Tel – Aviv, targeting 66 073
Phone: 03-5188998
click to Email
The Daily Ride...
I ride my bike to Pilates Sports Center about three days per week. Today was one of those days, and I’ve got the commute down to about 32 minutes give or take a few seconds. I’m clearly not a poet, nor a master of prose, but I find myself always thinking on these rides about things that I hear, smell and see as my senses are always on full alert. The ride to and from the studio is always an exciting highlight to my day. So, here are some of the things I noticed on my ride today.
- People that honk their horns are really angry at something, but whatever that thing is – it just looks foolish to those of us outside on the sidewalks.
-I still can’t get over the fabulous scents in the air. It’s as if each restaurant is cooking up a nice slice of heaven. I want to eat at each place.
-Motorcycles are all loud, but some motorcycles are deafening. There oughta be a law.
-Movie crews are a busy bunch when they take over a city block. Lots of running around in every direction and yelling.
-I hear a lot of interesting languages on the sidewalks. None of them English, but most of them far prettier.
-Why do people half commit to the right hand turn before they ever look to their left? It baffles the mind.
-From Van Nuys Blvd to Sepulveda I must pass 200 or more cars each day I ride.
- Why do portly pedestrians always insist on walking right in the middle of the sidewalk? Can’t we follow the same walking rules as we do driving? Walk on the right, people! Can’t you see I’m minding my own business breaking the law over here?
-Most drivers need to unwind from their commute to work before they put in their 8 hour day. No wonder people are so tired and grumpy all of the time. Coffee and Facebook can only cure so many things.
-To have a life where at 7am I’m on top of a mountain with my bike, and at 9:30am I’m taking a fun Pilates class is the kind of life I’d really enjoy. Wait…that is my life.
-Some people hate turning 40. In some ways, now at 40 I feel like I’m really actually living for the very first time.
-On my bike life makes much more sense to me than when I’m in my car.
-I find I smile nearly the entire time I’m riding. I never catch myself smiling when I’m driving in LA…unless Howard Stern says something really funny, which happens far less now than it did when I was 20.
Lastly, I have to give thanks to my good pal, Josh for making me stick to a Pilates regiment that sort of started this whole fitness campaign that became a lifestyle choice over a year ago. Together we created a fabulous product, in Pilates for Men that hopefully will be a conduit for many others to follow in their own healthy journeys so they can find the fulfillment that I have found.
Until next time!
-Art
Do I really weigh that much?
I went on vacation last week, and I never expected to have the epiphany that I had. I learned how food consumption and exercise really work. I went through the Pilates For Men 10-20-30 Challenge and I understood that while I was exercising vigorously, that eating only 1500 calories per day was really effective in helping me ditch those extra 20 pounds. BUT…what I learned on my cruise to the Bahamas last week was so much more meaningful in learning what NOT to do and why. I went on this beautiful Norwegian Epic ship leery of what could happen with 20 gourmet restaurants to choose from and my crazy appetite. I was prepared mentally long before I ever passed over the gangway and onto the ship. I’ve been down this road before and I know that in 7 days a schmuck like me can gain 10 pounds. It wasn’t going to happen this time. I was a rock I tell you. My first stop was to the fitness center, which of course, was state of the art. It was equipped with everything (sans a scale…gee I wonder why?). Now, I was still going to eat – that’s what I paid for afterall, but I was also going to work out every single day. Pilates, weights, cardio…all of it. And for 7 days, that is what I did. I ate, I worked out, I swam in the Atlantic Ocean, ate some more, worked out some more, sweated, ate, drank…I did it all. After about my fifth day I knew I put on weight. I hadn’t a clue how much because they smartly don’t have scales on board these ships. I would say my ‘activity level’ had been extremely high, yet I knew that familiar bulge forming around my middle. I could see a little extra puffy skin under my jaw line, and I feared I’d put on about five or gasp seven pounds.
Here’s what’s frustrating…I was watching myself at the buffet table! I was careful about what I was eating. It was on the forefront of my mind, and I didn’t go all out like I’d done in the past. So, sweating it out in the steam room, it came to me. It’s so simple. Humans weren’t meant to consume 4,000 calories per day. Think about it. As little as a couple of thousand years ago we were meant to hunt and gather our food. Our bodies are still accustomed to that. If we could consume 1500 calories per day in nuts, fruits and meat that we’d hunted, our bodies were thrilled, and gave us boundless energy to continue to hunt and gather. Soooo, when we stuff 4,000 calories per day down our gullet, our body does what it was built to do, it saves it, stores it, and turns it into big walls of sticky, icky fat! Let’s go back to our few thousand years ago scenario. We consume veggies, fruits, meat (about 1500 calories) and we can run, hike, gather, move our bodies for an entire day. If we have a day where the pickings were slim and we only took in 1,000 calories, no problemo, our bodies went into conservation mode, and we functioned perfectly well. Now, back in present day and we add all the processed goop that we eat and we fool ourselves into thinking that 40 minutes on the bike, or treadmill is going to right all those wrongs, and we’ve got another thing coming. It’s virtually impossible to burn it all off because we are conditioned to conserve energy and be extremely efficient. Our wonderful and perfect bodies are saving all of that glorious energy waiting for the famine that will never come. Instead what comes is tomorrow, which brings another 4,000 calorie day of consumption, then another, and another and so on, until we are unhealthy, immobile heart diseased, diabetics in big big trouble wondering how this happened to us.
The scariest thing I learned on the cruise was that it doesn’t take much. I definitely ate, and sadly nearly everything “good” is rich on the ship. So, in the spirit of honesty, I’m going to give you my before cruise weight, and my after cruise weight. Don’t get too attached to the after number, because I’m going to lose every last stinking, filthy (delicious) ounce that I gained.
Ready?
You sure?
Okay. Here it is…Before cruise – Art’s weight = 193 pounds.
After cruise – Art’s weight = 201 pounds.
I worked out every single day and was only gone for 7 days. Scary isn’t it? Remember friends, our bodies were designed to function extremely efficiently. Food is for fuel. That’s how the biology of our bodies function. We stuff crap into it, and we’re in trouble and it doesn’t take long. I got home from the cruise on Saturday and immediately went for a 35 mile bike ride. I will follow that up with an hour of vigorous Pilates every day until my “after” picture is securely hanging nicely on my bones. I’ll keep you posted, and I won’t let ya down!
