Recently, the following question was presented to me by a client regarding implementation of the "tuck" position outside of exercise sessions.  As a topic that has needed addressing, no time like the present.

Q.  Lani, today I'm having a soreness in my lower back that I usually don't have. I've been trying to really connect with "curling my core and keeping but" tucked during the day….not just when I exercise. I just started noticing this today….Today while doing my workout, on the curl up with hands on knees it really hurt. Any thoughts? Thanks a bunch.

My reply: If I understand you correctly, the "curling the core" is a reference to the pulling of the front of the torso in, while pressing the low and middle part of the back in the direction of the space behind you. And the tuck means the backward tilt of the pelvis that comes with a tuck of the tail.

In my practice, I teach that while these positions and exercises are important for correcting muscle imbalance, these are exercises not to be duplicated with intensity all day long. You should NOT be taking the deep tuck into all walking and standing movements. Rather, pull in the abdominal wall (as in 7 Seconds to a Flat Belly) which facilitates muscle balance through the waist, hip, and low back area, and provides a slight corrective direction to the tilt of the pelvis. It stabilizes the area and activates many of the core muscles in a functional, fluid manner. Save the deep tuck stuff for your training workouts.

Likewise, the pressing to flat the back, meant to counter an exaggerated curve in the back, should not be fought for all day long. We have a natural curve in the lumbar area of the back (see image, left) and we should not be maneuvering to get rid of it.  The natural curves in the spine are designed to effectively cushion and distribute impact as well as facilitate functional movement.  By no means should we be trying to eradicate them with excessive exercise.

Too much prolonged tuck and pressing the low back place a stress on the lumbar area and overwork the muscles at the top of the hip in back. This resulted in the soreness that you are experiencing. Some good training moves, but not meant to be sustained 24/7. Physical therapy is for building strength and countering imbalances, but not always for intense movement all day long.

I know that there are those who will disagree with me on this one, and who suggest that you should be implementing this movement intensely all day long to counter effects of gravity. I say no, because of just what happened to you.

Do the work during workouts. Combine it with strengthening the muscles through the middle and upper back, hips, abdominals and backs of the legs. Let it train you to walk erect , with stronger back muscles, stronger glutes and abs, and shoulders rolled back into open chest position. Then let the awareness of functional posture and strength of muscles gained during workouts carry you forward into beautiful movement.

You want to dance and flow through life, for heaven's sake -not be crimped and tucked!

© Lani Muelrath, M.A. 2010 All Rights Reserved

Something NEW for 2010!

Imagine…

A place to go for the real skinny on your body shaping, weight, exercise and nutrition questions.

A place with ongoing support and connection with a leading fitness expert who has guided thousands of other women to achieving their body ideal;  a woman who has herself overcome years of struggle with weight, to finally shed 50 lbs for good.

FitDream Fusion Inner Circle Club and Forums

Exclusive, private to members ONLY, the FitDream Fusion Inner Circle Club Forums are for those who are ready to go big and go home.

For women who desire to realize more each day your potential.

Women who want to cultivate mastery of vibrant health, body shaping, and well-being.

To live your body ideal.

Look. If you, like me, have had it with fitness myths and diet and food industry mythology, then we’re a good match.

If you, like me, have a keen sense that it can’t be all that complex, then this membership is for you.

Classy, elegant, and straightforward (just like you – I designed this with my best clients and students in mind!)  FitDream Fusion Club Membership delivers support, education and conversation about the basics:  Exercise, Diet and Nutrition, Style and Beauty.

Plus Teleseminars, one-on-one coaching, and more

LOTS more about this exclusive opportunity, including registration and IMMEDIATE access here:

FitDream Fusion Inner Circle Club

with Lani Muelrath, M.A.

If you are one of those people who thinks that preparing veggies for a solid, yummers meal is too much trouble, then you haven't seen this video.

This Veggie Sandwich Wrap is not only easy (you can use canned beans!), versatile (mix and match the veggies you prefer – or have on hand!), it's good enough to serve to "company"!

This has become a favorite standby, and thanks to Rip Esselestyn and his Engine 2 Diet for putting a new, easy twist on an old favorite.

The video shows you how easy this is to put together.  To assist, here's an ingredients list and written instructions for you.  It's easier than ever to design your plant-strong diet and eat freely to appetite while getting your skinny on!

Vegetarian Sandwich Wrap

1 onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, seeded and chopped
4 ounces sliced mushrooms
1/2 can of corn, rinsed and drained
8 ounces roasted red bell pepper hummus (or 1 cup homemade)
2 large whole grain wraps
1/2 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 roasted poblano pepper, cut into strips
1/2 package fresh spinach

Preheat oven to 450 F.

Sauté* the onion until translucent. Add the bell pepper and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the mushrooms and corn.

Spread a layer of hummus on the wrap. Add the sautéed vegetables, beans, poblano strips, and fresh spinach. Roll into a burrito.

Place on a baking sheet, seam side down, and bake for 8-10 minutes. Serve the wrap warm, and top with guacamole and salsa.

Variation: Substitute one small can of drained green chilies for the fresh poblano pepper.

Note: * a steam saute is the best method  here;  the veggies with a thin layer of water in the bottom of the pan does away with the empty calories of added fat.  I add a little mirin (sweet cooking wine) or Bragg's aminos (for savory flavor), or veggie bouillon as desired.

P.S. Join our team for the first 3 weeks in March in our 21-Day Diet Kickstart over at PCRM!

It's been said that those who succeed are also those who have failed the most.

Think about it.  What does it take to create a successful business, lose and keep excess weight off for 5 years or more, get a career breakthrough movie part, or be an Olympic athlete?

Probably more than one failed business or job attempt, several tries at diet and exercise, multiple rejections from movie producers, and an athletic career littered with  lost races.

What is the difference? What are the tools to keep sharpening so that our failures move us forward?

• Persistence
  
• Tenacity
  
• Strong passion for an ideal
• Discipline
• Strong belief in self
• Mastery of the psychology of failure
• Industriousness
• Intentness:  Stay the course and go the distance.  Even when you're not "in the mood"
  
• Skill
• Willingness to learn the NEW skills
• Initiative.  Make a decision!  Failure to act is often the biggest failure of all.
  

And of course, it helps to have role models for motivation along the way.

Thus the video.

© Lani Muelrath 2010 All Rights Reserved

“Just In Time to Slim, Shape, and Sculpt Your Body For The Season of Shorts, Shirts, Swimsuits…And Just Being Comfortable In Your Own Skin. Let’s Sex Things Up For Summer!”

Body sculpting with explicit instruction in my body shaping secret weapon: Fit Quickies™

Conference call workouts and guidelines to build your best body sculpting routine ever.

Lift and Shape your seat, thighs, abs, and arms.

Coordinate targeted sequences with your favorite full body workout.

Get your gams, glutes, abs and arms ready for summer!

May is my birthday month and here’s my gift to YOU: Gams, Glutes, Abs, and Arms for Summer.

I’ll not only be sharing how I personally and successfully implement Fit Quickies™ in my workout rotation, but I’ll teach 8 of them to you as well.

These deliver big time in terms of body shaping, keeping you trim, flexible and energetic. And in concert with my dietary plan, you have a winning ticket.

Click HERE for the entire scoop, and reports from students in the February Class AND to jump to Earlybird Registration (save $75)

Including, from my FitDream Files:

• Top Ten Muscles to target for body sculpting – and specific exercises to do just that. If you’ve read my Special Report “The ‘Forgotten’ Body Shaping Secret That Gives You Results in the Places You Want Them”, then you’ve got a jump start on this topic; in May, you’ll learn specific exercises to target these areas.

• Research-proven, most effective exercises for glutes and hamstrings. Learn my customized combination for lifting the seat, sculpting beautiful hamstrings, and creating beautiful shape through that tough-to-target zone, the “bu-thigh”.

• Research-proven, most effective exercises for the abdominals. My customized combination for taking the melt off the belt and cinching in with your natural-girdles, the obliques.

• Topless Muffins: my secret weapon for taking the top off the back of the muffin. I do this move several times a week to lift the seat, make that cute little dent in the side of the seat, and create a flow from the back into the seat. It’s fun, effective, and it feels good, too. I promise you’ll likey!

• More 7 Seconds to a Flat belly: advanced variations on this move to target that place below the belt.

• Inner thighs: squeeze and tease, chair squeeze, and thigh mistress – it’s a favorite triple play for tightening up this tough-to-target area. I make it simple.

• Triceps: Take the “never ending wave” out of YOURS with my triceps challenging sequence. They’re tough, but they don’t take much time and they get the job done. Isn’t that what we’re looking for?

• Dietary Plan: what I do and tips to get your summer skinny on.

Join us!

Click HERE for the entire scoop, and reports from students in the February Class AND to jump to Earlybird Registration (save $75)

It's an honor to be part of the Kickstart celebrity coach team for the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) March 1 Kickstart.

We have over 16,000 people registered yet expecting thousands more by March 1.

More about the 21-Day Kickstart

Based on research by Neal Barnard, M.D., one of America’s leading health advocates, this program is designed for anyone who wants to explore and experience the health benefits of a vegan diet.

Low-fat vegan — plant-based — diets are the easiest way to trim excess weight, prevent diabetes, cut cholesterol, lower blood pressure, prevent and reverse heart disease, and reduce cancer risk. They even trim our carbon footprint.

On March 1, 2010, PCRM will provide an all-new, free 21-Day Vegan Kickstart program to help people to improve their diets and get healthy. Maybe you’d like to lose weight, lower your cholesterol, or improve your energy. Or perhaps you’d like to go veg for the animals or the environment. Now’s your chance to do that in a way that is engaging and fun.

It is easy, and we’ll guide you every step of the way

During the 21-Day program, you will have an all-access pass to daily messages that will include a 21-day menu, lots of recipes, great information from celebrity and medical guests, and nutrition webcasts. Each daily message also contains links to the Kickstart Web site where you’ll find:

• Celebrity tips providing guidance and inspiration
  

• Daily e-tips that are designed to put you on the path to weight loss, better health, and greater well-being
• A 21-day meal plan with delicious, easy, and satisfying recipes that will help you break cravings for unhealthy foods

• Daily motivational nutrition webcasts

• Social support of other Kickstart participants through a community forum where nutrition professionals answer health and diet questions
  

• An interactive vegan restaurant guide

Register for the Kickstart today at 21DayKickstart.org. Join me with Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. John McDougall, and a long list of health advocates and dietary luminaries on this adventure. You'll see me on the forums as well as on the celebrity pages for Dr. John McDougall in my position as Health and Medical Center Fitness Expert.

Some Tips for Getting Started

Serving sizes: Don't worry too much about the serving sizes of beans, grains, fruits and vegetables. Thanks to the fiber and low-fat content, you would be hard-pressed to consume more calories than you need from these four food groups. (Among the exceptions are avocados and olives.)

Cereal: Look for about 5 grams of fiber per serving. Avoid those that add chemical preservatives, sugar, corn syrup and/or cane juice.

Bread: Look for about 4 grams of fiber per slice/serving. Avoid additives such as whey, sugar, corn syrup and caramel colorings.

Jam: Choose all-fruit jams. They are usually sweetened with pectin, not sugar.

Beans: All beans are great. Buying them dried may be more economical, but you have to plan for the rinsing, soaking and draining process. Canned and frozen are just as good.

Grains: Whole grains are preferred, but as long as the ones you choose have some fiber you are fine.

Fruits: All fruits are good: whole fresh, frozen or dried. Avoid those with added sugar and those that have had the fiber removed (juiced).

Vegetables: All vegetables are good: whole fresh, frozen or canned.

Cheese, meat, sugar, and chocolate.

Are they magic foods or simply creating dietary mayhem?

We KNOW these edibles are fattening and loaded with calories.  And when mixed together, they can be deadly to healthy diets.

Take sugar and chocolate, for example.  Fat, sugar, and chocolate, when presented together as they often are – in desserts, candy, and pastries -  present the perfect recipe for manufacturing and maintaining body fat stores.  Without much trouble, they can stand solidly in the way of successful weight loss.

Watch this informative and enlightening video by Dr. Neal Barnard, author of Breaking the Food Seduction, to find out just why certain foods are so darn irresistible if not downright addicting.

In addition, Dr. Barnard provides the easy solution:  a plant-strong diet, and a clean break with foods high in excito-toxins for 21 Days – enough time to set new patterns of taste.

Opiate activity in "innocent" food? 

Caso-morphines in your milk?

Dopamine and endorphin cascades?

Sheesh, no wonder we hanker after these foods so much!  Dr. Barnard explains why. Ignorance may be bliss, but it really doesn't help us in the long run, does it?

"Love your body" lasagna?

To qualify as a true "love your body lasagna", it would need to:

• be delicious

• be chock full of phyto – nutrition (that means color, plants, fiber, and all their friends)
  

• be low on fat

In essence, it would have to have it all.

Look no further, here's the recipe that meets all of these requirements.   As it so happens, it was my Valentine's Dinner recipe and had my honey swooning.

Talk about a recipe that fires on all cylinders!

This lasagna recipe is tightly based on the Raise-the-Roof Sweet Potato – Vegetable Lasagna from one of my new favorite cookbooks, Rip Esselstyn's Engine 2 Diet.  I say tightly-based as I only needed to make a few minor adjustments to the recipe due to what I had on hand;  those adjustments are noted below with an asterisk*.

As a person  who usually passes on recipes with more than 5 ingredients, this was surprisingly easy to put together and made enough for multiple meals. This recipe is free of all animal products and has no added fats or oils.  And it has enough vegetables to easily top off your recommended daily veggie minimum.

Raise-the-Roof Sweet Potato – Vegetable Lasagna

• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 head of garlic, peeled and pressed (*I just crushed 6 cloves out of a jar)
• 8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
• 1 head broccoli, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
  
• 2 red bell peppers, seeded and chopped (*3 roasted red peppers from a jar, chopped)
• 1 can corn, rinsed and drained  (*2 cups frozen corn)
• 1 package firm tofu (*I only had 1 cup on hand and actually you could leave this out, no problem)
  
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (*eliminated)
• 1 tsp. oregano
• 1 tsp. basil
• 1 tsp rosemary
• 2 jars pasta sauce (* 1   1/2 jars of fat-free Trader Joe's marinara sauce)
• 2 boxes whole grain lasagna noodles (*1 box was plenty)
• 16 oz. frozen spinach, coked and mashed (*1/2 bag fresh baby spinach)
• 2 sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed (*yams)
• 6 roma tomatoes, sliced thin (*didn't  have on hand, and eliminated – there was plenty of tomato with the sauce though in summer I'd put 'em on)
• 1 cup raw cashews, ground

Steam saute (that means in a little bit of water) the onion and garlic on high heat for 3 minutes in a pan.  Add the mushrooms and the rest of the veggies, pop the lid on the pot and let them finish cooking to tender-crisp.   (* I added 3 Tablespoons of Bragg's aminos and a pinch of sea salt for flavor).  Drain the tofu and crumble it into the vegetable mixture.  Mix it all together with the spices.

Assembly

Cover the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch baking dish with a layer of sauce.  Add a layer of noodles, and cover the noodles with more sauce.  Spread the veggie mixture next.  Cover with another layer of noodles and another dressing of sauce.  Add the spinach, and cover with the mashed sweet potatoes.

You can add another layer of noodles and sauce, but I stopped here because my pan was overflowing!

I also assembled this several hours before cooking, which made it unnecessary to cook the noodles first.  By the time I got around to cooking, they had hydrated from the sauce and veggies and were perfectly done upon cooking.

Cover the lasagna with a layer of thinly sliced roma tomatoes.

Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes. Then sprinkle it with the ground cashews, and return to the oven for 15 minutes.  Let it sit 10 – 15 minutes before serving – if you can stand to wait!

The Love Your Body Boot(y) Boot Camp for February is in full swing! A sampling from comments made  in our class forum:

A sneak peak for you:

I have lost an additional 2.4 lbs. that makes my total 10.4 lbs of loss since Feb 2 when Boot(y) Boot Camp started , about 3 weeks ago. I am pumped! I also have lost more in my arms, about .50 per arm. I knew last night when I was brushing they looked more toned. So today I measured. Plus I lost an additional .50 inch in my waist and 1 inch in my hips.

~ Rhonda K., Indiana

I lost an additional 6 total inches the second week (total of 10 in 2 weeks) and 4 more pounds.  WHEEEEE!  So glad I had my husband to take a pre -Lani Boot(Y) camp picture! ~ Barbara B.

"Oh. My. Goodness. *spluttering as I choke on my water* Just discovered I've lost 5 pounds. And I've cheated just a bit. Perspective shift just took a big leap forward."  ~Charlotte Siems, OK

"Lani, I weighed this morning and am down 5lbs since 2/1!!! woo hoo!"  I also broke down and did a few measurements because I just couldn't help myself.  I'm down 1/2 inch in my waist, 3/4 inch in my hips and 3/4 inch in each upper thigh.

I am beyond thrilled!  Thanks for kickin' my booty!" ~Phyllis B

"Every day, I feel tighter around the waist/abs/glutes/thigh area. I honestly feel like I'm carrying myself differently – more confident. And dare I say it? Sexier?! Maybe I have a little swagger in my step?"  ~ Val D.

"Lani, I have lost 3 lbs. since Feb. 1 and I have lost 7/8" off my waist and 1/4 inch off my abs. I am loving all that we are learning in this boot camp not only with respect to exercise but also with respect to how to make better choices with our eating.

Thank you so much for one of the most fantastic classes I have ever been enrolled in!"

~Jean M.

"Down 3  3/4 total inches.  Down 3 pounds.  I have finally gotten UNSTUCK after one month! Thank you so much Lani!"  ~ Barbara B.

"You have me working out harder than I would have alone.  I'm down 6 lbs for sure, 3 – 4 inches"  ~ Rhonda K.

"I have had a breakthrough in my eating, and I'm not craving the junk.  I lost 2 pounds the first week, and I don't lose weight easily, so I was pretty floored!" ~ Trisch R.

There's more where this came from, just wanted to share the edge of the excitement.

Can you tell we're having a blast in Boot(y) Camp?  And week 2 is just getting underway.