Work Off the Thanksgiving Feast! – Review by Cara Potapshyn Meyers


 

CANYON RANCH: YOGA FOR STRENGTH & ENERGY

The second fitness DVD from the award-winning resort and wellness brand, Canyon Ranch: Yoga for Strength & Energy, debuts on DVD from Acacia on November 20, 2012. This DVD features two 20-minute yoga workouts to improve your flexibility, lengthen your physique, and invigorate your body! 

For more than 30 years, people have journeyed to Canyon Ranch to enjoy wellness vacations. Now you can bring the Canyon Ranch experience home with these dynamic workouts designed to support life-long health. Filmed at the stunning flagship resort in Tucson, Arizona, these segments are designed to increase your stamina and vitality as you sculpt, stretch, and tone your entire body. The DVD also includes a soothing 11-minute cool-down to renew your spirit, plus a bonus recipe booklet and three bonus segments sharing diet and wellness secrets from the upscale retreat’s experts.

In Yoga for Strength & Energy, you’ll find motivation and expertise that challenge you to push your physical limits, balance your inner world, and live healthier for life. Canyon Ranch fitness instructor Evette will lead you through a series of yoga and stretching routines to fortify the body and nourish the mind. You can easily adopt all of these practices at home and make them part of your daily life. In addition, you’ll get practical advice from top Canyon Ranch experts in segments concerning the importance of sleep, eating for energy and hydration, and effective strategies to help you make life changes and achieve your goals. It’s all part of the multifaceted, holistic approach to health that’s at the heart of Canyon Ranch.

I love yoga, but have been particularly fond of the Canyon Ranch yoga DVDs! It could certainly be where the DVDs are filmed, however the essential workouts help guide me through feeling more powerful, more energized and at the end, less stressed. This DVD gave me the same great feelings! This time, I was able to do the 20-minute workouts back-to-back, followed by a soothing cool down. What a treat! I then stretched out while watching the Bonus Features. What a delight! I felt as if I were at Canyon Ranch itself, peeking in on all of their little lifestyle secrets! This video is going to be played again not only on Thanksgiving morning, but for each day after! When you are out hunting down post-Thanksgiving gifts, keep this gem in mind!

Canyon Ranch pioneered the evolution of the wellness lifestyle and has been an industry leader for over 30 years. Operating the world’s most celebrated collection of life enhancement properties, they have destination health resorts in Tucson, Ariz., Lenox Mass., as well as a hotel/spa in Miami Beach. In addition, they operate a SpaClub at The Venetian & The Palazzo in Las Vegas, Nevada and their newest venture, SpaClub at Sea, features facilities aboard cruise ships.

Workout Options: Energy Stretch (22 min.), Energetic Yoga Flow (24 min.), and Cool Down (11 min.)

Bonus Features:

*   Take healthy living to a new level with three bonus segments featuring Canyon Ranch integrative health experts.

*   Eat for Energy: How to select and prepare foods that enhance your energy throughout the day (14 min.)

*   Sleep for Energy: How good sleep habits can improve your energy level and productivity (4 min.)

*   Healthy Lifestyle Changes: How to take practical steps towards healthy lifestyle changes (3 min.)

*   11-minute bonus stretch sequence and recipe insert

Available: November 20, 2012                               Retail Price: $16.99 

Acacia DVDs are available from select retailers, catalog companies,

www.Amazon.com/acacia and www.AcaciaLifestyle.com 

Approx. 57 min., plus 32 min. bonus

 

SparkPeople: TOTAL BODY SCULPTING 

with Coach Nicole

A total-body workout designed to deliver sculpting and toning for exercisers of all fitness levels. The second DVD workout from America’s #1 online weight-loss and fitness community, SparkPeople: Total Body Sculpting with Coach Nicole debuts on DVD on November 20, 2012 from Acacia. SparkPeople boasts over 9 million monthly unique visitors and 12 million members worldwide. As with last year’s best-selling SparkPeople: 28 Day Boot Camp DVD, SparkPeople’s popular fitness trainer Nicole Nichols created and leads these three heart-pumping interval training workouts. Last year, “Coach Nicole” was also named America’s Top Personal Trainer to Watch and Fan Favorite in a nationwide search by Life Fitness and ACE. Total Body Sculpting includes several bonus features, including recipes, must-do moves for a better butt, sneaky leg toners, and more! 

Beloved by SparkPeople members and YouTube viewers alike for her supportive, down-to-earth persona, coupled with her toned, real-person physique and clear cueing, Coach Nicole is the perfect workout buddy. In this all-in-one DVD, she leads three distinct fat-burning cardio and multi-joint strengthening workouts: a ballet-inspired barre routine (using a chair and weights), an equipment-free fat blaster, and a heart-pumping dumbbell workout. Three trainers demonstrate beginner, intermediate, and advanced versions to guide you at your own pace, and an interactive workout calendar helps you get fit fast, and customize your workout program so you sizzle fat and chisel lean muscles on your time. With fun aerobic intervals that boost your calorie burn and full-body toning moves that activate more muscles in less time, you’ll get great results and start feeling fabulous! Equipment needed: light hand weights, a mat, and a chair.

After reviewing SparkPeople: 28 Day Boot Camp DVD earlier this year, I had no hesitation requesting to review this new DVD from SparkPeople! I will admit, any workout DVD with the words, “Boot Camp” in it made me feel a little uneasy. Once I started actually doing the workout, I found my passion for the SparkPeople workout DVDs!

When my son playfully told me I had “flabby” upper arms the other day, out came the SparkPeople: Total Body Sculpting DVD! I made a commitment to my son that I would tone my flabby arms…and other flabby places as well. Coach Nicole knows exactly how to motivate and work you through each of the workouts, be it beginner (for my flabby arms) or intermediate (for my stronger legs), I felt like I was reaping true benefit from this workout! Customization is the key with this DVD. You have to know your body and it’s abilities. Once you are aware of that, the workout is a breeze! You will need light hand weights (that my son generously let me borrow, lol)! And a “Mini Coach” (my son), who won’t let me miss a beat getting those “flabby arms” back into shape!

Don’t leave out the workout friend when purchasing gifts this weekend! Put this terrific DVD down on your list as well! You won’t be sorry you did!

The DVD comes from one of the most trusted names in fitness. Millions of people rely on SparkPeople, which was called “The Facebook of Dieting” by Fortune magazine, to help them reach their weight loss and fitness goals. SparkPeople’s flexible, fun, ultra-positive approach to weight loss and fitness has vaulted it past Weight Watchers as the largest website in its category. More than 200,000 new members join every month.

An ACE-certified personal trainer and AFAA-certified exercise instructor with a degree in health education, Nicole Nichols helps people of all skill levels make fitness a fun part of their daily lives. She is an editor and fitness expert at SparkPeople.com, and one of the most watched exercise instructors on YouTube. Her online workout videos have been viewed more than 20 million times.

Bonus features: Select recipes from The SparkPeople Cookbook, two must-do moves for a better butt, sneaky leg toners you can do at work, and access to FREE meal plans and SparkPeople’s online workout club.

Available: Nov. 20, 2012                            

Retail Price: $16.99

Acacia DVDs are available from select retailers, catalog companies,

www.Amazon.com/acacia and www.AcaciaLifestyle.com

Approx. 69 minutes

 

Note: Thanks to Acacia Lifestyle for providing sample products.  Cara Potapshyn Meyers and MotherhoodLater.com assume no liability relative to products reviewed in this blog.

 

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our wonderful MotherhoodLater.com readers!!

 

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