Hi Everyone,

The day of the great feast is upon us.

I wanted to be sure I armed you with some healthy dessert options that you will enjoy so you won’t go over the top with the holiday eating frenzy.  These are super easy dessert recipes that take very little prep time with easy to find ingredients that you probably already have on your shopping list.

The best part is they’re low calorie and they taste delicious!

Remember, we want to enjoy our time with family and friends while avoiding the weight gain that can make our knees very unhappy. So lets get started.

Acorn squash with pecans.

List of ingredients:
2 Acorn squash
1 1/2 cups raw pecans

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Poke a couple of slits into your acorn squash with a knife carefully.  Stick the squash in the oven on a sheet of tin foil for about an hour.

Chop up your pecans.

Remove the squash when it’s done and let cool.  You’ll know it’s done when you stick you knife in it and the knife goes in easily.

Cut open the squash, remove the seeds and flesh out the meat.
You may puree it, though it doesn’t need to be.
Add in the chopped pecans, stir and you’re done.You may also add a few pecan halves on top for presentation.
Serves 4
Another option could be

Baked yam with walnuts and whipped cream.

List of ingredients:
2 Large yams
1 1/2 cups raw walnuts
cinnamon
whipping cream

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Poke one or two slits into the yams with a knife carefully. Place the yams into the oven with the slits up on a sheet of tin foil.

Bake for 45-60 minutes.Chop up the raw walnuts.
Remove the yams when your knife slices into the belly of the yam easily.

Let cool.

Peel the skin from the yams.  If you want a few more vitamins and fiber grams, leave the skin on.

Puree the yams.Add in the chopped walnuts.Top with whipping cream.
Sprinkle on the cinnamon.

Serves 4.

Easy. low calorie delicious dessert options that won’t tip the scales in the “whoops” direction.

From my family to yours, enjoy your holiday.

Rochelle Gravance

PS- Let me know how your desserts turned out.  Leave me a comment below after the big feast.

Hey Everyone,

I hope you had a chance to read the last post.

I talked about the common problems a bunch of exercisers have when they’re trying to do exercises like squats and lunges if you have knee pain.

I gave some really cool tips to eliminate knee pain while doing these exercises.  Go check it out.

Do you know what season it is? It’s the end of fall.  It’s football season.  It’s the holiday season.  It’s turkey season and mashed potato season, and gravy season, and pie season, and lots of great food at parties season.

Ahhh, the holidays.  Ohhh, the weight gain!

I’m not here to put damper on your holidays and pop the “obvious balloon”.

I am here to help you out and get you through the holidays with damage control.

I’m all about shooting you straight and stating the obvious.So here we go….

For most, the holidays begin sometime in mid October and stretch out through the first week of January.  Why mid October?  Because that’s when the Halloween candy starts to accumulate in shopping carts, at home and at the office in preparation for Halloween.

Bags and bags of it end up on our shelves at home in anticipation for all the little trick or treaters. It’s my guess that a good portion of that stockpiled candy never makes to Halloween and into the treat bags of all the little kiddies.

This is the start of the belly fat, thigh fat and butt fat accumulation deluge season.

Now it’s on to November.  The leaves are changing color, the air is crisp and time slows down.

We find ourselves indoors more with the time change searching for comfort food to warm our bellies from the cold nights.

Strike two. More of the holiday, weight gain deluge.

Being that Thanksgiving is just a couple days away, food is beginning to accumulate in our homes again in preparation for the big feast.

When the day for giving thanks finally arrives, some of us are already five or more pounds heavier than we were just a few short weeks ago.

The pies, the cakes, the rolls and gravy, the wine and crackers and cheese………

Hey, we only have one holiday under our belts and at least three or four to go!  Speaking of under our belts, did you have to loosen yours yet?  I hope not for your knee’s sake.

So, what the heck does one do to control the weight gain during the holiday season?

I have a helpful tip.

Go get your calendar. As a matter of fact, go get a new 2010 calendar while you’re at it.

Highlight every holiday you celebrate.

Now, write in every birthday, anniversary and celebration you usually partake in every year.

Highlight those dates as well.

Now that you’ve done that, lets take a look at each month in advance.

Notice all the highlighted dates?  Those are days that you will potentially eat and drink foods and beverages you wouldn’t normally eat and drink on a daily basis in celebration of that holiday or event.

If your calendar is like mine, you’ll have highlighted days at least once every other week, if not more.  With all those days to celebrate something pretty special to you, it should make you think hard about celebrating with food on any ordinary day.

So, if you haven’t pulled your calendars out already and marked down all those celebratory days, go do that now.

This is your first plan of action to keep from gaining all that holiday weight.

I guarantee your knees will thank you for it.

Have a great holiday celebration.

Rochelle Gravance

PS- Let me know how the calendar trick worked for you.  Leave me a comment below.

Hey Everyone,

I trust this post finds you well.  I have some really cool information for you about knee dominant exercises like squats and lunges.

I had a client today say to me that lunging and squats bothered her knees.  I could tell the knee pain was troubling her.  You see, she’s on a quest to lose weight and she knows doing leg exercises are really important for both weight loss and strength in her legs to combat the knee pain.

By the look of despair on her face, it told me she was seeing her weight loss goals slip away if she couldn’t do these exercises.

At this point, I asked her to give me a demonstration of her squat so I could find the trouble.

Sure enough, right away I saw two knee pain culprits.

The first dysfunctional pattern causing the knee pain was where the knee lined up as she descended into the squat.

As her knees bent upon lowering her body downward, her knees traveled forward over the toe.  This position adds unnecessary stress to the joint, hence the pain.  Being overweight made the issue worse.

The second problem that showed itself was the position of the upper leg bone in relation to the hip as she attempted to come up out of the squat.

What this means requires a descriptive illustration:

When you prepare to do a squat, you should set your feet approximately hip width or just slightly wider apart.  When you are squatting, you must maintain the same distance between your knees as you do between your feet.

When my client was ascending from the bottom of the squat, the distance between her knees was narrower than the distance between her feet which caused the knee pain on the inside of the knee.

Once these two adjustments were made, voila…no more knee pain.

I find this to be a common problem among exercisers.  The outlook is quite bright for them because this is quite an easy fix.

Oh, and my client…renewed confidence that she is going to meet her weight loss goals with no more knee pain.

So the next time you attempt a squat or lunge remember these two very important movements:

1. Always keep your knees behind your toes.

2. Keep the distance between your knees as wide as the distance between your feet at all times.

If you have trouble keeping your knees behind your toes, I have a little trick for you.

Stand behind and face a bench, short table or even your couch.  Slide your foot under the object you choose to use just enough that only the front half of your foot is under the bench, table or couch.

Now perform your squats or lunges.

What this position does is helps to make you aware if your knees tend to drift forward as you descend into the movement.

In other words, your shin or knee will touch the bench, couch or table and will be unable to drift forward.

This is a very helpful tool when first learning how to do a knee dominant movement correctly.  Try it out and let me know what you think.

Until next time,

Rochelle Gravance

PS- Let me know how that trick worked for you.  Leave me a comment below.  Thanks…

The thought of living your life with chronic, limiting knee pain can be just as debilitating as the pain itself.  The idea that you may be forced to eliminate certain activities from your life is frankly too much to bear.  Unfortunately, most people that suffer from knee pain don’t realize that options exist other than surgery or drugs.  Fortunately, you’re not one of them.

THE TOP FIVE REASONS FOR KNEE PAIN
AGE- As we get older we tend to be less active and begin to lose muscle, tendon and ligament strength which places more pressure on the joint causing pain.

OBESITY- Weight gain and inactivity go hand in hand and are a recipe for knee pain.  Getting the weight off will reduce the stress, wear and tear on your knees.

GENDER- Knee pain can often be a bit biased.  Women will sometimes suffer more from knee pain due to various factors including, but not limited to, imbalances in muscle surrounding the joints as well as the angle of the upper leg bone as it descends from the hip.

HEREDITY- If knee pain runs in the family, it’s possible you may be next in line.  Proper exercise is crucial to keep you pain free.

INJURY OR OVERUSE- Taking a hit to, banging or twisting the knee are common reasons for knee pain.  What may not be understood is that knee pain can be caused by improper, overuse movements.  Fortunately, this is one of the easiest causes of knee pain to conquer.

After examining this list, I’ll bet you can find one or more reasons for your knee pain.  Have faith because hope is on the way.  Recent research has suggested that being overweight and inactive produce the majority of knee pain symptoms. If you are at the age where you and your friends are all complaining of knee pain, you can help prevent it by taking the following steps:

Lose weight: One study found that people who are overweight with knee osteoarthritis decreased disability after decreasing their weight by just 5 percent over a period of 120 days. For some, that can be as little as 10 pounds.
Exercise more: Strong evidence supports exercise, such as strength training, for knee osteoarthritis. A recent study showed that exercise reduced knee pain and helped participants move around more easily. The benefits of exercise were similar to those from non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).

Don’t take knee pain sitting down.  It’s time you do something about it and I’m here to help.  With proper exercise and nutrition, we’ll have you feeling great and your knees with thank you for it.

Do me a favor and leave your comments below.  I greatly appreciate your input.

Hey, I’m glad you’re here and trust you’re taking the strokes to make today better than yesterday.

Lets just get it out there…I’m not a fan of the rain.  Necessary as it is, I much prefer a drier form of moisture.  With that said, I get pumped just thinking about getting out and doing some winter exploration in the mountain snow.  The air is crisp, the world is quiet and everything is a bit brighter with all that lovely, white powder.

There was a time, however, when the thought of slippery surfaces and cumbersome, heavy clothing kept me from enjoying all that winter has to offer.  Missing an ACL in one knee and having the other knee susceptible to dislocation, I would often pass on the chance to enjoy such an experience.

Not anymore.  A team of draft horses couldn’t keep me from accepting an invitation to get out and enjoy a day in the white stuff.  I can’t imagine staying cooped up all winter too scared or worried that my knees couldn’t hold up to get out and throw myself at all life has to offer.

How is it that you may be withdrawing from the fun activities that you used to enjoy while I’m out having a blast doing them?  I figured out how to get rid of my knee pain without surgery or drugs so that I can get back to living again.  And, I’ve been passing that information along to countless individuals just like you for the past thirteen years.

The approach is really quite simple.  Strategic strengthening exercises with progressions that get the knee joint stronger and stronger each week.  Proper stretching to get the body moving and flexible again. Last and certainly not least, a great nutrition strategy that gets you healthy and promotes weight loss so we can give those knees a break.

Knee pain no longer keeps me from enjoying what I love to do.  Isn’t it time for you to experience everything you’ve been missing out on?  I think it is, and I’m going to help you get back to finally living again.

Stay tuned as I begin to reveal the strategies I used to conquer my knee pain so that you too can get out there and enjoy life again.  Until next time, take great care of yourself.

Let me know what you think.  Leave a comment below.