Monthly Archives: December 2010

sugar sugar

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i always have some variation of the following list in my home: dark chocolate, raw almonds, eggs, granola, toastable bread, candy, homemade soup/stew, and popsicles.  mostly this stuff is there for me to be able to have quick snacks between clients if i’m having a crazy day or the like. a couple dozen almonds and a few squares of dark chocolate feels like lunch and makes you happy.  it’s protein and a little sugar and food that makes you feel good.

do you have it for lunch EVERY day?  um no, but it sure is nice when you have thirty seconds, three more clients and low blood sugar.

sometimes a client comes in and starts to exercise and then sort of looks up, whitefaced, in mid-exercise and comments that they’re a little dizzy or feeling faint or lacking energy or some other sign that screams out “low blood sugar”  and i feed them whatever snack i have on hand that day.

mostly they’re grateful or they drink some water as well and we move on.  it’s never occurred to me how smart it is to have this kind of thing on hand EVERYWHERE people exercise.

until this week.

this week my client walked in to my studio and said “hey, do you have any sugar?  i’m a little hypoglycemic” and i had almost nothing!

i found her a baby candy cane and then a popsicle and while we waited for that to hit her i made some hard boiled eggs for her and poured water down her throat.  this took something like fifteen minutes but by the end she had colour in her skin again.

i nearly had nothing.  there was no chocolate, no nuts, only two eggs in the house etc.  i had finished all the homemade soup and eaten all the toast and there i was with this client fainting from low blood sugar in front of me.

i don’t think that i’ve ever been relieved that someone liked eggs before!  if she hadn’t i would have had no idea what to feed her and she would have kept crashing.  the sugar took the edge off but the protein stabilized her.  interestingly she went on to have a terrific session.

so i’m definitely going to replenish my stores of easy snacks and take a little more care with my larder in that i will endeavour not to let it go bare again!

now if only *i* wasn’t so tempted by the beautiful chocolate :)

[i eat chocolate all the time but sometimes i over indulge  :)]

"ugly duckling pilates because sex matters"

as originally posted on matt mernagh’s blog but it bears reposting: [incidentally matt is a marijuana activist who has found cannabis to be the only useful pain reliever for his fibromyalgia. i believe it also makes it easier for him to move at all but i’m not a doctor and my opinion is just that, an opinion]

The best Christmas gift I received last year was an Ugly Duckling Pilates session. With my Rosedale pilates instructor Angela Barsotti’s assistance I’m feeling mostly fantastic. Sans fibromyalgia flare ups, scoliolsis pain and recovered shattered shoulder grief. Tonight (Thursday, Dec. 2) on Sex Matters, Angela will be discussing Sex, Breath and the Pelvic Floor. A topic she recently taught at Come As You Are…. Continue Reading

picking teachers

several years ago i convinced my sister, who was then suffering some pretty serious repetitive strain issues in her neck/shoulders, to try pilates. since she was living in another city she found a local studio and off she went. this teacher started her off with the hundreds and the roll up, she walked out in more pain than she walked in and eventually found an amazing yoga teacher who helped her immeasurably. she found her by looking for someone who talked about the work the way i did rather than concentrating on their “method.”… Continue Reading

Marie-Jose Blom

Ugly Duckling Pilates is delighted to present Marie Jose Blom for two workshops over three days (friday april 22nd to sunday april 24) in lovely downtown Toronto, Canada. Workshops: The Essential Role of the Shoulder Girdle and Thorax in Taking the Weight From the Shoulders (sunday – 8 hours) Embrace the Curves and Unravel the… Continue Reading