5 Best Activewear Pieces for Spring 2016

Because who doesn't love stylish activewear, right? Having beautiful, well-fitting and comfortable activewear is a key motivator for many women to get outside, to the gym or the studio for a workout. At Aprivé Wellness, we're no different, and we love some great stretchy pants and comfy singlets. With so many brands out there though, it's hard to find the best pieces for your collection. So here are our top picks for 2016.

1. Best leggings - Lorna Jane

Tried and tested against so many other brands, we absolutely LOVE my Lorna Jane leggings. The main reason is the fabric which is far more breathable than another brand that starts with L....and it feels more natural on your skin. We bought one of the styles with the ventilation panels which keep out legs cool. 

Pic from Lorna Jane Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lornajaneactive

2. Best Crop Top - Ivy Park (Beyoncé's line)

It's not secret one of our favourite taglines to get more done is "You have as many hours in a day as Beyoncé." But it's not just being a fan that gave Ivy Park the top pick for crop tops. The hip-hop-inspired activewear range is perfect for everyone dancers to gym bunnies to yoga fans. We love that attitude it has, and, yes, we love that it's made by Queen B.

3. Best Singlet/ Tank Top - Michi NY

We find ourselves in our activewear for a whole day after teaching Pilates, so we're fans of clean lines and a modern style (not just a baggy old tee, not that there's anything wrong with soft tees for workouts!) Michi NY has super modern, almost futuristic activewear, and their tank tops are ultra flattering. Love.

Plus - The Michi Instagram feed is a dream! https://www.instagram.com/michi_ny

4. Best SUP one piece - The Upside

Summer's nearly here! That means time to SUP. If you're fair like us, you need something with good coverage, but that's not too hot. We love the tanks and leggings from The Upside, but this onesie is the ultimate for summer. Not to justify the purchase according to how many days one goes supping....hmmm....

Also loving their new pineapple-themed range for summer https://www.instagram.com/the_upside/

5. Best Warm Layer - Cotton On Body

Activewear doesn't have to break the bank, and with new sporty collections by J Crew, and Aussie and Kiwi local options like Target and Cotton On Body, there are plenty of affordable brands to choose from. For a chilly stroll, hike or a dash to the gym on a windy summer day, we love a simple grey hoodie. Plus! You can keep it for winter and wear it under your leather jacket, paired with leggings for a super stylish activewear look (or great comfy plane attire!)

What's your favourite piece of activewear?

Liver Detox, Self Worth & Taking the Food Out of Junk Food

Dr Libby's Surviving to Thriving Workshop

The other night I went to an incredible workshops with Dr Libby Weaver, biochemist extraordinaire and wellness advocate. Much like Aprivé Wellness, Dr Libby blends scientific evidence with fun stories and meaningful wellbeing tips to help women live their best lives. 

Last night's workshop focused around women in particular, and featured everything from the importance of liver health to the danger of oestrogen dominance. Most interestingly, Dr Libby answered her own question:

"Why do we do what we do when we know what we know?"

I learned the answer during the workshop, and here are other things I learned.

1. People and the decisions they make are healthy, not food itself

Dr Libby points out food (whole, real food that is) is just food, it's your choices that determine health. She's also keen to remind everyone that junk food isn't food. It's just junk. 

2. Nutrition is vital for the biochemical reactions that drive everything in your body

To convert one chemical into another, which the body can use, we need nutrients. Nutrients are what we get from real food. Take broccoli for example: Broccoli is broken down into a special kind of medium, which also helps your liver process oestrogen. Without broccoli, this reaction is stalled. Why don't you want to much oestrogen? Read on....

3. Your liver needs a cleanse. Trust me.

Liver cleansing and beetroot juices have been around for ages, but apart from helping recover from a champagne binge, no one is really sure why livers need cleansing. 

Alcohol isn't the main reason your liver needs cleansing. Fat and oestrogen is.

In the old days, alcohol was the main reason livers developed fatty liver disease. Now though, it's occurring in many women, even children. What does this mean?

 It means there is less viable liver able to process the incoming fats, cholesterol, oestrogen and alcohol, so it's working at lower capacity and is overloaded. Uh oh...

What happens when you liver is overloaded?

First up, think of the liver as a 2-phase funnel. Dr Libby uses her arm to depict a liver. Imagine your forearm is the input, where trans-fats, alcohol, cholesterol and oestrogen come in. At the wrist is phase one, where every substance undergoes a change, call it A1. After A1, imagine your palm is phase 2, where the changed substance A1 chooses a pathway down one of your fingertips, one of 5 different pathways.

Nodding our heads at the workshop, Dr Libby went on, explaining what happens when the liver is backed up. After a substance comes into the liver and undergoes a change (becomes A1) sometimes there's too much traffic for it to filter down one of the five pathways. So! It sneaks out a trap door and gets back into the blood stream.

Our body isn't skilled at processing these altered substances (A1) and a good example is oestrogen. After it become altered, if it is forced to sneak out the trapdoor, the altered oestrogen enters the blood stream. Unfortunately it can't be processed, and has been linked to oestrogen-dominant cancers like some breast cancers. Not good.

How do you cleanse the liver?

You need to free up the traffic that's blocking those five pathways.

1. Decrease cholesterol, alcohol and trans fats to slow down the flow of substances coming into the liver.

2. Decrease your oestrogen levels. How? Decrease your stress levels; this helps increase your progesterone levels which is your body's anti-anxiety hormone. When progesterone levels increase, oestrogen decreases and they level out. This means there's less oestrogen flooding into the liver, and none has to sneak out the trap door!

Thinking of the info I learned from Dr Libby!

4 Wellness Tips I Learned from Dr Libby

1. Eat Greens Everyday

Dr Libby has a green juice every morning, and finds it the easiest way to increase her veggie intake.

2. Say "No" Without feeling guilty

Seeing hundreds of women every year at her Beautiful You Weekends, Dr Libby encounters so many women who feel overwhelmed, flustered and stressed, but who wear a mask of serenity to hide it all. Her antidote is to get you to say 'no' more often. Not a guilty no, where you beat yourself up for not being able to help a friend, attend a seminar or walk someone's dog, but a content, strong 'NO!' Give it a try.

3. Listen to your body. She knows best

For the first time, Dr Libby shared her own personal story in this seminar about a battle with gluten intolerance where she lost excessive weight, and was very ill. She says she didn't go to the doctor for four whole months, but if she'd listened to her body, she would have gone earlier. Libby wants you to listen to your body, and trust your intuition as it is almost always right about what you need to look after yourself.

4. if you don't value yourself - you won't look after yourself

This was the most profound part of the workshop for me. As a wellness consultant, I chat with women about habit change and many do incredibly well. But this fact is absolutely true, and I had never thought of it so clearly.

Everyone knows what they should to do look after themselves, so why don't they do it? Because they don't think they deserve to be their best selves. If you truly believe you are precious, and valuable, and special, you're more likely to treat yourself to the best gift - health. If you're not sure how to start valuing yourself, come to one of our retreats. It's the perfect place to start!

Dr Libby is a truly brilliant speaker, and the other night's workshops was no exception. She truly listens to women, and looks at what she can do to help you have more energy and be your best self. I feel so privileged to have attended this event for Aprivé Wellness and our Health & Wellness blog for Queenstown.com. Thank you Dr Libby! Amazing as always.

Queenstown Wellness Retreat - Huge Success!

Our September Retreat was Sold Out!

With 14 lovely guests from Queenstown, Wanaka and throughout Southland, our last public retreat was a huge success. So much so, we had to get out extra yoga mats for the extra numbers who booked last minute! Brilliant sunshine, breathtaking snow-capped mountains and a stunning venue in Gibbston made this retreat a real escape for our guests.

What do you do on a wellness retreat?

Our one-day retreat is all about YOU! You take as much out of it as you wish, blending laughs, great food and new friends with some handy tips to help you live a happier, healthier life.

Yoga/Pilates Fusion & Chia Puddings

First up, we started the day with a yoga/Pilates fusion class. Some guests were worried it would be cold outside, but thanks to the sun, everyone ended up in singlets and t-shirts!

Next guests enjoyed an exceptional chia pudding hand crafted by chef Fabien Simon of My Private Chef NZ. Cinnamon infused apple pieces, pineapple purée, gluten free granola and coconut chia pudding was mixed together to not only look incredibly beautiful, but it was really tasty.

Healthy Cooking Workshop with Fabien Simon

A first for our retreats, this new workshops was a huge hit. Talented French chef Fabien taught our guests cooking tips and simple ways to prepare nourishing food. He demonstrated how to make Pearl Barley Risotto with Greens & Parmesan, plus how to make kid-friendly Kumera Fritters. If you want the recipes, you'll have to come to our next retreat! All our guests are getting the recipes next week.

Wellness Retreat Lunch: Chef-made Salmon & Veggie Fritters

Lunch was truly divine, and very popular among our guests. Beautiful pieces of salmon, miso mayo, kumera and carrot fritters, broccoli and spinach coulis and salmon skin crackling was the most luxurious lunch we've had at an event yet. 

Mindfulness Walk & Beach Meditation

Our breathtaking venue was a ten minute stroll to the rushing Kawarau river, so we headed off on a mindfulness walk to the beach. With just one day to retreat, ten minutes of silence was welcomed by the guests, helping them think about themselves without the distractions of conversation.

Once down on the beautiful beach by the rushing river, we spent ten minutes doing simple meditation followed by a stress workshop. We chatted about the pressures of daily life, and the difficulties many people face when stress and poor self-esteem manifests itself in their lives as obsession with food or exercise. 

Stretch Class, Massage & Wine 

After strolling and chatting on the way back to our venue, the guests enjoyed a relaxing stretch class under the willow tree. Four ladies had pre-booked massages and made their way to quiet ends of the house to slip into bliss. The others enjoyed wine tasting: Organic wine by Carrick, and biodynamic wine by Quartz Reef. Don't worry, those who booked massages got wine afterwards!

We've had wonderful feedback from the day such as:

"I love your bubbliness and knowledge about what you do."

Such a huge thank you to all the women who came to this beautiful day, and of course thank you to Fabien Simon for his expertise. Thank you also to Neat organic perfumes, Hunter Gatherer Gourmet and The Herb Farm organic skincare for their beautiful gifts in the gift bags. 

Want to come to our next retreat? Sign up below to be the first to hear about i!

Reality Bites: How to Change Yours

How Your Brain Creates Your World Part 1

Our brains are incredible. They receive information, process it and try to make sense of it, then create an output based on that information. That output is your reality. 

Your reality isn’t the world around you, it’s how your brain processes the world around you.

The Creation of Your Reality

What happens when the input doesn’t match the output?

Sometimes, when your brain processes the information it receives, it doesn’t work out as smoothly as you’d like. Sometimes it seems your brain is almost confused! Here are a few examples:

Reality and Placebo

Placebo drugs are a great way to understand how your brain constructs your reality. Let’s take paracetamol for example. When you take paracetamol, an analgesic drug that acts on the central nervous system, you experience less pain. It really works!

If you’re in pain and take a placebo, thinking it’s paracetamol, your brain uses its own natural pathways to create your own inherent ‘heroine’ that also decreases your pain. You get the same result. 

1. The input: You take a pill you’re told is Paracetamol.

2. Your brain processes this information based on your past experiences with pain medicine, its effectiveness, plus your body’s own reactions to pain responses.

3. Your reality: You feel less pain. Hooray!

The input (a fake pill) doesn’t match the output! (no pain!) because of the way your brain processes the information it receives.

Think about the things that influence you most. People you spend the most time with, TV shows you watch, magazines your subscribe to. All these things shape your reality, and create your world. Are they creating the world you want them to?

Check back in for Part 2 where we look at reality and pain.

Healthy Travel Tips

In-Room Stretches For Healthy Hips

Do your hips and back feel stiff and stuck after travelling on a plane, or even after a long drive? Don't worry, there are easy stretches you can do right in your own hotel room! Give them a try.

Firstly: Why do you need to mobilise the hip?

When you sit all day, your hips are constantly flexed at 90 degrees. As the hip is a ball and socket joint, it's designed to move around in many directions, so it doesn't like being stuck at 90 degrees all day.  The muscles that attach to the femur, plus the glutes (butt muscles) and your hip flexors become short and weak from too much sitting, so stretching and moving is the best thing you can do to ensure you have a healthy hip joint for longer. 

1. Sitting Gluteal Stretch

This stretch can be done in your plane seat, at a desk, or on the bed of your hotel room.

• While you’re sitting, bring your right ankle up to rest on your left knee.

• With a straight back, gently lean forward, placing gentle pressure from your right forearm onto your right knee, gently easing it toward the floor.

• Hold as you count to thirty,

• Gently let go and repeat on the left.

Pic by Lifehack.org

2. In-Room Hip Flexor Stretch

This stretch is perfect to when you arrive at your hotel room. It's a great way to release the hip flexors that have been shortened throughout your trip.

1. Standing up tall, place the shin of your right leg on a chair or on your bed, making sure you left foot is straight.

2. Standing on the left leg, bend your left knee into a lunge position

3. Hold as you count to thirty

4. Gently let go and repeat on the left.

3. Spinal Massage & Child’s Pose

Lying on your back, bring your knees to your chest and gently rock side to side. This helps to release the erector spinae muscles that run parallel to the spine.

Next, on your hands and knees, gently rock back until you’re sitting on your heels, and stretch your arms forward for a real spine stretch into child’s pose. Rest here for a few breaths. If it’s more comfortable, place your hands down by your side instead of stretching them out in front.

4. Restore mobility with a spinal roll down

The hip joint, pelvis and lower spine are all connected, with many muscles joining these bones together. A spinal roll down is a great way to let gravity help you gently stretch the muscles and nerves of your lower spine and pelvic region. Check out the video below to learn how to do a spinal roll down.

1. Standing up tall and breathe in

2. Breathe out as you gently tuck your chin to your chest and roll all the way down to the floor.

3. Let your arms go floppy and your head hang.

4. Breathe in at the bottom, and breathe out as you roll all the way up to the top, thinking of stacking your vertebrae, one on top of the other.

You can repeat this roll-down a few times until you feel ready to sit back down.

If you get hip pain, low back pain or feel sluggish after travelling, try the stretches above when you arrive in your hotel room. If you're not sure how to get started with moving better at work, see a good Physiotherapist, or get in touch with me to get help, and start living your healthiest life at home, and when you travel.

Need More Motivation To Live Healthy?

5 Ways to Kickstart Your Health This Spring

The days are getting longer and the mornings are brighter - Spring is nearly here! You’re probably super excited for the warmer months, but the thought of wearing summer dresses and shorts might be a bit daunting. Never fear! Here’s a 5-step guide to start your summer-wellness mission.

1. Get up 20 minutes earlier and head outside

Twenty minutes is nothing right? Wrong! It can make all the difference, and help you kickstart your health and fitness for spring. Whether you go for a walk to get a coffee, head to the park and go on the swings, go for a run or even sit outside with a cup of hot water, starting the day outdoors can have a hugely positive affect on your mindset and mental health.

Tip: Go for a walk, even just a short one, and you’ll find not only does it kickstart your summer cardio regime, it also does wonders for your mindset.

2. Boost your energy with spring produce

Finally! Spring produce is popping up meaning luscious tomatoes are on the shelves, asparagus is nearly here and stone fruits are on their way! Change up your lunch and instead of bringing last night’s leftover pasta to work, try making a super quick salad. 

Tip: Throw some cherry tomatoes in a tupperware with raw asparagus, cut capsicum, baby spinach, balsamic and some aoli. Add tuna in olive oil at lunchtime (or keep it completely veggie) and give it a shake when you’re ready to eat. You'll be adding extra nutrients to your diet and avoiding the 3pm slump thanks to the organic energy.

3. Get more vitamin D to boost your mood

If you suffered from the blues this winter, you’re not alone. A lack of vitamin D can have a huge effect on your mood. Finally there’s more sunlight hours though, so try to sit outside for at least ten minutes per day to get your Vitamin D fix. 

Tip: Your skin will probably be super sensitive to the sun after being under a million warm layers, so don’t forget to use some sunscreen, or a BB cream with sunscreen in it already.

Catching some rays at Bob's Cove, Queenstown

4. Spruce up your activewear collection

If you’ve lost a bit of motivation to workout this winter, don’t worry. Now’s the time to get back on track and get moving again! A great motivator is beautiful activewear, so why not pick up just one new piece to motivate you. You’ll be dying to wear your new leggings/jacket/tank top so you won’t miss your next yoga class.

Tip: My fave brands at the moment are The Upside, Lorna Jane, P.E Nation and Kinki

I was thrilled to meet this amazing woman Kinki, founder of beautiful Chinese brand Kinki Activewear and creator of yoga empire K Yoga.

5. Get those niggling pains sorted

Have you had knee pain, back pain or a niggly injury that’s bothered you throughout winter? Now’s the time to get it fixed! Head to a good Physiotherapist to get your injury sorted so you can achieve your fitness goals this summer. Whether you want to run a half marathon, play with your kids more or simply walk up the stairs to work, long-term injuries can negatively affect your mindset and put you off activity. 

Tip: Don’t be the girl who says “I can’t, I have a bad knee,” be the girl who gets it sorted, and start with what you can do, with a plan to get moving and improve. You can do it!

Need more motivation? Join our FREE 4 Week Spring Wellness Challenge Now!