holistic health |

What Does Holistic Really Mean?

The core of the BareVitality brand is to promote a Holistic approach to health and wellness whereby clients take on this method to achieve their desired results.

However, lately, we have noticed that the term Holistic is often overlooked and misunderstood by many as it seems to be an adjective added to provide a sense of fanciness, rather than having a substance of its own.

So we are here to clarify the confusion for you in the hope of encouraging you to embrace the term and live accordingly.

To live holistically implies the notion of engaging in a multifaceted approach to one’s health and well-being.

Simply put, this necessarily means that we are looking at all factors of our lives such as career, emotional and mental wellness, exercise, clean eating, stress, sleep, etc., and nourishing all these elements with a balance, to achieve our optimal health.

Health isn’t defined solely by the aesthetics of our body and the food we put in our mouths; it is much more complex than that.

To be truely healthy means that we are not prone to extreme stress, that we have emotional clarity, that we are in a career that we enjoy, have passions we pursue and have a balanced social life.

All elements in our lives contribute to our health!

You will often find that you are not losing weight or feeling energetic, despite eating clean and exercising regularly.

We so often see clients walking into our BareVitality studio finding themselves in this situation. It is not until we consider a holistic approach, diagnosing the root of the problem, that we can solve these concerns. We soon see that the failure in achieving their goal stems from other sections of their life such as carrying too much stress, not sleeping enough, not drinking enough water, etc.

We encourage you assess your health through a holistic view. Find an exercise that you enjoy doing, prevent stress through meditation, nourish your soul by getting involved in the community and meeting new people, and find purpose in your everyday life!

Fitness

A Week Of Fitness- my fitness program!

So as you probably already know, I am a big advocate of creating your own holistic fitness routine that works for you and your body. A Week Of Fitness- my fitness program!

So as a Personal Trainer, Holistic Health Coach, Running Coach and Yoga Teacher, how do I balance it all out? What does a week of fitness look like for me?

The answer- every week is different!

I listen to my body and give it what it needs that week. There is always variety and a balance of ‘working in’ and ‘working out’.

If you follow me on Facebook and Instagram you have seen that last week I took you through my week of fitness! So here it is, all in one place!! Just an example of what my weekly holistic fitness program looks like.

Monday:

Monday was the first day back into my holistic fitness routine after last week resting with a cold and the couple weeks before in Bali focusing on yoga & meditation.

To ease back into things I went with a Yin Class (restorative stretching/ meditation) + 25 min jog/ walk.

Tuesday:

Tuesday was a yoga class + bits & pieces of our BareVitality Mat Endurance class this morning while I was teaching.

Wednesday:

Wednesday was another yoga day due to a studio visit. Thanks for having me YogaBar Sydney and for the awesome smoothie afterwards.
Plus I think I can count that I padded for 2 client boxing sessions today. The only negative of your clients getting fitter and stronger is they start boxing harder and fast = more work for trainer!! haha …. so my arms got a good incidental workout too!

Thursday:

Thursday I went with a 15 minute Medicine Ball Strength Workout. See below:
2 Sets
– 1 min plank on MB
– 20x MB Squats
– 20x MB Sumo Squats
– 20x MB Sit ups
– 20x MB Oblique Twists
– 20x MB Overhead Presses

Friday:

Friday was another Yin Class. My body was craving restorative movement so thats what I gave it! I also incorporated the 15 minute walk with my headphones in to yoga and back. Bliss!!

Saturday:

Saturday I upped the intensity and joined in for parts of our morning BareVitality Group Session + Afternoon Bay Run (7km). First proper run back 🙂

Sunday:

Sunday was a Vinyasa Yoga Class (Flow based) + a gentle walk with as part of the #activeadventureseries post the most amazing whole food breakfast at Egg Of The Universe!!

The perfect Sunday right!?

What’s your Holistic Fitness Program this week been?

Use the #barevitality to share your fitness adventures xx

24/02/2017
No Comments
exercise program, fit, fitness, holistic health, Workout

Fitness,Fitness, Health & Wellbeing,Health,Wellbeing

Ayurvedic Spring Body Tips!

Spring is about reducing and clearing. As nature around us starts to warm up, our body tries to as well. The body wants to move on from winter stiffness and internal hibernation and start planting seeds of goals, ambitions and plans. We want to free ourselves from the layers, whether that be superficial or internal that have built up during the last few months. This is why I thought it so necessary to share my Spring body tips with you xx

Spring is the season of the Ayurvedic dosha, kapha. Kapha represents earthly, lubricating and watery qualities. This can bring us into a conflicting state if our kapha is not balanced.

When our kapha is balanced we feel strong, clear and stable. When unbalanced we experience feelings of dullness, lack of motivation, confusion, sleepiness and depression.

All NOT great qualities to be experiencing when your body is also wanting to reenergise and ‘spring’ into Spring.

So you can see how important a balanced system is at this time of year.

How can I balance my Kapha and utilise the season of Spring to transform my Spring body?

Here are some tips:

Spring Body Tips:

Spring bodies love rhythm and routine! Wake up at the same time each morning and go to bed at the same time each night. Aim for 10pm – 6am sleeping hours.

Upon waking move the body to produce heat. This could be through 10 minutes of gentle yoga or a workout (follow along on our App), a walk/ light jog or maybe a class. If you live in the Southern Highlands, why not come along and try one of our BareVitality group classes in Moss Vale 🙂

A bit more on moving to build inner heat! Rhythmic breath is essential. When we breath too erratically we are losing heat out of the body and just reach a sweaty, overly stressed state. Think lots of sun salutations or functional movement with a smooth, repetitive flow. I am loving at the moment cardio boxing, yoga, pilates, jogging and circuit training.

Meditate daily! Yes I know you are probably screwing your face up at this one. Its something that I struggle with as well. Trust me! With so much change coming into Spring the mind NEEDS stillness and grounding. Start with 6 minutes a day just focusing on the breath and the body. You can use The BareVitality Studio app to help you.

Eat light and easy digestible foods during Spring. Back to routine, try and eat your meals at the same time each day and have a solid 3-4 hour break between each meal to rest the digestive system. Think whole foods in their most natural state. Limit dairy, heavy meats and animal products, alcohol and caffeine as well as keeping with warm foods. So avoid cold drinks/ foods and only drink warm or room temperate water. Herbal teas a great too- I love cinnamon, ginger and chilli teas to warm the body. Try to also include lots of alkalising foods and bitter veggies to support the liver and ball blander at this cleansing time.

Get outdoors as much as possible. The body needs to connect with the natural Spring rhythms of nature- yes a bit of a mouthful! Dig your toes in sand, lye on the grass under the stars, lean on the trunk of a tree and read a book or practice your meditation.

Despite part of us may want to go full throttle into Spring, slow it down. Keep things simple. One goal or plan at a time. Make sure you have switch off time from technology and utilise Spring to heal. Which bring me onto the next point.

A Spring body is a symbol of a rejuvenated, fresh self. This is the time of healing and repairing relationships with both yourself and others. Feel good about YOU, forgive yourself and fill YOU with love and happy thoughts. Forgive others, you don’t want to be holding onto that heaviness. Make mends of cracks formed in relationships during those darker winter months. Everyone else is wanting to reduce and clear in Spring too so its the perfect time for both parties.

Lots of love and happy cleansing

Claudia

01/09/2016
No Comments
ayurvedic, holistic health, Spring, wellness

Health

Living The Spicy Life

I had the pleasure of being featured by the girls over at Your Spicy Life.

Talking all thinks health, wellness and business success.

Check it out!

This week’s interview is with the lovely Claudia Beyer. Claudia is a Holistic Lifestyle Coach, Outdoor Personal Trainer, creator of the blog BareVitality and author of the ebook Your Holistic Metabolism.

After years of following Claudia’s blog I (Mia) finally had the pleasure of meeting Claudia at a YouTube conference about a month ago. I can definitely say she is just as kind, friendly and glowing as she comes across on her blog.

One of my favourite things about Claudia’s blog (aside from the amazing recipes), is the easy and quick work outs she posts that you can do anywhere. For example this ab work out you can do while watching TV. Anything that allows me to watch my favourite TV show and get fit at the same time is a definite win in my book!

Now, get to know Claudia…

What are you most passionate about at the moment and how important do you think it is to incorporate your passion into your career?

Read more..

04/09/2015
No Comments
business success, Claudia Beyer, health, holistic health, personal trainer, wellness, your spicy life

Health

Alternative vs Modern Medicine- the ridiculous debate!!

This started as a quick Facebook post, however once I started typing I felt I had too much to share in just a few sentences.

As an advocate of Holistic Health I thought it was appropriate to share my view on the current media chaos over the last 2 weeks regarding alternative vs modern medicine.

IT SHOULD NOT BE ONE OR THE OTHER!! Rather a balanced approach that is suited to the individual.

Approximately 90-95% of all disease is a result of an imbalance of lifestyle and diet practices. Taking a Holistic approach involves breaking down your health and addressing it from every avenue to bring balance back to the body and create a stable platform to prevent illness and disease. If one system in your body is struggling, it can be certain the others are out of balance trying to compensate and therefore continuing the cycle of ill health.

I believe treating illness/ disease requires utilising a holistic approach of supporting the body through sound and individualised nutritional, herbal, wellness and movement practices along with an appropriate and individualised modern medicine plan.

Along my health journey it took a ridiculous amount of trial and error to find a balance of all avenues that worked for me and still I get old symptoms reappear or new symptoms form and have to regularly reassess my treatment and management approach- but when you find that perfect balance where your body just runs in harmony, there really is nothing like it.

The basics of my health program consists of a diet based around foods my body thrives off, avoiding foods that weaken my system or have a negative reaction in my body (this also includes certain vegetables & fruits) and eating certain nutrients at certain times, in certain combinations and tracking my rotation of those foods. Routine exercise, stretching and meditating have become an important part of pain management, adrenal health, circulation + so much more. A combination of nutritional and herbal supplements AS WELL AS fortnightly visits to the doctors for medical support and routine injections. Creating a chemical free environment, monitoring my sleep and also ensuring I have 1-2 hrs mid day sleep is the difference of maintaining a stable level of health and going back 5 steps.

Now sounds a lot of work and that’s not all of it, however it has become like second nature to me now and is the difference of feeling life and energy again, not catching every single bug or virus going around, being able to work, run long distance, play.. really do anything I want within balance.

Along my health journey not one of these methods alone provided much improvement or sometimes any improvement, however bringing all sources of healing together and creating a balance that suited my individual health status completely turned my life around.

Through BareVitality I aim to inspire, motivate and support my community and clients on their own health journey’s. As an exercise and holistic health professional I can assist individuals in only certain areas. I know very little and I am not qualified to diagnosing illness or recommend medications to support treatment of diseases or infection, how to council an individual through trauma or relieve deep muscle tension/ pain.

Image what we could achieve if the entire medical and health industry collaborated as one to prevent, manage and heal illness and disease!

We as a community and individuals are ever evolving, our bodies and health status are ever-changing and so is the environment around us. It makes sense that our practices towards health should also be evolving to utilise the vast array of resources we have available to complement the cycle of growth and access all our natural stored vitality, not just that through a food or by a type of movement or in a medication.

13/03/2015
4 Comments
Alternative vs Modern Medicine, debate, desease, diet, food, health industry, holistic health, illness, lifestyle practices, media, medicine, modern medicine, nutrition

Health,Travel

Re-connecting & Re-energising; my Bali health adventures!

Over the last week I have been contemplating how I was going to put this post together when I have so much to share and no idea where to start. I came to the conclusion that like most stories you can’t go wrong by starting at the beginning. So here goes..

A bit over 2 months ago in a complete exhausted, overwhelmed and not so clear state, a friend blatantly exclaimed that I needed a holiday. I am naturally not a very spontaneous person and the thought of going away overseas while I was already so stressed with the amount of work that I needed to get through seemed completely unrealistic. Over the next week it became obvious that my state of wellbeing was effecting all areas of my life from work performance, reduced short term memory, energy levels, sleep quality, self awareness and love, and returning symptoms of the CFS. While I had so many exciting things already coming up over the next few weeks, the idea kept creeping back into my mind regarding how wonderful it would be to leave everything behind for a week and re-energise and re-centre myself. The decision was made when I reminded myself of my # 1 rule I encourage my clients to follow- Your health & wellbeing are first priority. You can not give to those around you effectively unless you have positive stores of health and happiness available to share.

Happy, healthy me = happy, healthy clients!!

and so the adventure began…

My first few days of purely the company of me, myself and I was just what my internal doctor ordered! This time allowed me to slow down and listen to what my body was telling me and where my mind was misdirecting me. My accommodation felt instantly like home as I was greeted with warm, smiling faces and directed to a serene room overlooking rice paddy fields.

Waking at sunrise to the sound of birds chirping. Walking through the final morning hour of stillness before the hustle and bustle appeared. Spending 90 minutes of yoga (a practice I love, yet find mentally very challenging) in a room over flowing with positive energy and beautiful hearts. Nourishing my body with cleansing organic green juices and superfood bowls. Diarising my morning thoughts and objectives for the day…. and there was day 1 up to 9.30am.

So here is a summary of what I brought back from Bali:

1. Movement:

Recently I started competing in long distance running again (something that has not been possible for the past 5 years) which as my altermate passion and love has been so fulfilling yet an experiemental process of figuring out my limits and making sure I maintain balance. Slightly pushing this limit in an event just before my trip, I needed a solid month of restoring the balance- meaning no physical stress on my body. Bali provided a wonderful opportunity of distraction free time to start week 1 of ‘working in’ practicing yoga, leisurely walks exploring my surroundings and using zone exercises (energy building) to assist the healing of my adrenal system. Returning home I have done my best to continue these practises. Catching a cold has set me back a bit, however I have now adapted immune building zone exercises to assist recovery and implemented lots of rest time.

As a personal trainer and long distance runner my attitude towards exercise is that unless I have the built up stores of ‘work in’ energy, I will not train or ‘work out’. My clients probably get sick of me saying it but listening to your body and providing it with what it needs at this present time will be your number 1 key to success in your health, fitness &/or weight loss goals.

2. Nutritional nourishment:

Oh my goodness, health foodie heaven!! I was blown away by the menu options available at the Bali health food cafes. The variety and inclusion of superfoods and food preparation for optimal nutritional absorption was like nothing I had seen in health food cafes before. The Balinese understand the essence of healthy eating and can provide us with much to learn . The use of local, organic produce, prepared and served with simplicity and love.

Breakfasts of omelettes, raw superfood porridges, gluten free superfood pancakes, and lots of teas, fresh juices and fruits. Lunches were usually more fresh juices, whole food salads, raw macrobiotic dishes, grilled chicken satay sticks (my fav), nourishing soups and/or mixed whole food platers. Dinner was always a selection of multiple dishes to share and enjoy. Fresh seafood, more chicken satay sticks, veggies, curries, stir-frys… Desserts, snacks and treats were superfood smoothies, raw superfood chocolate mouses, cupcakes, tarts, slices, biscuits and local seasonal fruit and organic chocolate. Coconut water became a daily staple to stay hydrated and replenish minerals.

I fell in love with Earth Cafe’s (a health cafe chain in Bali) freshly made cashew milk, hot ‘Herbal Maca Java Chai’ and their ‘Nutrient Nourisher’ smoothie of cashew milk, banana, carob, cashew butter & honey.

The pride in the locals as they shared their food with you and absorbed your complements with praise was so special. The Balinese & Buddhist traditions regarding eating embed so many crucial elements of wellbeing to be taken. Firstly there are no set meal times. People eat only when their body tells them they are hungry. They therefore are more in tune with their bodies natural nutritional needs and food is eaten only until the body is satisfied. Often traditionally the preparation of dinner starts with the blessing then slaughtering of an animal and picking and gathering of other fresh produce. This deep connection to the beauty and energy provided by mother nature for our survival and life cycle, allows us to form a strong appreciation and connection to life’s energy we are consuming and then utilising for our own health and wellness. Sitting on the ground and eating with their hand is another form of connection to their food and where is came from.

Try this today! Hold a peice of organic fruit or a vegetable with 2 hands. Take time to look at it and appreciate it. Now close your eyes and hold it and try and feel the energy produced from this living gift. Take a bite, savouring the taste and chewing until it is liquid. It is then that you swallow this concentrated, easily digested, nutritious energy form and feel vitality being absorbed into the blood stream.

3. Mind:

Shutting off for the week was bliss! Daily meditation or just mindfulness practices. Stress free time to focus purely on me. Rebuilding strength and re-centring my mind. Opening myself up to future possibilities and recognising areas that required change.

The most prominant realisation was my need to return home and simplify again. My goals had become overwhelming and my workload unnecessarily was ever increasing. Taking a step back and re-evaluating my priorities is now something I have taken back home and I am currently practicing every couple of days. Having your goals, dreams, positive affiliations, little reminders in areas visable is a great way to stay centred. Ideas include; in your diary, on your mirror, as the background of your laptop or phone, make a board or poster- get creative & find something that will work for you.

4. Self love & nurturing:

Yes another area I feel very strongly about- self love and nurturing!! This is an element of my wellbeing that needs regular focus. Ending a relationship where another person wore down my own self worth and wellbeing, I have journeyed to heal, love and strengthen me. When I use ‘me’ time this is about reaching inside and giving yourself what is needed, whether that be stillness, creativity, spoiling, clarity, exercise etc..

Spoiling our self is often something we feel guilty about (I know I do), however it should be used as a way to express your worth & love to yourself. My rule while I was in Bali was I needed to put aside time for a massage a day. Also allowing myself to purchase an item I did not need but instantly fell in love with- remember its ok to give gifts to ourself sometimes.

I also treated myself to a day spa of a hot stone massage (a first), face masks, body scrubs, and a rose petal bath to thank my body for doing everything it does. We can also care for our bodies by minimising the toxic load absorbed through it’s biggest organ, our skin. Use all natural skin care, beauty and hair products that instead nourish the body with wholesome ingredients. On my trip I came across a number of boutique natural aromatherapy shops. While I enjoy making my own basic face scrubs, combining face oils and creating different moisturisers, my limited knowledge on aromatherapy & essential oils has prevented me from playing around with many other wonderous ingredients and combinations. My pocket size Bali find ‘Apracticle Guide To Aromatherapy & Essential Oils’ is now my newest companion to going 90% chemical free (currently about 70%).

5. Mother nature reconnection

With my mind consumed by all the unnecessary stresses I had started to lose touch with what was around me. Bali brought me back there in no time at all. My eyes and heart were instantly opened to my wondrous surroundings. Rainforest’s, oceans, waterfalls, strong tall trees, sun rises and sunsets, bright stars and glowing moons. Each day I made it a priority to connect and feel gratitude for mother nature in one way or another. Weather this was by walking barefoot through the soil of rice paddy fields, digging my toes in the sand, swimming in the ocean, mediating in rock pools, absorbing the energy of standing under waterfalls or staring into the night sky and watching the rotation of colours in the sunsets.

When we learn to connect with mother nature we can learn to utilise her gifts of energy, happiness and vitality.

6. Community

The local community work as one. They cherish the company of each other and share a deep love and loyalty towards their families. I took in their way of life being based around the simplicity of the necessities with admiration- family, religion/spiritual connections, food & wellness.

I felt such warmth and welcomeness from nearly all the beautiful people I came across on my holiday.

I have returned from my trip with a re-centred approach to my life. Re-prioritising my happiness and health as first priority and then I can share with others and support them through their journeys of creating and maintaining vitality.

We don’t need to go to Bali to re-energise and re-centre however we all do need to regularly take a step back and check in with how we are going and where areas of improvement are needed towards our health and happiness.

Much love,

Claudia xx

Do you want search ?

Follow Me