Body Blog: Combos For Your Bod

Running on a treadmill is a great workout, but it gets boring. Kick boxing spikes your heart rate and burns major calories, but you’re sick of taking the same class….again. And if you eat one more salad (with the dressing on the side!) you are going to kill someone.

Eating healthy and staying fit don’t have to be so….monotonous. Nutrition experts are constantly coming up with new forms of exercise and new research on dieting that may be just the new thing you (and your body) need. The latest? Combinations of our favorite things to get even better results:

1: Piloxing

Joseph Pilates, meet your match. In the boxing ring, that is. There’s a new exercise contender in the draw now: Piloxing!

Here’s the blow-by-blow: LA-based fitness trainer Viveca Jensen bases the classes off of the best of both worlds, by combining the intense power moves of boxing (like the one-two punch) with the softer toning moves of pilates (like those pesky 100’s). Supposedly, it has a “Swedish twist” to it, which apparently makes it better/more efficient. (Swedish fish do taste better than regular fish, so I guess there is a truth to that.) Celebrities like Hilary Duff and Alexis Bledel have signed on to this new exercise trend, claiming it helps to attain a “sleek, sexy, and powerful” self-image.

2: Yollet

Last time I donned a tutu, I was tailgating with my friends and had no intentions of doing ballet whatsoever.

But with this new fitness trend, I just might wear it again. This time with exercise in mind (no, chugging beer is not considered a workout for your esophagus). Yollet (pronounced yo-lay) is a fusion of Classical Ballet and Yoga, and its 1-hour class is just what you’d expect: 30 minutes of non-stop chasse’ing then 30 minutes of downward dog and stretching.

3: Food Synergy

Many foods have shown to have a “one-plus-one-equals-three” effect when eaten together, amping up the nutrition benefits more than when eaten separately. For example, combining foods that contain carotenoids, such as tomatoes, with a healthful fat, such as olive oil, makes it easier for the body to absorb the nutrients more readily.

This new “food synergy” gives you more reasons to eat your favorites together:

Oatmeal + OJ (power breakfast!)

Blueberries + Grapes (little circles of yumminess)

Peanuts + Whole Wheat (PB&J all the way)

Apples + Chocolate (yes, I said it. Chocolate.)

Now you have an excuse to drizzle a little full-fat dressing onto your salad too!

So, what do you think? Would you try any of these?