New Year's Resolutions Guide

New Year’s Resolutions

· Be reasonable: set realistic goals, don’t expect to drop all the weight in one or two weeks. Make smaller “mini goals”. Maybe chose to loose 2 pounds by the end of each month, instead of choosing to loose 30 pounds by the end of the year.

· Make a plan: come up with a plan that fits into your current lifestyle. Whether it’s exercising twice a week or even once a week, make sure you make it a commitment .

· Find a workout that you enjoy. If you don’t enjoy it, the likelihood that you will stick with it is pretty minimal.

· Don’t be disappointed if the scale hasn’t budged after a while. Do you feel better? Do your clothes fit better/loser? It might just be that you have replaced some of the fat with muscle. Remember fat and muscle weigh the same….but muscle takes up less space!

· Too much cake, candy, and cookies over the holidays can drive anyone to want to swear off sugar for good. But going extreme with your New Year's resolution and trying to completely cut out certain types of food might be too much for you to handle. If you know you have a sweet tooth or can't stay away from the bread basket, make a resolution to cut back instead of eliminating.

· Deciding to eat healthier is one of the best New Year's resolution you can make. It's the broadness of the goal that is the issue. It's best to define that goal with smaller, more specific goals such as "to eat green veggies at least once a day," or "eat fruit instead of ice cream for my after-dinner treat." These defined goals will be easier to follow, making you more successful at your original goal of eating healthier.

 

New Name & New Place!

I am excited to announce I now have my own studio! All of my Zumba classes are now held at my studio.

Veteran's Day Parade 2012 Re-Cap!

Yesterday La Luna dance team where able to participate in our towns' Veteran's Day Parade. And even  though it was colder than a freeze pop out, the kids where good sports about it and enjoyed every last minute of it!

Day of the Dead Performance

Last week La Luna was asked to dance at a Day of the Dead celebration. And the kids were great! Everyone loved them and the kids had a ton of fun. Here are a few pictures of that night.

one of our dancers dancing La Danza del Venado "the dance of the deer"

Zumba Sentao?

 

What is this Zumba Sentao?”(sen-ta-o) “It just looks like a lap dance class to me” I’m sure you and your friends will ask “what is it?”.That’s ok, I asked those same questions. But don’t worry it’s not a lap dance class (it can quickly become one, if you let it) Zumba Sentao is perfect for those who want to introduce strength and resistance training along with the existing cardio you do in your Zumba class. In Zumba Toning, you do a bit of balancing and not everyone is great at balancing or has hand eye coordination to maneuver the weights. Zumba Sentao uses a chair to help balance while you do squats, lunges & other moves. You can easily and quickly modify almost every move OR push yourself a little harder and feel safe you wont fall by holding on to the chair and focusing on your form. “oh I have bad knees” “Zumba Toning is hard enough” A guy was able to do this class with a broken leg, and a lady with a replaced hip was able to do it too, So when I say it’s for everyone it really is FOR EVERYONE

 

October Newsletter!

Did you miss last week's Zumba Newsletter? Don't sweat it! You can now view it just by clicking on the picture below!

Guess What!

This past weekend I flew down to San Diego and took my training for Zumba Sentao! I am now a licenced Zumba Sentao Instructor!! I am SO excited to start teaching this new form of Zumba!

Me and the wonderful Melanie Guzman who taught the training for Zumba Sentao!

All of us crazy Zumba instructors who took this training!

 

After a long day I was finally able to hold up my certificate that says I am a licenced Zumba Sentao Instructor! YAY!!

Come Join La Luna!!

We are now looking for new members to join La Luna Folkloric Dance Team! Dancing not your thing? that's OK we are always looking for volunteers to help!

 

Must be in elementary, middle, or high school. If you are graduated from high school you will have to fill out a background check form.

 

 

La Luna

For a while now our Folkloric Dance Team has had many names and none of them really were "us", but we finally chose a name that we believe fits us perfectly! We are now La Luna Folkloric Dance Team! Our mission statement is "sharing the cultures of Latin America through dance".

We also now have business cards with our new name and mission statement! So exciting!

The Proper Squat...

Why is it important to do squats correctly?

While squatting with proper form is completely safe, squatting with poor form is extremely dangerous. Incorrect squat technique puts a lot of strain on the lower back and knees and can quickly lead to serious injury.

 

Here is the correct way to do squats as recommended by the American Council of Exercise:

1. Begin standing with your feet slightly wider than hip-width and your toes turned out slightly. Your hands are by your sides with your palms facing inward. Pull the shoulders down your back toward your hips
2. Engage your core muscles to stabilize your spine. Keep your chest lifted and your chin parallel to the floor. Shift your weight back into your heels as your hips begin to push toward the wall behind you.
3. Downward Phase: begin this phase by hinging at the hips, shifting them back and down. Your hips and knees bend simultaneously. As you lower your hips the knees bend and will start to shift forward slowly. Try to prevent your knees from traveling too far forward past the toes. Keep the core muscles engaged and try to keep your back flat, DO NOT TUCK THE TAIL OR ARCH THE LOWER BACK.
4. Continue to lower yourself until your thighs are parallel or almost parallel to the floor. If your heels begin to lift off the floor or your torso begins to round, return to start position. Be aware of any movement that may occur at your feet, ankles and knees. Work to ensure that the feet do not move, the ankles do not collapse in or out and the knees remain lined up with the second toe.
5. From the Lowered Position: keep the knees aligned with the second toe and body weight evenly distributed between the balls and heels of both feet. If you can view this from the side, your shinbone should be parallel with your torso and the low back should appear flat or may be showing the begining of some rounding.
6. Upward Phase: while mainting the position of your back, chest and head and with the abdominals engaged, exhale and return to start position by pushing your feet into the floor through your heels. The hips and torso should rise together. Keep the heels flat on the floor and knees aligned with the second toe.
7. Think about inhaling on the way down and exhaling while exerting on the way back to the initial standing position.

 

Zumba Flash Sale Going on NOW!!

Use my affliate code zlove541 and save an additional 10%!!!

 

Veggie & Cheese Casserole

 

OK, so I have leaped off the deep end (or so my husband says), I have decided to try out the whole vegan thang. No, I'm not one of those vegans, you know the ones that hate you for eating animals. I mean I was already not eating any form of dairy and egg so I thought "hey, I might as well try out cutting out meat". So for the past week and a half I've been vegan! and so I have been trying out some recipes and I like this one! It's pretty quick and full of flavor! And I had everything on hand. My husband's garden is busting out of the seems with a hole bunch of veggies so this recipe was perfect to use up some of those that have been sitting on the counter for a while.

 

Here's the recipe (adapted from This recipe):

 

Ingredients:

• 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon minced onion
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 2 cups zucchini, thinly sliced
• 1 cup baby carrots, chopped
• 1 teaspoon grated nutmeg
• 1/5 cup shredded cheese (I used Daiya mozzarella style "cheese")
• 1/3 cup bread crumbs
• handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
• salt and pepper to taste
• cheese for sprinkling on top

Directions:

 

Heat the olive oil in a medium pan over medium heat.

 

Microwave baby carrots for about 2 minutes, to soften slightly. This way they will take less time to saute.

 

Add zucchini and carrots to the pan, add the onion and garlic, until softened.

 

Add nutmeg, salt, and pepper and mix in well. Remove pan from the heat and place contents into a medium oven safe bowl. Preheat oven to 375F

 

Stir in cheese (save some to sprinkle on top) and mix in the bread crumbs (save some to sprinkle on top too) until well combined.

 

Sprinkle with the cheese and bread crumbs on top that you set aside.

 

Bake for about 15 minutes.

 

Turn on the broiler and broil (watching carefully) an additional 3-4 minutes until slightly browned on top.

 

Remove from the oven and let it sit for about 10 minutes.

 

Garnish with the tomatoes! 

 

Serves about 2.

It took about 45 minutes from start to finish.

 

Variations:

Next time I am going to add some broccoli and maybe even some bell peppers! The possibilities are nearly endless with this dish, just replace the veggies with whatever veggies you have on hand or are in season! And of course you can always switch out the vegan cheese for the real stuff. You could even add some chicken or turkey!

 

This is definitely a quick and easy dish that could be dressed up in a billion different ways.

 



 

 

Current Obsession: Sliced Peaches & Toast!

 My current obsession right now is definitely a sliced peach on some whole wheat toast! YUM!

What is your current obsession??

 

 

Laura's 15

For this past month I have been working with a group of teenagers who had asked me to choreograph and instruct two dances for a quinceanera (sweet 15).  And this past weekend I had the pleasure of attending the quinceanera's party and watching everyone love thier mad dance moves. I of course took some pictures!

New Songs: September Zumba Toning

Here is a sneak peak at what you can expect to hear on Thursday's Zumba Toning class! Just look these songs up on iTunes!

Asalto*
Esto Tiene Algo - KLC Clave Cubana
Merehop*
Dil Nai Lagda - Aman Hayer, Feroz Khan & Vinni
Nobody - Ne-Yo

*Previously done in class

Zumba Calender for September!

Now it's even easier to stay up to date with your Zumba classes! Apart from your bi-monthly newsletter you will also receive a calender of events! So you can now print these puppies out and hang them up on your fridge, wall, or anywhere you want them! Don't get our newsletters? That's OK you can just sign up for them at the bottom on my blog OR you can just print them out from here! 

 

To print just click on the picture!!! 

Zumba Wear 10% off!!

Vote For Your Favorite Zumba Instructor!

Vote for your favorite Zumba instructor! They could end up in Shape magazine!

Vote now @ shape.com/vote-zumba

 

 

 

Crook County JV Sparkles Dance Team Zumbathon Event!

Join me on Saturday September 8th from 7-8:30pm in Prineville to support the JV Sparkles dance team! For more info just contact me!

Zumba 2012 Instructor Convention

Unfortunately I wasn't able to go to this years instructor convention but I WILL go to the next one! Here's a recap of this years convention! It makes me excited for next year!

Chicken Pot Pie

I came across a recipe for turkey pot pie with phyllo crust that I had cut out of a November 2010 Country Living magazine the other day and I decided to make it! My way of course. So in the end it neither has turkey or a phyllo crust, instead it has chicken and a homemade pie crust. Here's what I did and it only took me about 30 minutes to prep everything and about another 30 to bake.

For the Filling:

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons cooking oil
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 small bag of frozen vegetables (I used frozen cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots)
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon parsley
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup milk (I used a dairy free milk)
• 1 teaspoon ground mustard
• Salt & pepper to taste
• Half a rotisserie chicken (shredded)

Preheat the oven to 400F

1. In a large skillet over medium heat, heat oil. Add onion powder, frozen vegetables, and garlic powder. Cook until vegetables are tender. Stir in parsley.
2. Sprinkle vegetables with flour 1 tablespoon at a time and stir until it is all mixed in and no lumps. Cook until mixture starts to look a little golden brown. Add broth, milk, ground mustard, and salt & pepper to taste. Stir frequently until mixture thickens. Stir in chicken.
3. evenly divide into two oven safe bowls and set aside.

For the Pie Crust:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup shortening
• 3-4 tablespoons cold water

I put all my ingredients into a food processor but you can mix everything in a bowl.

1. Stir the flour and salt together. Cut in the shortening until the pieces are the size of small peas. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of the water over the mixture and gently mix. repeat until all is moistened. Form dough into a ball.
2. On a lightly floured surface flatten dough with hands. Roll dough from center to edge, forming a circle. Cut out two circles large enough to cover your bowls.
3. Now cover your bowls with the pie crust and make sure to cut some vent holes.

Place into the oven and bake for about 25-30 minutes, until the crust is golden brown.
Let cool and enjoy!

Makes about 2 servings.

  

New Songs: August

What's that? You can't get enough of the new songs we did in class yesterday? what are they? Well here they are:

Prrrum
Stereo Love
Pegate Mas

you can find all these songs on iTunes!

Bring a Friend!!

Every time you come to class, you get to put your name on a raffle ticket. The more times you come to class the more chances you have of winning a prize at the end of the month! You can win any of these items!

For every friend you bring to class you will get 5 extra tickets!! If you like my Facebook page or follow my health/fitness blog you get 1 extra ticket! If any one of your friends that you bring to class signs up for the whole month YOU get a free Zumba T-shirt! (one of the ones shown below)

So get your friends off their bum and bring them to Zumba!!

Dairy-Free Fruit Popsicles

I am not sure what has gotten into me lately, but I have been on a roll branching out and using new recipes. Maybe it's the heat that is putting me in such an adventurous mood. So while I was cleaning out the cupboard (apart from being in an adventurous mood in the kitchen, I've been in an organizing frenzy in the kitchen too) I came across our Popsicle molds that we bought a long time ago and never really used them. So I went online and looked for a recipe for dairy free fruit Popsicles and came across this recipe. But since I didn't have carrots or almond butter, I decided to use what I had on hand. Can you believe it only took 3 ingredients!?
   And the end result was Delicious! Even the Hubby loved them! If you are worried about it tasting like coconut, don't worry it doesn't really taste like anything but creamy goodness. Even the Hubby couldn't tell it was coconut milk, and he HATES anything with coconut in it, he literally won't touch anything that has coconut in it, until now!
So this is what I did:

Ingredients:

• 1 can of unsweetened coconut milk (look for it at your local health food store OR at your local supermarket in the Asian food isle, usually on the bottom shelf)
• honey or any other sweetener to taste
• fresh or frozen fruit

This is the kind of coconut milk I used. I didn't have any fresh fruit on hand so I used some frozen fruit that I hand.

Open your can of coconut milk and using a spatula put it in a bowl. Don't worry it's supposed to be separated.

Using a whisk mix it together only until it is fully mixed, don't over mix otherwise you will end up with whipped cream. At this time add your sweetener. Keep adding according to your taste. Then add however much fruit you want.

I added some fruit into the empty container before I poured the mixture into the container. I used a ladle to spoon it in. Beware this can get messy, or at least for me it was.

I love the swirls it created! Now place in your freezer for 30 minutes before you stick your Popsicle stick in. Now just wait a few hours until they are all frozen. To get them out of the molds just run warm water over the molds for a few seconds and then you are set to eat!

And the end result is a deliciously creamy treat that has absolutely NO DAIRY and is super easy to make!

Spaghetti Squash with Peas & Chicken

I had never eaten spaghetti squash before let alone cook it. And I'm glad I tried it! It was really quick and easy. It took me about 40 minutes to make this. I used things that I had on hand, including the spaghetti squash from our garden. I got the idea to make this from here, I recommend watching the video if you have never cooked spaghetti squash before, it really helped me a lot!

Ingredients:

• 1 medium spaghetti squash
• 1 cup peas (I only had frozen peas on hand, but you can use any vegetable you have)
• 1 boneless chicken breast (thawed and cooked)

Cut the squash in half length wise and using a spoon, scoop out all the seeds. Then place them face down on a lightly greased baking sheet. Put it in a pre-heated 350 degree F oven for 30 minutes or until a knife can be easily poked through. Meanwhile cook the peas or vegetable the way you like and cook your chicken the way you want, I grilled mine :). After the chicken is cooked cut it up into small pieces and set aside. When the squash is done take it out of the oven and (with an oven mitt in one hand hold the squash) using a fork, scrape the flesh out and put in a bowl. Then toss the chicken and peas in with the squash, and serve!

makes about 4 servings.

The Winners Are....

Congratulations Mike and Theresa for wining this month's drawing!

Remember to put your name on a raffle ticket when you come to class to enter your chance to win any one of these prizes:

Peanut Butter "Larabar"

I have been playing around in the kitchen again, and this time I came up with a peanut butter "Larabar". I can foresee myself playing around with a whole bunch of other flavors!! It is really super easy to make, and only very very few ingredients. I made some oatmeal raisin "Larabars" here and I had used raisins instead of dates, and let me just say that I think I will be buying dates in bulk from now on. I am not too terribly fond of my food being too sweet, and the raisins had made it a little too sweet for me. The dates provided a very nice balance of sweetness that I really enjoyed.
So how did I make them?

Ingredients:

• 1 cup pitted dates
• 1/2 cup unsalted peanuts
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (I used creamy but you can use chunky if you'd like)

now throw it all into your handy dandy food processor (I am so glad I received my heavy duty Kitchen Aid food processor for Christmas a few years ago! I seriously thought I would never use it and it has been sitting in my cupboard for years) and process it until it's all mixed up and it pulls into a ball.

Take it out and shape it into the shape you want. This recipe made 7 rectangle bars.

Keep in the fridge or freeze, although it keeps outside of the fridge too. And enjoy!

Important Class Schedule UPDATE!!

The Zumba class on Thursday has been CHANGED for the month of AUGUST!! Class will start at 6pm!!

So on THURSDAYS CLASS WILL BE FROM 6-7PM!!!

Zumba Sentao Coming Winter 2012!!

 Get excited to learn some explosive chair-based choreography that will strengthen, balance and stabilize the core, and step up cardio work in a whole new way. Learn to use a chair and your own body weight to enhance muscle strength, improve definition and endurance, and tone your physique!

I am super excited to say that Zumba Sentao will be coming to our classes Winter 2012!! I will be getting licenced in October so get ready to grab a char and rock our class!

Oatmeal Raisin "Larabars"

While looking through blogs for dairy free/egg free recipes I came upon Chocolate Ccovered Katie, she does a lot of vegan desert recipes, which I've been dying to find good recipes of!! And while looking through her site I found a recipe for her version of oatmeal raisin "Larabars" so of course I had to make them (not to mention I was out of my normal energy bars and I was too lazy to drive to the store to buy some). I didn't have everything that I needed but that was OK because I just switched it out for something similar and you know what It was yummy! Don't be afraid to experiment with flavors, I know I am definitely going to be experimenting with different flavors!

Oatmeal Raisin "Larabars"

• 1/2 cup raisins
• 6 tablespoons quick oats
• 1/2 cup walnuts (I used pecans)
• 1/8 teaspoon plus 1/16 teaspoon salt (I omitted the salt)
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon honey/agave syrup (optional, I added this to make it sweeter)

Pulverize the oats in a food processor, then I measured and mixed the honey, vanilla, raisins, and nuts into my bowl and spooned it into the processor. After it was all well mixed and sticky I spooned it into my measuring cup to make a cylindrical shape (you can just form them into balls or any shape you want!) and I smash it in tight in my measuring cup.

Then I push up on my measuring cup and with a knife I cut my cylinder into little pucks the thickness I wanted.

This recipe makes about 3 bars/rounds. The bars last at least two weeks in the fridge, and they can also be frozen.

DHS Cultural Day Celebration

On Saturday the Folkloric Dance Team was asked to perform at a local park in a neighboring town and they were great! Here are some pictures of the performance.
The kids danced :

   Folkloric Dances from Mexico

• Las Chiapanecas (Chiapas)
• La Raspa (Jalisco)
• La Pelea de Gallos (Aguascalientes)
• La Morena (Veracruz)

   Folkloric/Traditional Dances from El Salvador

• El Sombrero Azul (Folkloric)
• Las Comaleras (Traditional)

Group Shot

La Pelea de Gallos

La Morena

El Sombrero Azul

Las Comaleras

Welcome!!

Welcome to Karina Feigner Studios! This blog is where you can keep up to date with all of my classes, events, and everything else!