Hampshire | Pilates with Priya

How to stay on top of cooking healthy meals

3 May, 2015 Priya Tew

The craziness of 2 small children and teaching classes at times others would eat means I HAVE to be ultra-organised about our meals. It’s that or live off beans on toast, which wouldn’t be very considerate for my Pilates classes 😉

So if you also have a busy lifestyle, if you are cooking around young ones or if you are wanting to save a few pennies… read on for my top tips.

My top tips:

Meal Planning really does work. We have a whiteboard in our kitchen and I plan out our evening meals and some of our lunches too.
Use your meal plan to shop and prepare in advance. When you have a quieter day chop up some veggies in advance for example, or boil a pile of eggs for lunches, make hummus or cook a meal to get ahead.
Cook in bulk when you can. If you are doing a casserole, chilli, bolognaise, soup or freezable meal cook double and freeze it. This saves me on a regular basis on days things go wrong and I realise I’ve no time to cook!
You don’t have to wait until dinner time to cook. I often end up cooking our evening meal in the morning, as that’s when I have a gap in my day. It can be quite satisfying knowing dinner is already cooked!
Embrace the slow cooker love. The beauty of this is you can prep it the night before and keep it in the fridge, then switch it on in the morning and by evening you have a cooked meal, often with leftovers to freeze. See my slow cooker recipes here or my pinterest board with over 50 ideas.
Have a day a week you use up the leftovers. Put them on a pizza, add to pasta, put veggies in a frittata or stir fry… it may not be a standard recipe but it can save you time, money and is inventive! See Love Food, Hate Waste for top tips and recipes.
Have some emergency meals in your stores. Baked potatoes can be cooked in the microwave in 10 minutes, add tuna and sweetcorn with some chopped veggies and you have a meal. We always have a jar of pesto ready for that emergency pasta dish and frozen veggies.

What are your top tips or recipes?

For more recipes pop to Dietitian UK.

Pilates with Priya: Pilates helps Waterskiing

Pilates IS for Men, Olympics, Diving and WaterSkiing.

6 October, 2012 Priya Tew

Why do people do Pilates with me? It can be for all kinds of reasons, but one of the most common is back ache or being told to by an osteopath/chiropracter/physiotherapist. I find the men tend to creep into classes looking slightly embarassed about it, but after a few weeks realise it’s actually quite hard work and really helps.

What I then love about Pilates is how it gives unexpected results by helping people in other areas too… like in this story below. The man in question came due to back pain but is finding it helps his waterskiing. Which it should 🙂 Yay!

Did you know the GB 2012 Olympic Diving team have a Pilates instructor? True Fact, I met someone who worked with them on the team who was telling me all about it.

Here’s a little testimonial from a man who does Pilates with me, I think it’s a pretty good advert for Pilates 🙂

“A little over a year ago I was seeing an osteopath because of back ache that had been troubling me for several months. One of the first things that he said to me was that I would really benefit from doing pilates. Very soon after I started classes with Priya. Since starting pilates I can honestly say that I have not suffered any significant back pain at all.”

I am a qualified waterski coach and I slalom ski three or four times a week in the summer. This is an extremely demanding sport, which involves high stresses and strains on the body as one is pulled from around 34mph to 60mph and back to 34mph in just over 2 seconds. This requires a great deal of core stability and I have to say that pilates has been the perfect compliment for it. I regularly use pilates exercises for warming up and warming down. I would say, in fact, that pilates would be a very helpful aid in training for almost any sport.

I only took up pilates in an attempt to address a long standing problem but to be quite honest, as well as really significant increase in my flexibility, and core strength, I have been very surprised about the impact that pilates has had on my performance, fitness and recovery from injury and I would, and in fact do, recommend it to anyone who will listen! “

Pilates on Holidays

27 September, 2012 Priya Tew

We’ve just been on holidays – 2 weeks in sunnier climates, time to eat well, relax well and almost sleep (I have a toddler – enough said). For some people holidays are all about switching off and lazing around. My body can only take so much of that so I travelled half way round the world with: my trainers, running kit, some Pilates DVD’s and a resistance band. My husband rolled his eyes. I ignored him.

I spent a lovely afternoon playing around in a gym, with my laptop and reistance band. Watching other instructors teach always gives me fresh ideas and makes me question why I teach things in certain ways. I love to learn, develop and keep things alive. Not only did I get more inspiration but I got a workout and relaxed all at the same time. WIN WIN.

Now I’ll admit I didn’t go for a run – I usually do on holidays, but I don’t usually have a toddler with me. This particular toddler gave me workout enough, my arms should be super strong from much carrying, dancing and rocking. We also had an active holiday with crazy train journeys, much, much swimming, jumping, chasing and playing.

What I did enjoy was a few snatched moments of making up new Step Aerobics routines in the bar, trying out Pilates exercises with variations on very hard floors and using my core whilst stood rocking a small, yet heavy one to sleep.

Do you exercise whilst on holiday? Or am I just mad?

Pilates Classes Over Holidays

23 August, 2012 Priya Tew

Most of you who attend classes should be aware that I’m off on holidays very soon (4th Sept). I can’t wait!!!

There will be classes continuing to run on a Monday, Wednesday and Sunday whilst I am away. Also don’t forget our DVD which can be used if your usual class is not running or for some extra practice between sessions.

September 4th-22nd Classes:

Monday Post Natal Classes will be cancelled

Monday 5.30 Beginners, 6.30 Intermediates and 7.45 Ante-Natal will be
running, covered by Maxine

Wednesday 6pm and 7pm Beginners will run, covered by Faye

Thursday 10am and 8pm Mixed Ability Classes will be cancelled (please
book onto Wed 8pm or another class)

Friday 8.15pm Mixed Ability class will be cancelled (please book onto
Wed 8pm or another class)

Saturday 9.15 Mixed Ability class will be moved to Sunday 9.15, covered
by Faye

Sunday 9.30 Ante-Natal will move to a 10.15 start, covered by Faye.

Any questions please contact us and we’d be happy to help!

Priya

Pilates DVD will be ready next week!

17 May, 2012 Priya Tew

DRUMROLL please………

Our first EVER Pilates with Priya DVD master has just been driven off to the man who will make it into many DVD’s and add all the artwork. It’s all quite exciting, in fact I’m having to make myself breathe and sit down with a cup of tea whilst I write this.

We’ve kept the DVD quite simple, like my classes, easy to follow, easy to listen to and perhaps even easy on the eye (that may be taking it a bit too far – it’s me on the DVD).

The DVD is designed for use at home in between Pilates classes, suitable for those with a little Pilates experience at a beginner or intermediate level.

It will retail at £12.50 for current studio clients (BARGAIN) or £17.50 for everyone else plus £2.50 P&P if you aren’t local.

I shall be adding a way to pay through the website and am taking pre-orders now.

Whoop Whoop!

Priya

Toddler Ballet to start Wed mornings

16 November, 2014 Priya Tew

I’m excited to announce that after the success of our Adult Ballet classes we’ve asked the lovely Chrissy to extend the ballet love to the little ones. So we shall be offering a Toddler Ballet class on Wednesdays at 9.30am. Cost £4 per class.

These will be small classes, a maximum of 5 per class and spaces need to be booked.

Come and laugh lots and we’ll help wear your toddler out!

Here’s mine practicing 😉

Pilates DVD is almost complete.

28 April, 2012 Priya Tew

Some of you know that I’ve been working on my first Pilates DVD, pretty exciting. It’s all come about because some of YOU asked for it, I love that, so you asked for it….and now I’ve done it!

I’ve so far only got the pre-approval version in my happy hands and now I have to work out how to duplicate and make DVD sleeves etc… however I’m hoping that we shall be offering a weblink to those of you who are 1) Eager Beavers and want it NOW or 2) techno savvy and want to watch it on your tablet/phone rather than use a DVD player.

So here’s a sneak preview of the menu (excuse the bad photo, taking a photo of your computer screen leads to this):

The video was shot in my studio, see some photos here. Then we did a voice-over afterwards so you get a cool, calm, collected version of Priya with no muddled lefts/rights/arms/legs and other words that my regulars will know all about….I’m far from perfect, yet I know it.

Here’s a pic of us doing the voice-over:

So copies will be on sale soon…. get ready people.

Enter the New Website of Glory!

12 April, 2012 Priya Tew

I’ve been a little quiet for a few weeks, a few of you have probably been relished the peace and quiet! I thought I’d just let you know what I’ve been up to….

First exciting project has been THIS WEBSITE, you’re on it now, take a look round and see what you think. It’s been given a make over by Michael of Rocket Man Media. I’d love your feedback, there’s now a class timetable, an instructors page and some lovely photos!

Secondly again with the help of Michael I’ve been working on the first Pilates with Priya DVD. Some of you have been waiting a long time for this (sorry!) and I appreciate your patience. It should be ready very soon and I’ll let you know when the official DVD signing is (joke!).

Thirdly some of you know I’m not just a Pilates instructor but I’m also a dietitian and run DietitianUK, a nutrition business. I recently won an award from Theo Paphitis (from Dragons Den) and it’s certainly been keeping me busy. If you want any nutrition tips, recipes and advice you know where to come! There are often ideas on my blog 🙂

So hopefully now it’s time to get into the swing of classes, relax, put my feet up afterwards and have a cuppa (whilst chasing a one year around of course!). See you at class soon!

Happy Birthday Post Natal Pilates!

31 March, 2012 Priya TewLeave a Comment

I’ve just realised that February saw the Birthday of my post-natal Pilates class. I know it’s now March but it felt like this needed marking.

This class came about because I had a baby…. which highlighted to me how difficult (but not impossible) it can be to exercise with your little one in tow. I knew I needed to get back into Pilates for my health, fitness and peace of mind, so why not do it with other mummies. Also having received an extremely poor information sheet in hospital about how to do pelvic floor exercises, I felt I could do better myself!

Our first few classes were held in a community centre with the babies at one end of the room with Daddy day-care rocking them in their car seats. All except my little one who tended to fall asleep in the sling before class started and I taught with her attached. (Health and Safety Note – do not do this yourself unless you know what you are doing, it’s a lot harder!!). I’ll admit it, these first few classes were hard, I was tired, my baby was 3 months old and a breast feeding milk monster so sleep was not forthcoming, but I was also determined and teaching classes kinda keeps me going 😉

Moving venue in April to our new home based studio was such a relief. Even though my studio is tiny, we suddenly we had more space as the babies hang out in the lounge with Daddy day-care. We have access to lots of toys, all manner of baby bits so if anyone forgets anything we can help out and there’s no pressure to rush away so the kettle goes on at the end of class. This has led to lovely moments of mummies supporting each other, sharing tips, books, sling demonstrations, many baby cuddles and even weaning talks from the dietitian who happens to be there every week (thats me – Dietitian UK). It literally becomes a community of it’s own and many mummies transition into evening classes when they go back to work.

I have absolutely LOVED this class over the past year and look forward to many more classes, baby cuddles and cups of tea.

Pilates is for Physio’s too ;)

1 December, 2011 Priya Tew2 Comments

Recently I’ve had 2 physiotherapists join one of my Pilates classes. Oddly they both work together, in fact sit opposite each other and have both found and joined the same class without chatting to each other about it.

I myst admit I did feel rather apprehensive when I found out I had a physiotherapist in my class, surely they already know what to do, how to do it and are more qualified than me? If I get anything wrong they are going know and pick up on it? Cue a moment of low confidence in me and my Pilates ability.

What I have found instead, is that these 2 ladies are lovely. Yes they do know more than me, but that doesn’t mean they don’t also need to practise what they preach and doing that with someone else to prompt you and challenge you can be the best way. Both ladies needed to strengthen their core and chose Pilates as they know the benefits of it from their profession. They have actually been an encouragement to me commenting on how good my teaching skills are, a real compliment. Plus I get to pick their brains and ask them Pilates and alignment questions 😉

So if Physiotherapists feel they need to attend Pilates surely that shows just how much we all need to be doing it? Come along and try out a class, taster sessions are £5.50.

Tag: Hampshire