Its finally snowing in Park City. Are you ready to Ski? Let Alpine Holistic Medicine guide you to a balance point, remove those aches and pains that may hinder your performance, fine tune your diet for bulking up or toning down, and optimize your health.
Tips on staying healthy as the winter months and skiing arrive.
- Dryness seems to always show its face as the days get cold. Remember to be eating heathy oils to keep the skin happy. Adding oils to the skin may also help. Olive, coconut, grape seed are some of my favorites. Getting good bioflavinoids (colorful fruits and veggies) with vit c, keep the small capillaries in the skin healthy and able to get blood to the surface. Foods that help replenish the bodies fluids keeping the dry away should be eaten regularly; Squashes, apples, pears, root veggies. Nature provides what we need to be eating. What is left in the garden? Thats what we should be eating.
- Its time to get those squatting muscles working again so we can ski all day. Qi gong has some great poses that help strengthen the core, the thighs and work on balance. Try the horse stance or universal stance for 5-10 min a day working up to 30 minutes. Feet are more than shoulder width apart, parallel. Squat down slightly with knees over feet. Feels like you are riding a horse. Hands can be holding an imaginary ball (like hugging a tree)in front of you or placed over lower abdomen in a triangle like position with thumbs at navel level and finger tips just above pubis bone palms inward. Keep back straight and everything relaxed. The farther your feet are apart the harder it gets. Remember to have good posture and keep knees over toes.
- Keep your fingers and toes warm. Using simple hydrotherapy (hot and cold applications) to feet and hands will lead to increased circulation and warmer hands. Try washing hands in hot water for 1 min then just before finishing give them a short blast of cold. This will create a peripheral pump in the micro-vasculature moving blood in and out better. It also creates a small vaso-dialation in those blood vessels warming them up. I know, end on cold, thats crazy but it works. Also using cinnamon twigs in your tea or shaved onto an apple or pear helps warm the hands and feet. Fresh ginger helps as well. These last two can be to warming for some so use with caution and or add to the fruits and veggies listed above to balance them out.
Hope to see you up on the mountain soon.
Let it snow
Alpine Holistic Medicine, Park City Utah