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Pilates Is My Medicine

Katherine Smidt and her family moved to Hong Kong 23 months ago and Katherine took her first Pilates class with Anna at One Island South about a year later. It was love at first class. A long-term swimmer, she is addicted to fitness, and particularly appreciates the help Pilates gives her with her swimming, as well as her core, glutes, posture and even endorphins. She is currently following instructor training so she can share the practice’s benefits when she returns to her husband’s native Germany.

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Pilates, Your Most Useful Cross Training Tool

Sign up for Flex’s Pilates Challenge and you will be fast tracking an improvement to every aspect of your lifestyle and fitness. Take the 30-hour Pilates Body Challenge and get 30% off a package of Allegro, Group, Trio and Private Pilates – or 20% off the 20-hour package, or 10% off the 10-hour package. And don’t forget, that once you’ve successfully completed your challenge, Flex has some fabulous gift goodies waiting for you.

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Instant Chickpea Minestrone

By Shima at Sesame Kitchen Soups are a great way to warm up when the weather gets cooler, and this tomato soup demonstrates how miso can be incorporated into recipes that aren’t Japanese. Chickpea miso is a staple here at Foodcraft.hk, where we use organic chickpeas instead of soybeans to make the traditional Japanese condiment.

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Vitamin infusions – what, how, why, and how soon can I get one?

Has your hectic life got you feeling a bit run down? Have you spotted a few new lines and darker eye circles in the mirror recently? Or is it taking you longer to recover from your workouts these days? If you’re not sick, but you feel like your health, energy and complexion could do with a bit of a boost, now is the perfect time to try a vitamin infusion, aka an IV drip full of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and hydrating fluids. Jenny Leung, managing director of REVIV, a global brand that has just opened up in Hong Kong, tells us what makes them such a boon for anyone living in a fast-paced, demanding and busy city like Hong Kong.

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Eat balanced to stay healthy, says chef Maria Bizri

Maria Bizri of Pomegranate Kitchen fell in love with the hustle and bustle and the art of cooking and sharing food in the kitchen as a child growing up in Beirut and Damascus. Despite numerous careers since then, she returned to food when she opened catering and events company Pomegranate Kitchen in 2011. She believes that you don’t need to be vegetarian or vegan to eat healthily and her dishes reflect that with lean lamb, beef, chicken and fish paired with beautiful produce and grains in a Mediterranean meets the Orient concept.

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The secrets to pain-free backbends

Do you have memories of being able to bend over backwards as a kid? I remember it being easy and intuitive back then, but fast forward to today and now they’re a bit creaky, hard work to breathe through and some can be painful too. From cow and locust through up-dog and cobra to camel, wheel and pigeon, backbends are some of the most rejuvenating and recharging moves you can make on a mat – helping reverse crunched postures, hydrating and nourishing the spine, improving lower back pain and lifting the mood. Flex yoga instructor Dr Abhishek Agrawal explains how they work, and how to make them safe and beneficial.

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Blossom again, post birth

Post birth, the natural instinct of a mother is to focus on their new baby, as well as any older siblings and their husband. Her own needs come at the very bottom of the food chain. However, it is vital for mothers to focus on themselves as a priority at this time. Recovering and restoring through nurturing, optimal nutrition and resting is essential, not only for them, but also for the entire family’s health. However hard it is to prioritize yourself as a new mother, the foundation of post birth recovery is self-care. Sofie Jacobs of Urban Hatch talks you through how to blossom post birth.

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Top 10 detox hacks for 2017

The end of the year brings so much fun and celebration, but it also has us feeling at our most challenged. There’s the influx of irresistible food and drink. The focus on friends and family is delightful but somehow takes precedence over fitness. Plus the toll of a long year and the need for a break looms larger than ever, psychologically as well as physically. Here are our top 10 ways to hack the beginning of 2017. Add a few of these to your fresh, new and bright outlook for the new year and you’ll take the edge of that sluggish, tired, run down person you were at the end of 2016.

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