Ballet Beautiful: Transform Your Body and Gain the Strength, Grace and Focus of a Ballet Dancer (2 page)

What makes this program remarkably unique is how it enables women, including myself, to embrace the emergence of their own inner beauty. Again and again, I have seen women incorporate my Ballet Beautiful method into their lives and then quite tangibly connect to a deep confidence. As Katherine, one of my longtime clients, told me, “Ballet Beautiful has allowed me to feel prettier than I ever thought possible.”

With Ballet Beautiful, you too can attain and embody a truly feminine energy, poise, and power.

Achieving my dream of becoming a professional ballerina at age 16 was more challenging and more rewarding than I could ever have imagined. To create the Ballet Beautiful method I took all that is inspiring, strengthening, and empowering in ballet and its techniques and transformed it into a doable, streamlined system of movements that anyone can do at home, whether or not they have any dance training or experience. Of course, I didn’t do that overnight. The end result is a product of my own trials and errors and what I’ve learned along the way. I developed the Ballet Beautiful method over the last 15 years as I gradually understood and then integrated all that I know about ballet, exercise, and nutrition into a comprehensive approach to life. Today Ballet Beautiful has become a total-body workout and lifestyle that allows anyone to achieve the toned, powerful body shape and beautiful posture of a ballerina.

As I began to craft and share my Ballet Beautiful method, I realized that one of the most important steps in achieving a physical transformation—in fact, what you have to do before any real and lasting change can take place—is to integrate a mindset that sets you up for success and helps you connect more deeply with your goals. This step is not as simple as giving yourself a pep talk. It is a strategy for implementing change, experiencing growth, and achieving something truly remarkable. I believe that there is incredible beauty, power, and grace in all of us and that it is possible to be both very feminine and very strong. This is the essence of Ballet Beautiful. With my program, I help women believe in themselves (as well as in the value of their dreams), envision themselves in a body and a life imbued with power and grace, and then achieve that goal. A shift to a healthier lifestyle happens organically with this new mindset, and anyone who practices it becomes truly Ballet Beautiful.

In the pages ahead, I will show you how to dig deep and really connect with this inherent part of yourself. I will show you how to attain the elegant silhouette and strength of a ballet dancer. And I will show you this in a fast-working program that you can do in the comfort and privacy of your own home.

Along with the exercises and mindset, I have also designed an approach to eating that has allowed me and my clients to feel satisfied and strong while also getting the best possible nutrition. This eating plan is filled with delicious, satisfying foods that will keep your metabolism humming and your body lean and strong. Ballerinas can be known for
extreme discipline, even deprivation, when it comes to dieting. That approach does not work for me. My eating plan is based on a system of balance and contentment that supports health and weight loss so that any woman can achieve her ideal weight and then maintain it naturally.

The response to Ballet Beautiful has been tremendous! Thousands of women around the world have embraced this method, including some of today’s most inspiring celebrities, A-list actresses, and supermodels in over 50 countries. One of the reasons Ballet Beautiful works so well for women in the spotlight is the same reason it will work for you—it lets you look incredible, feel healthy, and savor your femininity. With Ballet Beautiful, grace is both a physical and an emotional quality, a truly feminine balance of artistry and athleticism.

And the immediate results are incredibly motivating! In just one week, you will feel tighter and you may begin to see a change in how your clothes fit your body; in two weeks, your body’s silhouette will be longer, leaner, and more toned. Over time, as your body responds to the program, these results become more dramatic:

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Your arms become taut and strong, not bulky.

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Your legs will be elongated, toned, and lean, not overly rounded by too much muscle.

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High and tight, your butt will be the perfect shape for wearing jeans . . . or a bathing suit.

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Your center will become narrow, flat, and strong.

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You’ll see an elegance to your posture and carriage and feel an increased flexibility.

Many of my clients describe these results as being “immediate” and “addictive.” The exercises are very targeted—you can feel them waking up your “ballet muscles” as you
go. You will feel tighter and more pulled in after the first workout. You might even begin standing a little straighter too! I’ll never forget when my friend told me about sliding into her tightest pair of skinny jeans with ease on the night of her first Ballet Beautiful workout. We’ve all had to dance our way into a pair of jeans before—just imagine the feeling of having them slide right on! Translation? Bring on Ballet Beautiful!

I relish the process of working hard for a true reward—witnessing the physical transformation of others through Ballet Beautiful is always very exciting to me! Our Facebook page has a wonderful community of Ballet Beauties celebrating their progress with the program and sharing incredible success stories. One fan recently commented, “I noticed a change in the definition in my arms after three days of doing Swan Arms!” Another hardworking fan wrote, “Hello Mary Helen and the Ballet Beautiful Community! I just had to tell you that I got my sister hooked on Ballet Beautiful and I can’t wait for her to start seeing the kind of amazing results for her body that I’ve been seeing in my own! Thank you!!” I have clients who describe losing five pounds in the first week and others who see their transformation blossom over time as they tighten, tone, and elongate their muscles.

I work with a wide range of clients: women in their late thirties who want their bodies back after childbirth; forty-something women who have been so busy building their careers and taking care of kids (or not) that they haven’t worked out in a decade; students and young models who wish to add muscle and definition to their lean frames; and women in their sixties who are fighting the effects of aging and staying youthful by strengthening their bones and muscles in a way that is not high-impact or stressful. In fact, one client in her midsixties who used the method while recovering from a shoulder injury said after four weeks, “I have never felt stronger! Ballet Beautiful has changed my life!”

Ballet Beautiful works for every woman because it is tied to the way the female body inherently moves, the inner lines of women’s proportions, and the physiological structure of their form. I will show you how to use my ballet-inspired movements to strengthen your center and align your spine for better posture. I will help you cue into your joints and muscles as you do specific exercises to maximize the results, protect yourself from strain, and gain better body awareness.

These exercises are designed to target and define the sleek “ballet muscles” for every body type. There is no dancing involved, just focused, ballet-inspired exercises and
stretches to strengthen and lengthen your body with very little impact. You will be able to transform your body and your mind in the privacy of your own home, getting to know the program with no interruptions and reaping all the benefits of a hundred private classes.

Ballet Beautiful is challenging, which is why the results are so incredible. The exercises work deep in your muscles, changing the shape of your figure from the inside out. I’ve designed the program in such a way that you can either work your body as a whole or break the sections down to target specific body parts or trouble spots (we all have them!), including arms, center, legs, and butt. Either way, the effect is the same: strong, lean, long muscles with improved flexibility and posture.

We will begin by working together to shift your mindset and connect to your intrinsic ability to make better choices and find a way to live the life of your dreams. Getting into the Ballet Beautiful mindset before we begin the workout is important because I want you to succeed! This shift in attitude will truly motivate you to take care of your body and treat it with respect, gentleness, and forgiveness—even as you power through my 15-Minute Butt Blast! The Ballet Beautiful mindset is about finding balance, listening to yourself and how you feel, and ultimately achieving satisfaction. Together these factors lay the groundwork for you to live Ballet Beautifully.

You will also learn to adapt to a simple yet wholesome way of eating that doesn’t require overthinking; instead, you’ll learn five principles to guide your food choices as you adjust how you eat to benefit weight loss (if that is what you desire) or support your body as it moves into its new Ballet Beautiful shape. You will feel stronger, and you will also feel more clear-headed, more energetic, and yes, even happier! As one woman, an incredibly talented up-and-coming artist, shared: “Through Ballet Beautiful, I discovered that I didn’t need to be banging my body into the ground every day. I started thinking about life in terms of subtlety and longevity; lengthening my limbs instead of compressing them through hours of low-impact cardio. Now I feel graceful for the first time since I was a teenager, with boundless energy and confidence.” Ballet Beautiful is more than just a workout or a diet—it is a state of mind.

Maybe you are frustrated with where you are or looking for ways to make changes, having tried and failed in the past. I will guide you toward your goal by helping you identify and uproot old patterns and bad behaviors. Ballet Beautiful will give you the
tools to transform how you take care of yourself, making regular exercise and healthy eating rewarding and pleasurable parts of your daily life.

This program is flexible and designed to meet you exactly where you are, to help you define your goals, and to give you the inner resources to achieve all that you desire—for your body, your spirit, and your mind. Ballet Beautiful will also help you create more time and energy in your busy schedule for exercise and healthy meals. Once you fit Ballet Beautiful into your life, you too can achieve a sleek physique and become more efficient, productive, and energetic.

This book is organized into three parts.
Part I
, “Building Your Ballet Beautiful Mindset,” focuses on developing a mindset that will empower you and prepare you for incredible growth and change. I always say that Ballet Beautiful is more than just a workout—it’s a way of living with grace, strength, and beauty. This state of being is the starting place for becoming Ballet Beautiful. With this mindset, you will tap into something greater than just a workout or a diet plan. Just as yoga is about more than just stretching, the positive Ballet Beautiful mindset teaches you to believe in yourself and all that you can accomplish. It also puts in place a system for setting clear goals so that you will never again look at obstacles or fixed behavior patterns in the same way.

If you feel stuck in an attitude that is blocking you, we will work together to shift that. If you need help identifying realistic, meaningful goals, we will do that too. These initial chapters lay the groundwork for the next two parts of the program.

Part II
, “The Ballet Beautiful Program,” introduces my approach to total-body fitness: the transformative exercises and stretches, the techniques behind them, and the targeted results they produce. The Ballet Beautiful method is made up of my Classic 60-Minute Workout and my 15-Minute Ballet Beautiful Blasts. Every exercise and stretch is influenced by my love for ballet and what I have learned about strengthening and sculpting the body. These are my own personal exercises. I would never share or suggest a movement that I would not use myself! The Blasts include four sets of exercises from my Cardio Series that are energizing and fun! All of the options provide incredible results and are designed to be customized so as to meet your body’s needs and your schedule.
You can create up to 25 different combinations of workouts—some that are only 15 minutes in length, others that are 30 minutes, others that are 45, and still others that can extend to 60 minutes. You will soon see that this program is inherently adaptable to your needs!

Part III
, “The Ballet Beautiful Lifestyle,” offers an approach to eating and living that is founded on the simplicity of great nutrition. If you are looking for something radical or extreme, you won’t find it here. My own experiments with extreme dieting were far from positive. I lost weight, sure, but I was miserable. I also put the weight back on in the end. I learned a lot from this experience and now stay far away from extreme diets. This balanced approach is the foundation of the five lifestyle principles I developed to build on the mindset and show you how to eat well and be nourished, not just feed your body. These principles enable you to keep your mind and body in balance and make you feel grounded, satisfied, and centered in your life.

The five Ballet Beautiful lifestyle principles are:

1. Be prepared. 2. Eat well and often. 3. Substitute for satisfaction. 4. Be flexible. 5. Forgive and move on.