What you think is what you feel, and what you feel is what you radiate through the gift of living your best, dare I say, sexier life — and what woman wouldn’t want that! I happen to know a lot about changing women’s bodies. Each week, I teach Pilates and toning classes to 75-plus students (mostly women). My number one goal is for them to walk out of class feeling better than when they arrived — and taking that “feel-good” feeling with them throughout their day. Of course, I do this by telling them exactly how to get stronger and slimmer bodies. Strong bodies are beautiful — no matter your size, shape or age — and I strongly feel that when you do something good for your body, you just feel good.

Here’s what I know: If I don’t work out (and I must workout and eat right to maintain my shape), I feel blah. I don’t necessarily look any different in the mirror, but I emotionally feel bad like my jeans are too tight or I have a bulging belly. So working out keeps me emotionally confident and that confidence stays with me all day. I can go about my day and not worry about how I look because I know that I’m taking care of my body.

The truth is a hot and healthy body requires commitment, but most of all it takes inside information on how to transform those womanly areas with visible results. And that’s where I come in. Do something wonderful for you and I promise you’ll feel better about your body and that’s what motivates me everyday to write, teach and come up with new exercises — to build a stronger and healthier you along with an attitude of modern day sassy femme fatale!

– A Few Words from My Students –

“After taking Karon’s classes for the past eight years I have noticed significant, positive changes in both my health and muscle tone. Karon offers creative and challenging classes that keep the students engaged and push them to do their best. Karon’s classes are a regular part of my fitness routine, and she is definitely the reason why I have the body that I do. Thanks, Karon!” – Kelley McSpadden (Business Analyst)

“I started attending Karon’s classes to gain core strength and protect my back area from a deteriorating disc. It has worked! I have had zero pain in my lower back since I started the classes two years ago. In addition, her class is very energizing. There are days I’m so tired and stressed from work, I make myself go and I leave the class feeling two-inches taller and ready to go out for the evening.” – Renee Robison (Buyer)

“After I had my first child, I was able to lose the baby weight fairly quickly. But I was still looking for a way to get fit and get my body back in shape. Karon’s Six-Week Bikini Countdown got me back to my pre-baby fitness level in six short weeks. I lost inches in my post-baby problem areas and felt terrific. I am now pregnant with baby two, and can’t wait to use her workout program to get back in shape as soon as possible.” – Donna Vaught (Stay-at-Home Mom)

“I began classes with Karon five years ago to improve my running. After ten classes I saw and felt improvement in my core and legs. I was hooked! Five classes later I was running pain free. Through Karon’s instruction, I’ve gained strength and flexibility. I look and feel better than ever before and I’m 50 years old!” – Lauren Wallach Ed.D (Licensed Professional Counselor)

“I first began taking Karon’s classes five years ago. I use to be a runner and Pilates enhanced my running as I gained in core strength and focused on proper breathing. I do say, “use to” because I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis nine months ago. Although, I am by no means inactive, I can attest to the fact that there is no bigger cheerleader than Karon. Through her help and instructions I live a fit life and am sure this will continue through the exercise and motivation that Karon has taught me. I cannot wait to put the “Six-Week Bikini Countdown” to the test. I may not wear a bikini but that doesn’t mean I cannot look like it physically at age 47.” – Colleen Zapiain (Sales)

Fitness Author, Karon Karter
Karon Karter is the author of many health and fitness books. Click on a book for details.

Sexercise Exotic Dance Workout Helps Women Tone Their Inner Beauty and Outer Booty

By Karon Karter, Special Contributor to the Dallas Morning News-Jan. 24, 2003

Hi, my name is tangy Tammy, and today you’re going to get in touch with your inner diva, let’s dance. On that day, we became voluptuous Veronica, Lacy Laurie, and me Kinky Karon. We are G-string Divas!

Not exactly – we are stay-at-home moms, computer analysts, and aerobics instructors. We are all shapes, sizes, ages – everyday women who signed up for an exotic dance workshop to get in touch with our inner sex Goddess. We replaced our tennis shoes for stilettos, our spandex for an oversized bottom-down shirt, and our sweatbands for feather boas. Instead of squats and lunges we did lap dances and hip rolls. Rather than taking off our clothes, we shed inhibitions. Although our futures as strippers are dim (those girls do earn their money), we strutted away with a deeper sense of womanhood. Make no mistakes: we were not there to please our men (although that was an added perk) we signed up for us. So, hear us roar.

Tammy (not a stripper by trade but a woman trying to overcome her strict Mennonite upbringing) danced for us. She was definitely on the man hunt, hungry enough to make us women “blush,” yet she danced so gracefully and looked beautiful as she demonstrated what we were about to learn. We giggled and glanced nervously at one another. Tammy sensing our fears assured us that, “There’s no right or wrong way to dance; it’s an expression of you, and that’s what you have to look forward to – exploring your sensuality.” But before dancing, we had to learn the basics. Our warm-up, therefore, was a little unconventional; it wasn’t cardio in the traditional sense but more like psychological cardio. We learned to walk the talk: first, by standing in 4-inch stilettos and then learning to walk in them. Not a typical walk, but “I’m on the manhunt walk,” which combines a step-drag walk with a little hip thrust.

Then we did the unthinkable – we looked at ourselves in the mirror while walking back and forth across the gym floor. Good eye contact radiates confidence, and connects you to others. Mastering our sexy stiletto walk was hard enough, but now we had to practice our best “eat-um-up” gaze. Tammy said, “even if you don’t feel confident pretend you do, because eventually you’ll feel comfortable in your own skin.” Okay, Victoria’s Secret model I am not, but I was feeling fairly confident in my strut – singing, “I’m going to strip my fears away… I’m going to strip…” and just like that, I detected a few double digit dimples on my thighs. Enough trauma to stop my sexy stiletto eat-um-up walk in its tracks. After the initial shock, I tried not to focus on what I perceived was wrong with my body. “We all hate something about our bodies,” Tammy said, “so let’s focus on what we like about our bodies.”

This inner body work proved more taxing than the actual workout. But any stripper will tell you that the foundation behind this exotic dance trend (the hottest workout in Los Angeles) is to erase judgments, and feel comfortable in your own thoughts and feelings so you can express your sexuality through movements in the body – hum, do Momma strippers really teach their fledglings this? Apparently they do. “What you think is what you feel and what you feel is what you project,”states Laurie Conrad a 20-year veteran professional exotic dancer and creator of this workout. As a group, we did cheer one another on and I think we all felt safe to explore the movements in our bodies. Maybe there is something to this stuff!

Now that I was psychologically in tune, we switched to the good, sexy fun moves, hip rolls. We tried them all – stationary, revolving, and squatting – and finally I felt like my abs were getting a bit of a workout. Imagine a beam of light traveling though the center of your body. Now picture an imaginary circle drawn on the floor. We were to trace that imaginary circle with our hips, making various balls – basketballs, soft balls and golf balls. Now, I know how dancers get enviable abs! Stationary hip rolls no problem, but Revolving rolls were tricky, and I don’t think any of us felt like a pro. We had to draw a daisy petal on the floor with our big toe to create a hip circle at the same time turning our body – a circle within a circle.

Next, squatting hip rolls. We started in a catcher’s position, aching and curling our lower backs in preparation for the actual hip roll. Once we were ready, we arched our lower backs to circle the hips behind the body and rounded our backs cat-like to swing the hips through the front of the body to make complete circles – even working up a sweat and a pretty good leg workout too.

To transition to the floor, we tried kneeling hip rolls, which is a hip roll performed on your knees. Kneepads make this transition so much smoother. However, you can also gracefully move to the floor in other ways: slithering down the mirror or crawling cat-like on your hands. Once we were on the floor, we practiced neck rolls, lowering and lifting the legs and rubbing the legs together in what’s called a cricket pose. The floor work is the most sensual part of the dance – any pose can be sexy if you trace the lines of your body – and can put you and your partner in the mood for the final act:

The Striptease. Enter the button-down shirt. To practice what we just learned, we combined these three segments of the workshop to create a striptease. Remember the striptease is an expression of you.

Imagine a lazy Sunday after church – your husband is still asleep, so you slip out of bed and put his shirt on. You sneak into the other room to put on mood setting music, Barry White! You sexy step-drag walk (mentally psyching-yourself up) to the bedroom. Your husband now has one eye open, so you begin to undo one button at a time. But you stop to tease him with a few hip rolls, and – well, the rest is up to you!

Karon Karter appeared on Good Morning Texas on Monday.

This email came in:

“Good Morning Karon,

If you send out e-mails, I would enjoy being on your list.
Thanks for what you do to improve our health!”

Sarah

To join our Fan Mail List, visit About Karon on www.karonkarterpilates.com

Karon Karter reported Monday June 22, 2009, that her appearance on Good Morning Texas with Gary Cogill was the best. Her students made it the best bikini fitness segment ever! The response was wonderful. Thank you all for your support and feedback. I was deeply touched by one woman who wrote me saying “keep up the great health and fitness information.” She asked to be included in my fan list.

You can join that list at
JOIN MY FAN LIST

Catch Karon Karter on Good Morning Texas (WFAA TV) on Monday June 22, 2009 giving a Bikini Tune-up. Karon Karter will be giving tips on how to tone your arms.

Watch Karon and learn how to get in shape for the summer.

Learn more: Visit her website @ www.karonkarterpilates.com

Tips for Sexy Shoulders and Arms From my New Book: The Ultimate Body Shaping Bible.

1• Tighten and Tone Everything On Your Body: You can’t really spot reduce trouble areas, but you can focus on areas such as the upper back muscles plus do your cardio to get beautiful posture, and sexy shoulders and arms!

2• Beautiful Back Basics: Because you slump over a computer or desk all day, the muscles on the front get tight while the upper back muscles get weaker. The end result: slumped shoulders. Over time, you can lose an inch in your height, your neck looks squatty, chest size shrinks, or worse chronic headaches and back pain. So not sexy!

3• Get a Natural Lift: To perfect your posture, you must strengthen the upper back muscles or upper core muscles, specifically focusing on (what I call) your bra-line muscles: lower traps, rhomboids, lats…

4• Sculpted Sexy Shoulders: After working upper core, move outward to your shoulders. Shoulders are the first to fatigue so to look sexy in those one-shoulder dresses, you must focus on stabilizing your upper back and then work your shoulders. It’s real simple: lift your shoulders to your ears and back and down—pits to hips.

5• Bye-Bye Arm Flappage: Okay, so the hardest area to tone is the back of the arms. To get amazing arms, you should stabilize the upper back and then focus and make the muscle work. Don’t swing into action. No momentum!

6• Biceps are pretty Busy: Your biceps or muscles of the front arm get lots of extra work, so I like exercises that include your biceps and upper back. In the end, the more muscle worked, the more calories burned—and inches lost.

Diane Cowen recently reviewed Karon Pilates book, “Six-Week Bikini Countdown” giving the book a glowing review. In the article she said “You know that the title is both a gimmick and the bare truth: wearing a bikini – at least wearing it well – takes work.” In this article, Karon Karter detailed key work out positions and steps to take for successful toning of the body.

Download a copy of the article.

Her other publications include Balance Training: Stability Workouts for Core Strength and a Sculpted Body; Pilates Lite (sold in five languages); The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Body Ball Illustrated; The Core Strength Workout; The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Pilates; The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Kickboxing; and The Healthy Flier: How to Protect Yourself From the Hidden Hazards of Airline Travel.

About the book: Six-Week Bikini Countdown: Tone your butt, abs, and thighs fast combining Pilates with select strength and cardio interval training workouts.

For more information, visit her website:www.karonkarterpilates.com

For more information, visit her website: www.karonkarterpilates.com

Try the Single Leg Kick from the The Six-Week Bikini Countdown by Karon Karter.

Lie on your stomach on a mat with your legs extended and the tops of your feet on the mat.

Keeping your hips down, lift your torso and support yourself with your forearms and fists on the mat.

With your toes pointed, bend your left leg and kick your left foot up toward your butt. As you lower you left foot, kick your right foot toward your butt to complete 1 rep.

Twice a week, do 2 sets of 5-8 reps. You should see results in 3 weeks.

For more information about The Six-Week Bikini Countdown, order it online at Amazon.com or visit www.karonkarterpilates.com

Drop two belly inches in just four weeks with this super-sculpting workout

LOOKING FOR THE SIMPLEST WAY TO A FLAT BELLY?
Ah, is is possible to get rid of my belly bulge? You bet it is possible.

As seen in the May 2009 issue of HEALTH MAGAZINE (*see the full story),
Fitness expert Karon Karter’s creative 20-minute fat-blasting workout taken from her new book, The Ultimate Body Shaping Bible, reports that you’ll begin to see a toned tummy in just three weeks and drop up to two inches from your belly in just three weeks and drop up to two inches from your belly in just four weeks. These four crunch-free movs are the best way to hit all your ab muscles, sculpting your belly into its best shape ever. Do them four times a week, with a day of rest in between. You will be happy with the results!

In the book, you will learn these exciting four key exercises:

Straight Leg Scissors

Front Plank with a Twist

Reverse Curl-Plank on Ball

Straight-Line Side Lifts

These exercises will help you get a flatter belly even faster.

Here’s a little secret: The Secret to FAB ABS is this:
A. Walk briskly for 8 minutes
B. Run really fast for 30 seconds
C. Run at a moderate pace for 90 seconds
D. Repeat steps 1-3 four or more times each day

GET A COPY OF HER BOOK NOW on Amazon.com

Her other publications include Balance Training: Stability Workouts for Core Strength and a Sculpted Body; Pilates Lite (sold in five languages); The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Body Ball Illustrated; The Core Strength Workout; The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Pilates; The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Kickboxing; and The Healthy Flier: How to Protect Yourself From the Hidden Hazards of Airline Travel.