Olympian Dara Torres helping NYC Single Mom Stay Fit

Olympic swimmer and medalist, comeback at 41, six pack abs and mom, Dara Torres is a force of nature to reckon with and pretty nice to boot. Last week, I was invited to an event to “Stay Fit in 2011” with Dara Torres. Well,  who is going to pass that up, right? I need some motivation given it’s almost March and my weight goals started off with a bang and settled back to pre-Christmas flab.

While we waited for Dara to arrive  for our light workout (doesn’t that strike fear into most women, working out with an Olympic athlete,) I was able to try a variety of recipes and products made with SUSTA™ Natural Sweetener, new  healthier alternative ((contains probiotics, fiber, vitamins, minerals and other ingredients) to artificial sweeteners and sugar.

Everyone has an opinion about artificial and natural sweeteners. My personal philosophy is go natural as much as possible and certainly now that I have a child, I “try” to read more labels. That said, I am a heavy user of Equal/Splenda in my coffee/lemonade  drinks and I use it on my cereal but I  do not use anything but sugar in my baking (when I bake that is.)

So here is my assessment of the specially prepared product and foods that were presented for us to taste, apple muffins( not great tasting,) blueberry muffins (okay but blueberries make the muffin here)  and brownies (yummy,), Healthy Dairy® Yogurt Smoothies (yum-mo as Rachel Ray would say) and the coffee (I am sticking with  my Equal.) Now why did brownies still taste so yummy because the recipe still included sugar but the quantity was cut in half.  Now if you are trying to cut back your sugar intake or pre-diabetic, using SUSTA is not a bad idea. But I will leave it to the bakers to decide and test it out as it is currently available on the east coast and going nationwide in the coming months.

After the taste test, we waited upstairs for Dara to arrive for our workout. Wow, is all I can say when she arrived. She is super-model tall, thin (of course,) but not actress thin and of course fit, fit, fit. I must admit, I knew she had a book out and thought good grief, how would any mortal woman ever look like her. I appreciated her honesty that the book was not meant to get you to look like her  because as she said “this is what I do for a living” but the exercises she showed us  were great for everyone, helped her recover and is what she does everyday. She then walked us through the stretching exercise which I must admit we should all be taking the time to stretch. Were the exercises easy, yes and no. If you are like me, unbelievably inflexible and tight, it was a tad difficult but I could do them. And it is motivating me to add stretching to my routine.

And just an odd side, note the event took place at the Yale Club which was odd and why. It’s been a gazillion years since I have been there but it’s a pretty not so much stuffy but very rule driven place. When they asked me if I wanted to check my coat (I was wearing workout clothes), I literally grabbed my coat and said no.  The idea of walking through the Yale Club in my workout clothes seemed utterly nuts. I just had a momentary fear of someone dragging me out saying “you aren’t properly dressed and you don’t belong here.”

Check out the recipes and SUSTA ingredients at susta.com.

Disclosure: NYC Single Mom was given yoga mat, copy of Dara’s book  and various Susta products but received no compensation for this post.