Radiant Susan!

I am riding on a tide of bliss. I just got back from a lovely yoga class.

For me, this really is a big deal. After all, I'm usually the person in the front of the room doing all the talking (oh, so much talking!) A good fitness instructor in any discipline is responsible for creating a joyful experience for her class members--being clear, encouraging and adapting the class at a moment's notice to accommodate the variety of bodies and abilities in the room. After you manage all of that, it's hard to truly enjoy the workout yourself. And indeed, as the instructor, it's not about me (all jokes I make to the contrary). Good instructors teach their students and get their personal fitness experiences elsewhere.

But this class wasn't just any old yoga class: It was taught by Susan Unes, Radiant Fitness's new Yoga Specialist (isn't that a nice photo of her?) I can personally attest that she is a terrific instructor and delightful person. I feel longer, leaner, more alive after taking her class.

Susan is an Registered Yoga Teacher 200, which means she has completed two hundred hours of yoga instructor training with the Yoga Alliance, the primary certifying body for yoga in the US (and rapidly around the world). This is a stringent qualification that takes most people at least a year of intensive study and practice to complete. Susan has studied with some of the best master yogis of our time, including Cincinnati's own Lilias Folan, Erich Schiffman and Anusara Yoga founder John Friend (don't know who these people are? Trust me. They are the best of the best!)

Not only will Susan be teaching yoga classes for beginners, seniors, prenatal/postnatal mothers, youth and active adults, but she will take personal training clients as well who want to focus on creating a radiant lifestyle through yoga. From one-on-one yoga sessions to corporate retreats and seminars, Susan is greater Cincinnati's new "go-to" person for all things yoga.

On a personal level, Susan is compassionate, warm and creative. She came to yoga because she was in pain. Want to learn more about how yoga helped her? Visit her Radiant Yoga blog right now. Susan will blog each week about yoga and real life, so be sure to subscribe to her blog in the RSS feed AND e-mail her to get on the yoga mailing list.

If you have questions about what yoga is and what it can do for you, let her hear from you. In fact, do me a favor, will you? Send her an e-mail or post a comment on her new blog right now welcoming her to the family!

You've Got It Goin' On!

I can tell you everything that is wrong with my body without having to look. From the way my hair behaves to that odd little left pinkie toenail, I've had decades to perfect my list of physical flaws.

When it comes to our bodies, overwhelmingly we see the glass as half empty. So let's take a moment and inventory:

Are you breathing?
Can you ingest and excrete food?
Can you embrace, kiss and otherwise express affection to those people and animals you love?
Can you get yourself from point A to point B?
Can you write, speak, sign or otherwise communicate with most of the people in your immediate environment?

If you answered "yes" to all these questions (and you did--I know who's on my mailing list!) then you are covered as far as fundamental body function is concerned.

Everything else is appearance and/or details. Sure, you might get a bit clogged in the pipes from time to time. The knees may ache on the way to point B. But once you have the basic functions down, the rest of the problems are comparatively minor, and can be solved by cheap, or even free choices: To eat the apple instead of the apple pie. To walk instead of watching the King of Queens rerun. To wear the seatbelt, to crush the cigarette, to schedule the mammogram or PSA test.

The readers of this blog have the resources to be among the healthiest and longest-living people in the history of the species. Our glasses overflow--with water, of course (or perhaps iced mint tea . . . .)

To Sleep, Perchance to Lose Weight

We know that Americans are chronically sleep-deprived. We know that Americans are progressively becoming more and more overweight and more and more obese. Now we have good evidence that sleep is one of the factors that helps regulate weight.

If you aren't getting about eight hours of deep, consistent sleep (as opposed to getting up six times a night to pee) then it is time to make that a priority. Structure is key (no surprise there): Create a physical environment and routines that promote healthy sleep.

#1 Clean out your bedroom. Get the unfolded laundry off the bed, the craft supplies out of the corner, the Ab Lounger out of the room. Your bedroom is for sleep and intimacy, period--anything that doesn't fulfill these needs (including the TV) should go.

#2 Pick a bedtime. Dust off your VCR/Tivo and tape shows that run later than your bedtime (or use the internet for the info--if you sit through the 11p news just to see the weather, then just check weather.com and get to bed!)

#3 Create the ritual. Hot bath (the temp drop after you get out cues your body to sleep), hot milk, sing a lullaby to yourself, do some leg and back stretches. Try following your chosen ritual for a week or two before you decide whether it works or not.

#4 If you are still suffering from restless sleep or insomnia after two weeks, it is time to report in to your doctor for more serious intervention. I know you don't like to take medicine. I know you may fear becoming "addicted" to sleep medications. But if you have an infection, you take antibiotics. If you are at health-conscious, you are "addicted" to taking a daily multivitamin. I firmly believe that when it comes to caring for your body you handle problems with every tool available to you--both "alternative" and "traditional."

Have a great day and a great night.

Inside Out or Outside In

When my colleagues start talking about using affirmations with their personal training clients, I try hard not to roll my eyes. I can still see Stuart Smalley in front of that mirror on Saturday Night Live. The words "smile therapy" take me back to actor Peter MacNicol wincing his way through Ally McBeal (don't worry, you're probably too young to get the reference).

Although my knee-jerk reaction is one of disdain, however, I am, in fact, wrong. These techniques work for a very simple reason: Your primitive brain (and mine) can't separate fact from fiction.

When you sit through a horror film, your body has much the same reaction it would if you really were being chased through the Paris catacombs with an axe-murderer at your back. Your heart races, your mouth dries, your body pumps adrenaline to rev you up--then unloads buckets of cortisol to attempt to cool you down. Whether you are telling your mirror you are a lovely person or choking back your disgust at that belly dripping over the top of your jeans, your mind hears and imprints the story you tell it.

Affirmations work--even if you feel silly while you do them, over time repeating to yourself words of loving-kindness will create beneficial psychological and physical responses. Smiling, even when it's forced, will, over time, send the necessary cascade of signals through your system to make you feel better. Like any skills, these mental health techniques take practice and repetition. But if you can do nothing else, you can write "I am strong, healthy and radiant" ten times in a row. Try it now. Heck--hit "comments" at the end of this post and type it ten times. Come on, I dare you!

The good news here is that health does not HAVE to spring forth from within. It does not have to be handed down on a divine cloud with cherubs and harpists. You can choose to behave as if you are strong, healthy and radiant--and in faking it, sooner or later, you'll make it.

On Plastic and Bariatric Surgery

When people tell me they are considering plastic and bariatric surgeries including tummy tucks, lap-band and gastric bypass, they cringe and duck. They speak as if they are confessing a great, dark secret. I guess they expect me to denounce them publicly, to scream "You're a failure, fatso!" I know that in their own minds, the devil on their shoulder is saying just those things.

I am by no means opposed to surgical weight loss. Am I thrilled with it? No more than I am thrilled with CPR. In certain emergency cases, I know both are necessary and helpful. While it is easier to diagnose a heart attack in progress, it's a bit harder to predict the one coming in one hour or one day--but both require quick intervention. I also know that success breed success. When patients feel that initial burst of self-esteem, it often creates the momentum necessary to change their own lives.

The benefits to bariatric surgery are immediate and significant, and include a dramatic improvement in insulin resistance and the effects of diabetes. The costs and risks are dramatic and immediate as well--everything from the hit to the pocket book to risk of death during surgery. I've spoken to patients who told me, "I almost died because of this. It was the worst decision of my life." I've spoken to others who said, "I would have died, if it hadn't been for this. It was the best decision of my life."

If your doctor recommends it, bariatric surgery might be an option for you to investigate carefully. If your doctor simply says, "You need to lose weight," she means for you to try the old-fashioned way--eat less, move more.

But whether you choose surgical weight loss or "natural" weight loss, you must make healthy decisions after the fact. Plenty of people have gone "under the knife" and gone back to their old habits of eating too much and sitting, sitting, sitting. What happened? They gained the weight back. After all that pain, all that expense and all that progress, they found themselves obese once again.

No doctor on this earth can save us from ourselves. This week, let the angel on your shoulder make your choices for you. Be your own best friend. Got low self-esteem and serious lack of self-love? Then fake it. Let the angel on your OTHER shoulder help you make your decisions based on compassion for yourself. If one of those decisions involves calling a surgeon, dial away with my blessing.


P.S. Come dancing on Tuesday night! Belly Dance Fitness is a "drop-in" style class at 7p Tuesdays at Richwood Presbyterian Church, $12/session. To register for the whole series and significant discounts, visit the website right now!