One man’s transformation

May 9, 2012February 4, 2017 Yoga Spy

To anyone who’s “given up,” check out Arthur Boorman’s transformation and phen375 testimonials. Arthur is a living testimonial for a pro-wrestler-turned-yoga-trainer named Diamond Dallas Page. Yes, it sounds like hype. And Iyengar yoga teachers would be aghast at Arthur’s freewheeling attempts at asana while obese and non-ambulatory. But look at the results. Attitude matters, not just in students but in teachers, too. If you’re a yoga teacher, how would you have reacted if 300-pound Arthur, dependent on canes to walk, showed up at your class? Advertisements Continue reading One man’s transformation

Health8 Comments

I barely recognized you!

August 6, 2010February 3, 2017 Yoga Spy

Yesterday at the university gym where I work out, I initially didn’t recognize the student staffer at the front desk. But as I pedaled up a sweat, I realized that he resembled someone I hadn’t seen since winter. That guy was much beefier (the overstuffed look of a misguided male trying to “get huge”), with cropped hair rather than this guy’s Brady Bunch curls. A brother, perhaps? Turns out, he was the same guy. It was his senior year and he’d been cutting his hours to focus on school. During that time he also lost 43 pounds. “I barely recognized … Continue reading I barely recognized you!

Books, Health, Life2 Comments

Yogic eating

January 13, 2010February 6, 2017 Yoga Spy

In the February 2010 issue of Yoga Journal, Jessica Berger Gross wrote “An Honest Meal,” about how yoga changed her relationship with food. It’s a neat summary of her memoir, enLIGHTened, which I reviewed in my second blog post, “Do yoga, lose weight,” last August. (I recommend reading the whole book, which more satisfyingly details her backstory and personality.) While I was a bit underweight in high school and college (being thin had its own stigma, by the way), I was so thin that I could model for pills to lose weight, I’m not sure that’s how that works but … Continue reading Yogic eating

Life7 Comments

One day at a time

September 25, 2009February 3, 2017 Yoga Spy

For perhaps a year now, I’ve noticed an overweight fellow working out with a personal trainer at the gym. Actually, he was morbidly obese and stood out amid the university students, varsity athletes, and diehard gym rats. Perhaps in his early 30s, he worked out frequently, quietly following his trainer to this or that apparatus. Months passed and he looked exactly the same, with no apparent weight loss. Today I saw him again for the first time in weeks, maybe all summer. I was taken aback. He was noticeably lighter. Of course, he’s still heavy; but those months of effort finally … Continue reading One day at a time

Health1 Comment

Do yoga, lose weight

August 4, 2009March 25, 2017 Yoga Spy

After the barrage of memoirs published since the 1990s, I’ve learned to set expectations low, especially for female-written ones. I’m female and a writer, so misogyny is not a factor. It’s just that too many are overwrought, Sad Sack, navel-gazing about emo issues: unrequited love, mother issues, infertility, jealousy, sibling issues, feeling ugly. So I was quite delighted about a new memoir and resource, enLIGHTened, by Jessica Berger Gross. It’s about yoga, weight loss, family trauma, and finding one’s true self (yes, all chick-ish topics) and YET it was intelligent and sympathetic. It takes a good memoirist to be revealing but … Continue reading Do yoga, lose weight