My Plan For Health

From Shelly Dembe's Web site, A Healthier Balance

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

This blog has given me a lot to be thankful for. I’ve learned that I can make changes in my life at age 39 that make me feel better and help me enjoy life more. I’ve discovered that there are many resources at Ohio State to help me accomplish my goals.  I’ve had the chance to write about health and fitness for the first time in years. And I’ve enjoyed the support of so many people across campus — including those who notice when I don’t post updates for a while. For that I am thankful indeed!

But this year, the thing that I am most thankful for is dancing.

I’ve been studying belly dance at Habeeba’s in Grandview, and yoga dance at Ohio State through Lunch & Learn. The classes are very different — Habeeba’s technique is very controlled, while yoga dance is about moving however your spirit takes you.

Habeeba's dancers at the Upper Arlington Labor Day Arts Festival 2009

Yoga dance teacher Shelly Dembe, RN, tells us to “move like no one is watching.” There is just something about Shelly. She can get a roomful of self-conscious people to open up and dance as if we’ve been doing so all our lives. Her class is the most fun I’ve had since kindergarten.

“Think about how you felt when you got here,” she said to me after class, “and how you feel now. That’s what it’s all about.” She’s right — I always arrive tense from the office, and leave relaxed and buoyant.

Belly dancing has been a different experience. The class has been difficult, and I must have quit and unquit dozens of times early on. Now I love it and can’t imagine not doing it.

Me dancing on stage after the show. It's the shades that make the look.

I worked backstage at a Habeeba’s performance at the Upper Arlington Labor Day Arts Festival, and one of my teachers even pulled me onto the stage afterwards. More recently, after we’d just finished learning a new move in class, teacher Sharon Buhrts got me to think about how far I’ve come. “When you got here, you were afraid to move your arms,” she said, “and now look at you!”

I turned to Susan Van Pelt Petry, professor and chair of the Department of Dance at Ohio State, for an academic perspective on all this fun I’ve been having. The following text is from our email Q&A.

Enjoy, everyone, and have a healthy and happy Thanksgiving. Dance with those you love — to burn some holiday calories, and let your spirit soar.

PFG: Do you have any advice for people who are pursuing dance for fitness, such as myself?

Susan Van Pelt Petry

SVPP: Find a teacher who has some dance credentials - either a degree in dance, professional experience, membership in a professional dance organization, etc. Notice if the teacher communicates instruction about movement with clarity and anatomical awareness. They should be able to address things such as how to protect knee joints, how to develop core strength so the back is not at risk of injury, and how to pace a class for appropriate levels of muscle fatigue, stamina building, warmth, and flexibility.

A dance class should have an aesthetic component – it is an art form and one of the reasons it can be an attractive way to “exercise” is that it has that very quality of the mind that makes moving a pleasurable, engaging activity, and not just something to check off your list. Seek an experience where you feel the quality of your body and moving changes, where there are sensations of lightness, resistance, speed, etc. and not just the making of exterior “shape.”

PFG: I am taking two dance classes right now — belly dancing and yoga dance. The form of belly dance I’m studying is Habeeba’s, which is largely based on ballet, and thus very structured and controlled (and up on our toes!). The yoga dance is unstructured, freeform. I enjoy both very much! Can you tell me — what different benefits might I gain from the structured dance versus the unstructured?

SVPP: More structured classes teach dance “vocabulary” and instruct in the building blocks of a style. Often the style will have a cultural or historical context and that can be a very interesting and satisfying experience. In a more structured class one might be able to assess one’s progress quite clearly, as skills get added as you progress through movement sequences. In a less structured class, such as an improvisation group, or some forms of modern dance, or hybrid styles such as “yoga dance,” you have the advantage of learning more perhaps about yourself and you learn how to observe your movement from inside and not from outside instruction. In a less structured class there is often a higher degree of creativity, and that can be very fun. There might be less physical rigor as it is more self-driven.

PFG: Dancing is uplifting, psychologically. For instance, I’m more confident and I don’t mind wearing more revealing clothing (especially while I’m belly dancing — it helps me see my moves in the mirror, right?). The yoga dance is uplifting because it’s just wild and crazy and fun. Would you have any comment about how dance has been uplifting for you personally? Do you find that many people (dilettantes such as myself) get this kind of emotional boost from dancing?

SVPP: Absolutely! Very uplifting. Dancers even joke they get addicted to it…. And there are studies that show there is real brain chemistry that changes as exercise, music, and expression conjoin for powerful rise of seratonin levels. I am at my desk a lot more these days, and I do feel fundamentally somewhat diminished without dancing as much as I used to.

The cities of Hilliard and Upper Arlington are offering some free fitness classes and special deals this fall.

Shannon L. Chaney, Upper Arlington LifeLong Learning & Leisure (LLL) Director, tipped me off to a week of free classes and a discount:

LifeLong Learning & Leisure is featuring a free fitness week from September 14-18 for any of the LLL exercise classes listed on the fitness grid in our 2009 fall catalog. Current and new students are welcome to try out a class they are not currently enrolled in and will need to sign the waiver form provided. Because there is no way for us to monitor attendance, participation will be dependent on space availability. Call 583-5333 for more information.

Take Zumba and Floor, Core & More and Save!
Take advantage of this limited-time fall fitness promotion. Students who register for the same full sections of Floor, Core & More and Zumba in one transaction will receive a 50% discount on their class fee for Floor, Core & More. The pairing of these two complementary classes gives students a well-rounded two-hour workout to enjoy twice a week as part of their regular fitness routine.

LLL class descriptions and online registration are here.

I highly recommend Molly Ohsner’s “Morning Total Body Workout.” Here’s the description:

Morning Total Body Workout
with Molly Ohsner, AFAA Certified, Exer-Safety Certified
This well-rounded class offers variety – simple aerobic movements, weight training using hand-held weights, abdominal strengthening, stretching and relaxation. Bring good aerobic shoes, a mat and a water bottle. Weights are provided. Class can be prorated for two days a week.
TIME: 9:30-10:30 AM, Monday, Wednesday & Friday
LOCATION: Marjorie Jones School of Ballet

I wish I could make it to a mid-morning class, but I just can’t… Molly’s Full Size Fitness class was my first foray into fitness classes all those years ago, and she put me on the road to losing my first 100 lbs. I would describe her class as mostly aerobic dance, as it contains lots of music and simple choreography.

It always meant a lot to me that she had the Exer-Safety certification, because I knew she would offer good counsel on preventing injury. Plus Molly is such a kind and genuine person that she made the class fun. I’m still good friends with some of the people I met there.

Meanwhile, as a Hilliard Recreation and Parks member, I received this email:

The Hilliard Recreation and Parks Department has a few new offerings!

Free Yoga Wellbeing Class
Stop in the Community Center on Wednesday, September 16 at 6:45PM to try out our Yoga Class for FREE!  This movement class follows the classical Hatha Yoga postures of breathing, meditation and relaxation techniques.  Gain flexibility, energy and strength.

The Hilliard Fall and Winter Program Guide and online registration are here.

I have to say, Upper Arlington has Hilliard beat for the sheer breadth of course offerings and ease of online registration. And while the UA course book is in PDF format, Hilliard inexplicably chose to offer its book as a series of high-resolution bitmap images which take a long time to load in a Web browser. Go figure.

Faculty and staff can find similar classes for free through the university Wellness Program, or through membership in RPAC, the Faculty and Staff Fitness Program, or the Center for Wellness and Prevention. But if you want to take fitness classes with friends or family members who don’t work at the university, or if you just want a class that’s closer to home, I think these community classes are a bargain for the money.

After several weeks away from yoga, I returned to class with Holly Wagner, RN,  and got a bit of a surprise.

She asked us to sit straight up, legs crossed — a typical beginning posture. She reminded us to reach around and pull the fleshy parts of our backsides out to the sides, so that we could plant our sitz bones (the bones on the base of the pelvis) directly on the mat.

This is a standard yoga move not just for plus-sized people, but for anyone who… well, anyone who has a backside. And I’ve been doing it for so long now that it’s second nature.

What I noticed that day was that I seemed to have a little less backside to move out of the way than I’d remembered. That was a nice, positive thing to think about as I started class!

One of the most valuable parts of the book MegaYoga comes near the beginning, when author Megan Garcia explains how to manipulate a curvy body for certain yoga postures such as bends and twists. She advises that we take a moment to smooth the fleshy parts of the body out of the way — for instance, moving the buttocks out of the way as I just described, or smoothing the belly up and away from the hip joint during a bend. After reading the book, I tried out some of these techniques in Holly’s class, and they worked.

Garcia offers advice on how to safely attain poses, and how to adjust using props such as yoga blocks and yoga straps. I was glad to see that she explained how to safely stand up from the mat, a procedure she calls “mindful standing.” I tend to get dizzy sometimes when I stand up, so her instructions on when to pause and breathe during standing were particularly useful to me.

There are a wide variety of poses in the book, from beginning level to advanced, including handstands and shoulder stands. Garcia definitely proves that plus-sized people can perform any pose with the proper adjustments — and lots of practice, of course. She explains each move step by step with photographs.

At the end of the book, she offers a 30-minute routine for beginners, a 60-minute routine for intermediate students, and a 90-minute routine for advanced students. These are good for practice outside of class — something that I aspire to.

Read about Garcia’s yoga studio and classes.

Bonus: Long before I heard of MegaYoga, I found the video Yoga for Round Bodies, which encourages the use of props and lots of self-acceptance. Read about the making of the video here.

Last night’s yoga class was all about strengthening our core muscles — the abdominals and other muscles that help us maintain good posture. Holly Wagner, RN, took a page from a recent issue of Yoga Journal, and had us focus on our rectus abdominis and transversus abdominis muscles. These are the two sets of muscles that give someone “six-pack abs.”

The rectus abdominis and transversus abdominis muscles (Wikipedia)

While it’s relatively easy to find and engage the rectus abdominis — it’s what we use when we do sit-ups or crunches — the transversus abdominis is harder to isolate. It comes in from the side of the body beneath the rib cage, and runs underneath the other ab muscles. Holly had us feel around for it, so we could get a sense of what muscles we were supposed to be using, but I couldn’t find mine. I’m sure it’s in there somewhere.

A variation of happy baby pose, from Yoga Journal

The most effective pose for me was the first one, a variation of “happy baby pose.” We laid back on our mats and lifted our legs with knees bent at 90-degree angles, and moved our legs back and forth just a few inches at a time, for 30 seconds at a time. I became well aware of my transversus abdominis muscles then, because they were on fire! Such a tiny movement had a huge impact on my core muscles.

So if I do this for 30 seconds every day, will I have six-pack abs? Well, no. (Even if I could, nobody would be able to see them. There’s a lot of fat — er, ample curviness — sort of blocking the view.) But what benefits would I get? According to Yoga Journal:

It’s important to persevere, but don’t work to exhaustion… Plan on doing just a few repetitions each day, and your body will respond quickly. The result of all your hard work? A stronger core, more ease in your poses, and a more powerful you.

My body has already responded — my abs are sore today!

You can see the full routine here. We skipped the handstand at the end, thank goodness!

The most valuable thing about yoga is that it teaches us to pay attention to our breath and the effect it has on the body. And if I learned any lesson from my refresher course the other day, it’s that I need to breathe more deeply.

In my comprehensive fitness evaluation, I learned that my endurance, or VO2max rating, was below average. It’s a measure of how much oxygen my body uses per minute, divided by my weight. So I know that if I lose weight, I will automatically boost my rating. Since the body uses oxygen to make energy, losing weight will make my body more energy-efficient.

But yoga caused me to look at the other side of the equation, to the amount of oxygen that I normally take in. When I’m exercising, my lungs breathe deeply because they are on auto-pilot, but I wonder: how much oxygen am I taking in the rest of the time?

Holly guides me through downward facing dog in my living room. I kept squinching my shoulders.

As the lesson began, Holly noticed that I was breathing shallowly through my chest. She suggested that I visualize my lungs as a glass of water. As you pour water into a glass, the bottom of the glass fills up first.  So she told me to fill the bottom part of my lungs first by breathing down into my belly. Then to exhale, I reversed the process. After a few minutes of this, I felt very relaxed.

Then she had me perform a series of stretches at my own pace, determined by how fast I was breathing in and out. Deep breathing takes longer than shallow breathing, so moving through the different stretches forced me to consider how quickly and shallowly I was breathing.

Once we began doing seated poses, my previous yoga experience paid off, as Holly thought my posture was “stunning.” She had me do eagle pose to loosen up my shoulders (see a video of how to do seated eagle here). This is a pose I can do at my desk.

Then it was onto a standing forward bend to stretch out the backs of my legs, and finally to a sun salutation (explanatory video here), featuring downward-facing dog. As with my posture during eagle, I’ve got the right form — I just need to develop the endurance to hold the poses longer. I pushed myself a bit, and experienced the wonder of gravity as my face hit the floor. That was a good lesson. Yoga is about exploring our natural limitations and becoming comfortable with them, not pushing ourselves until we do a face-plant.

Holly offered to compose a ten-minute routine for me — something that I can do on my own, every day.  She is a huge inspiration to me in that regard. She just earned her license as a registered nurse, and is working to become a nurse practitioner. When she’s not caring for patients at OSU Medical Center, she’s studying. And yet she finds time to squeeze in her own yoga practice, and teach it to others. If she can do that, I hope I can dedicate 10 minutes a day.

The way I look at it, yoga is the enabling technology for the rest of my fitness routine. It will keep me stretched and relaxed, so I don’t get worn down by all those trips to the gym.

The latest video feature from our New Media unit highlights a yoga class for cancer survivors, as well as Ohio State’s unique Integrative Approaches to Wellness minor for undergraduate students.

Web editor Kristen Convery writes:

When Daniel Snider’s aunt was dying of abdominal cancer, Snider wanted to get to know her better and help her deal with her disease.

So he created a yoga routine for her.

Read the full story here.

One of the first yoga poses I learned: downward-facing dog.

Spring quarter is here, and I’m about to return to yoga practice. I have taken several kinds of yoga around campus. The Center for Wellness and Prevention offers evening classes Monday through Thursday, and the university offers Lunch & Learn yoga classes. The Faculty and Staff Fitness Program, which I recently joined, offers yoga every Monday around lunch time. I have yet to try that last one.

Yoga is an ancient physical and mental practice that originated in India. It means many different things depending on who you ask, and there are many different types of yoga practices out there, some emphasizing the physical aspects, and others emphasizing the spiritual. But the procedure for all is basically the same: you focus on breathing while stretching and posing the body in challenging ways, and then you relax.

The relaxation part at the end is called savasana, and trust me — it’s the best part. In some classes, the instructor guides the class throughout savasana with specific visualizations, etc. But I’ve found savasana to be most useful when I’m alone with my own thoughts in peace and quiet.

Wow. Health benefits aside, I have no interest in attaining this position.

Since I took the PHA test, I’ve had to accept the fact that stress is a big factor in my health, and I have to do something about it. I have to conquer stress. I have to grab stress by the throat and beat it into submission.

Yoga may be a good way to do that. I’ve had some positive experiences with it in the past, which I was able to draw upon for a story on alternative medicine that I wrote for the American Chemical Society.

I’ve said before that I feel lucky to work at Ohio State, where I have some of the world’s foremost health experts at my disposal. One of the people I had in mind was Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, a leading expert on stress and immunity. She and her colleagues are conducting a study to test yoga’s effect on stress in women. She pointed me to previous studies that suggested that yoga might improve blood pressure, cholesterol, and sugar levels. But the Ohio State study is one of the first to obtain definitive clinical evidence to answer the question.

She and her team are just preparing to publish their results, so she couldn’t share the details with me just yet. But I was able to ask her opinion on whether yoga would be a good way for me to manage stress:

I’d say yes, from everything we know so far. There have been a number of different studies that show a lot of different benefits from yoga. We know there are good data in terms of flexibility… The responses from the class have been very enthusiastic.

The question that was foremost in my mind was whether I could expect the same physiological benefits from yoga if I approach it in a non-spiritual way. (I’ve taken enough yoga classes to know that a lot of the new age spirituality is not for me.) So I asked Dr. Kiecolt-Glaser if she’d seen a difference in the health of women who were spiritual in their practice compared to those who focused on fitness. She saw no such difference, and in fact said that I stood a lot to gain from a regular yoga practice, regardless of how I approached it:

I think it’s a great idea for you. The data from our study is really interesting… After the yoga session, women rate their moods as much better. The take home message is that it’s the regular practice that matters. Beginners don’t show the same [degree of] physiological effects as the practitioners who’ve been doing it regularly for a couple of years.

Of all the yoga classes I’ve taken, the one I enjoyed the most was taught by my friend and former office mate, Holly Wagner. Holly went back to school here at Ohio State to become a nurse practitioner, so she knows a lot about the body, and everything she knows is grounded in science. She doesn’t teach on campus any more, but you can catch her at Yoga on High and elsewhere around town. She’s going to give me a private lesson to get me back on track to a (hopefully regular) yoga practice.