I woke up exhausted today from a long day in New York yesterday. Once I started to think about my client feeling and looking better I got energized and exicted. Her progress is terrific; she has lost over 11 pounds and really vamped up her fitness routines. I started her at 10-12 minutes on the treadmill, four to five times a week and at a very low walking level around 2.5 on the treadmill. My goal was to have her do more time per session and that would help her to burn more calories. Well, it worked, as I knew it would. She not only went to 15 minutes a session she is now at 30 minutes every time she steps on the treadmill. She has progressed so beautifully and rapidly and did it when she was ready to. The next step is to get her to do 45 minutes per session and then to incorporate hand weights for a toning and strengthening workout. That will happen in the near future, but for now she is doing fabulous. She is emailing me her food plan daily and although not perfect she is very aware of what she is eating. She is also learning the mental skills technique, THE MAZDA METHOD, to help her cope with EMOTIONAL EATING. I learned these skills many years ago to help me lose over 100 pounds and I am still using them today to get through those days when I want to use food as a way to cope with challenges that come up in life as they do now and will always show up when you least expect then to. All in all, Elle is doing fabulous, as are all of my other clients who are losing weight and getting healthier in their lives. Remember, you have the power to create that change. Debra

After working so hard on the CURVY GIRL WORKOUT VIDEO last week I decided to take a couple of days to do whatever I wanted to do. I decided to go see my family at the shore (New Jersey) this weekend and hang out. I contacted an old friend who is a tennis partner of mine and we set up a match to play that morning. I play competitive tennis and see it as a personal challenge. I am very competitive and take the game seriously when I play. I was so happy to see Tina. It had been months since we played or even got together because she lives in Ocean City. We decided to meet that morning at 8:30 am for a match. Now, although we are friends and really like each other, we play to hit hard and win points and get in a good workout. Since we are evenly matched we really enjoy playing and hitting with each other. So, I get to the courts and it was absolutely gorgeous out and I was really looking forward to the match. I got a cup of coffee and off I went. When I got to the courts she informed me that the courts had been resurfaced and they looked great. We began to warm up and we were getting loose and after 15 minutes we were ready. Now, although I am a very friendly and a good sport, when I play Tina I take our matches very seriously. As the game got underway, she began to kill me. I played the worst tennis. I can’t remember playing that badly and the more I wanted to catch up the worse I got. I could not figure out what was going on. I just knew I had to make some changes. What I was doing was not working and I was sinking fast. Now, mind you, I came on the courts in good spirits, warmed up, with a good nights sleep, alive and vibrant, and still my performance was not looking good. I was down 5-0. That means she had 5 games and I had none. It was looking very ugly, but it was not over yet. In tennis, when one person gets to 6 games the set is over. Well, this was not sitting well with me. Nothing I tried physically was working; I could not hit a ball to save my soul. I had to re-group and get myself back in the game. And that is exactly what I did. I began to work on some positive feedback with myself and took a deep breath and got right back in the game. She could not believe it, but the next thing that happened was the game was tied up 5-5. She thought she had me beat and I put everything I had in that match and got myself moving and making my plan. Suddenly, it was looking good – I was back in the groove of the game. Did I want to win? I couldnt have cared less but I wanted to do my best that is all that mattered to me. I was not performing at my best. The next thing I knew, we were at 10-10,and then 12-12. Remember in tennis, you have to win by two games. The game finally ended at 16-14. Does it matter who won? Of course not. We are not pros. The only stake involved here was what was in our heads. It only mattered to Tina and me on a personal level as friends and competitive women. The only thing I will say is that she bought breakfast and we talked and laughed about how life sometimes is like a tennis match and how she could not believe how it ended. I remember many years ago watching Andre Agassi getting ready to lose the French Open. One point and he was done. Well, being the champ he is, he turned it around and won the match and the championship. To this day, I have never forgotten that match and was amazed at his comeback. I do not think I need to tell anyone the POINT OF THIS STORY, you already know it. When things do not look good, as sometimes happens, take a deep breath, start over again, believe in yourself and keep moving forward. Debra

I talk and work with women every day, and on any given day, half of them are on a “diet.” I am not talking about the woman who watches what she eats. I am speaking about the woman who drastically alters her life by going on a low-calorie or fad diet in order to lose weight quickly. Some of the more famous diets used in this decade include Optifast, Medifast. Slim-Fast, the Cambridge Diet and the Beverly Hills Diet. (Incidentally, eating less than 1,200 calories a day also is considered a low-calorie diet.) These diets capitalize on a woman’s fear of being overweight and promise instant results, although most of the regimens have no scientific research for long term results, nor are they medically safe. Instead, these diet plans rely on the testimony of the people who have tried the products and have gotten short-term results. What these kinds of diets actually do to a body is drastically lower metabolism (sum changes or reactions occurring in the body) by putting the body into starvation. When this happens, the body begins to store fat and, instead of losing fat weight, you begin to lose lean muscle mass (body weight minus the body fat). This diet mentality is comparable to that of an athlete who uses steroids to win, no matter what the price. A lot of women make the decision to lose weight because they aren’t happy with themselves. They may have gained weight as a result of stress, depression, boredom, anger or frustration. A woman may not be in touch with the reasons she is overeating or binging. Food becomes the comfort that may temporarily relieve the emotional pain that she is feeling. However, binging on fatty foods such as cake and candy may make her feel guilty, ultimately escalating her original pain. Her eating gets out of control, her clothes don’t fit and she may even isolate herself. As food consumption starts to be the focus of her world, turning to diets seems to be the way to “fix” all of these problems. Dieting becomes the desperate attempt to get back in control. And the attempt to lose weight doesn’t come cheap: Some of these programs cost hundreds of dollars and are physically and emotionally draining. You eat, sleep and live for the diet because the focus is on food and/or calories. You believe this diet will be “different,” and your expectations are high. All of the diets that were tried in the past and failed no longer matter. These hopes are measured by the numbers on the scale and an increasingly thinner body. Debra

I was getting ready to teach an aerobics class one Monday and, as I was about to lace my sneakers, one of my clients turned to me and said, “Debra, I need to lose five pounds by Saturday I have a wedding to attend.” Through conversations we had over a period of time, it occurred to me that she might have a food addiction. Soon after that, she confided to me that she was suffering from an eating disorder known as bulimia. Bulimics eat an enormous amount of food at one time, then try to get rid of it by throwing up. Sound horrible? If you are not familiar with this behavior, you are probably wondering why someone would abuse themselves in this way. The reasons are complicated; among them, however, are physical, sexual and/or emotional abuse. Along with this disease, anorexia nervosa also has come out of the closet and made headlines. Anorexia is the disease that killed Karen Carpenter. Women who suffer from this disease almost never eat and when they do, every calorie is computed and dissected in their head. A typical day’s meal for an anorexic might include lettuce and perhaps some cottage cheese. This adds up to somewhere around 100-200 calories. In some cases, they just stop eating altogether. Aside from the obvious medical problems these women face, they are dealing with another huge problem: combating a distorted body image. For these women and for millions of others, negative body image certainly harbors hostility. Body image is the picture we paint of our physical appearance. With that comes all kinds of judgments one makes about oneself. While there are reported cases of some men having these disorders, they remain primarily women’s issues. These disorders are especially rampant among young women who feel they need to be as thin as the models on the covers of Cosmopolitan, Glamour and Seventeen magazines. For these young women, bingeing, purging and dieting have replaced good health and a sound mind. Today, more than ever, we are a society obsessed with weight and physical appearance. This is clearly reflected on television, at the movies and in magazines, where we are bombarded with images of physical perfection. Health spas, cosmetic surgical departments and workout centers are jammed to capacity with women attempting to mold themselves into perfection. But perfect for what? Are women sacrificing their well-being in pursuit of an impossible dream? This need for perfection has produced a dramatic increase in attendance at diet organizations such as Jenny Craig and Quick Weight Loss Centers. Eating disorders clinics and self-help groups such as Overeaters Anonymous also have experienced membership booms. Highly publicized diets such as Optifast and SlimFast have gained national attention with celebrity endorsements. Debra