Give Me Shelter

(This article originally appeared in the May/June issue of The East Nashvillian)

Thursday at 5 p.m., 30 minutes before I had to be back home for my sitter. I was heading in the back door to bury my nose in the computer for a few clandestine moments of research and writing before my son discovered my presence, but as my foot hit the last stair leading to the back door, something in my deepest, aching heart-of-hearts called out for me to stop.
     Half an hour stretched out before me, so instead of going inside, I turned and sat on the step directly under my feet. The sun had dipped behind the edge of the neighboring house, still bright, but not overbearing. The leaves were back in their full glory after a brief but real winter, gracing me with verdant shelter. I imagined I would find silence there, but instead I was met with a cacophony of bird sounds: steady banter, chatter overhead.

   I don’t really like birds. They scare the living hell of out me when they get too close. Their sharp beaks and primordial legs are just fine kept at a distance. But in this moment, on this day, I listened. And they spoke. And I wondered what they were talking about.
     Their conversations persisted urgently, rhythmically, and I was uncharacteristically transfixed. What were they talking about? What was so important up there? Were they scouting locations for nests? Looking for love? Grieving the loss of an egg that never hatched?
As I sat, listening to them, I had a creeping sense of exactly how far removed I have become from the natural world, the hushed and thundering world that exists beyond the boundaries of my insulated home and numerous devices.
     I’m a city person, always have been. I love it all: sidewalks and people, morning showers and soft sheets. I don’t long to lay my head down in a sleeping bag on hard dirt at night, but there is something increasingly missing in the drumbeat of “when” and “how” and “how-much” that populates my city-dwelling days.
     I dragged myself away from the birdsongs that evening and wandered back inside, thinking I still had time to “accomplish something.” But time had flown away. I was due upstairs, but my head was still in the trees. What were they talking about?
     The next night, in dead-stopped gridlock in the heart of downtown, I was confronted with the stark truth that my gentle, midsized city was rapidly evolving into a full-throated metropolis — which both thrilled me and broke my heart. I gazed at the sea of brake lights and realized that if that’s how it’s going to be, I need a counterbalance to the pull of urban life. I need birdsongs and clouds and leaves on trees, and if I don’t take the time to see and know those things, I will lose something of enormous value — and my son will, too.
     Another email, another hour spent staring at a blank screen in search of ideas, is not only fruitless, it’s heartless. It’s a vortex of pixels. Don’t get me wrong. I adore my screen time. I love connecting with friends old and new, and I value this maddening laptop that enables me to purge my thoughts. I fill it up with all kinds of inventive things when I have something to fill it with, but when I look to it, or to my phone, for inspiration, they leave me cross-eyed and lifeless. The birdsongs, on the other hand, are very much alive, full of intrigue.
     I’ve hugged a few trees in my day and will definitely be hugging a few more in the years to come. In fact, the bigger the city gets, the more trees I plan to embrace, sap and all.
     Bring on the chaos of a city in flux. Come what may, I’ve got birds in my backyard, and trees and leaves overhead, ready and willing to give me shelter from the steady hum of Wi-Fi forever worming its way through my skull.
     And to discover what the birds are talking about, I’ll turn to the experts. My 4-year-old and his trusty pit bull will most definitely have a theory or two on that.

5 Thoughts on The Biggest Loser Hubbub

As anybody who reads this blog knows, I am not a fan of The Biggest Loser. It is what it is... entertainment. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the reality of living with excess weight, losing it, or keeping it off. So when three different people emailed me yesterday asking my opinion of the latest study that came out about the contestants of the 2009 season regaining much of the weight they lost, some gaining even more, I was far from shocked. 

It's obvious that many of them would have regained the weight, but I think it's important to address some of the issues mentioned in the New York Times article about what happened to their metabolisms and what those changes mean for long term weight loss. The conclusions are not as dire as they might seem.

1. Massive, rapid weight loss is unrealistic and unsustainable. Dur. That has been common wisdom for a long time. Under the bizarre and extreme circumstances that they lost the weight, we should not be surprised that they gained it back.

2. Health-wise, weight loss of 5-10% of body weight is enormously beneficial for anyone who is overweight or obese. In other words, a 250 pound woman who loses 15 -25 pounds can expect to feel better and have better health outcomes. Period. It's about how we feel, not about how we think we look. Big can be beautiful, but if we don't feel so good, small increments of weight loss are worth the effort and much more easily maintained.

3. Changes in diet and physical activity should be sustainable. If you can't imagine doing it for the rest of your life, don't bother. Move and stand whenever and however you can. Become a hummingbird. Flutter about constantly and you will boost your metabolism. Physical activity is good for you regardless of weight loss.

4. Make muscle maintenance part of your fitness routine. Muscle burns more than fat and keeps your metabolism up. You only need a few minutes a day of strengthening exercises to make this happen. See my new series of 5-minute workout videos or sign up for the newsletter to get a new one in your mailbox every two weeks.

5. The article talks a lot about hunger. The hormone, leptin, does drop in people who have carried and lost a bunch of extra weight, but hunger can be remedied by eating a ton of high fiber, high water content foods... fruits and vegetables... and lean protein. You don't have to be hungry. You just have to find foods that you like, that fill you up and don't pack on the pounds, and eat a bunch of them before the hunger hits.

We should not be trying to glean any wisdom from The Biggest Loser, except that it doesn't work. Though this is an interesting scientific study of biology and extreme weight loss, what happened to most of them will never happen to any of us. Metabolism naturally drops when body weight drops, but with slow, steady weight loss, the calories we burn will remain in line with our body size. When you are smaller, you need to eat fewer calories. It's an unfortunate fact, but that's the reality. Not a problem if the changes have come naturally, sustainably aligned with the reality of our lives. 

If we assault our bodies by starving them and beating them down with 8 hours of pounding exercise every day, we will mess them up. That's all. No big surprise. 

Publisher's Weekly Review of My Book!

You guys! Excuse me while I dork out for a second. My book was just reviewed by Publisher's Weekly. I've been reading their reviews for years, and I'm so excited they covered my book. Not only that, they liked it too! See below.

"Coomer, a personal trainer and health coach, takes a novel approach to weight loss that rejects calorie counting, dieting, and strenuous workouts. In this inspiring and compassionate book, she shares her own struggles with weight and body image, as well as her realization that deprivation and treating the body as the enemy rarely work. Coomer asserts that the more effective approach is to replace poor eating habits with small, positive changes. Instead of restricting foods, she argues, one should supplement them with healthy choices; rather than working out in a gym, find a pastime that you love, and then stick to it relentlessly. Coomer shares illustrative stories from her clients, noting that those who emphasized enjoyment of life fared better than those who followed restrictive diet or exercise plans, which often were eventually abandoned. Slow, constant weight loss, she contends, is the more effective route; in a chapter called “The Tortoise Totally Wins,” she demonstrates how “slow and steady” wins the weight-loss race. Readers seeking quick fixes and recipes won’t find them here. Though Coomer does include some familiar, practical tips (e.g., pack a lunch rather than eating out; reduce portion sizes), she mostly digs deeper, focusing on transformation and long-term well-being."

- Publisher's Weekly

Recipe for Sanity in a Maddening Election Year

(This article originally appeared in the Mar/Apr 2016 issue of The East Nashvillian)

I've always been a moderately political person. I was psyched to vote in my first election at age 18 and have voted at every opportunity since. I ditched school once in high school to go see Bill Clinton speak and was so worked up on my way home that I got into a minor car accident. I watch the news most nights and enjoy lively debates as long as they don’t turn vicious. I’ve never had any doubt it’s worth the effort to stay educated and involved.
     But 2015 was a watershed year for me. Maybe it was the terrorists joyfully masquerading as martyrs, gloating over bloodshed all over the world; the gun violence and blatant racism still plaguing our country; or the astonishing rise of politicians riding a popular wave of bigotry that I would prefer not to know exists in our midst — whatever the reason, I reached my saturation point.
     I didn’t want to hear about that world anymore, and I certainly didn’t want to see the images. I wanted to ignore it, but when I tried to shut out the noise, it seeped in around the perimeter of my days. It popped up on televisions in public places and littered my Twitter feed with viral evidence of human brokenness.
     Overexposure didn’t solve anything, but neither did willful blindness. Ignorance felt icky. It made me feel even more vulnerable, like a sitting duck — powerless over my own safety and even more powerless over the well-being of my 4-year-old son.
     So I peeked out over the edge of my own exhaustion and panic and noticed something I never fully appreciated before. People in my own community were getting shit done while I was busy whining about the state of world affairs in my pajama pants. It was up to me whether or not to join them.
     So I put on some pants — real ones without an elastic waistband — got together with some of those intrepid people, had a cocktail, and discovered that I’m not at all powerless. I’m a roaring, raging, mommy badass with a fire to keep my kid, family, and friends safe from harm and free to live their lives — and I’m far from alone in that effort.
     There are a whole bunch of folks tucked in amongst our tree-lined streets who not only give a damn, but who are doing something about it. Every day. And they are not old and crotchety with nothing better to do, like I previously would have guessed. They are some of the most engaging, energetic, and caring people I’ve ever met.
    In his State of the Union address back in January, President Obama spoke about “daily acts of citizenship.” He talked about going above and beyond, reaching out from our secluded, narrow lives to help somebody out, to vote, to shop local, to volunteer, or speak out on an issue we care about — be it animal rescue, veterans, equal rights, gun safety, homelessness, or early childhood education.
     In spite of 2016 being an election year, there will be less TV for me this time around. I’ll keep up with the basics, but after that, enough is enough. I’d rather spend time with people who give me hope, women and men who give a damn and are doing something about it — starting somewhere, doing something about something that matters.
     There’s no power to be found in footage of S.W.A.T. teams on autorepeat. In that coverage, we will only find fear and loathing. Power comes from showing up and taking action, so that someday, maybe, we can all go peacefully back to our PJ pants. 

     Terrorists and politicians peddling hatred for a living have no place in my world, but hating them back isn’t the answer. The answer is in farmers markets and fundraisers, art classes, yard sales, and music festivals. Maybe I’m just getting old. I don’t know, but pouting and throwing things at the screen isn’t doing it for me anymore. I need action, and there’s no shortage of things to act on, right here in my very own town.

"New Year, New You" Can Kiss My Grits

I have to confess that I'm writing this on an overcast, snowy day, on a Friday when my son has attended precisely zero days of school this week. Maybe, just maybe, I might be slightly manic, but here, on this day in the end of January, I've hit my ceiling with the bullshit "new year, new you" promotions plastered on the edges my web browser. 

It's January. It's snowing. It's beautiful and cold and everything has stopped.

I want to eat all the things. I want to eat oatmeal cookies for breakfast. I want to eat veggie chili and mashed potatoes, and my husband and I are sparring over left-over Indian food. Popcorn will happen later, with tea and dark chocolate.

And it's fine. It's all fine. In fact, it's pretty damn fantastic. New year, new me. Snow days are snow days, and most days are not. All I can do on any of those days is take care of my body and the bodies of the people I love in best way I know how. And right now, with ten inches of snow out our windows, the best thing we can do for those bodies is go roll in mounds of snow, come home, curl up, warm up, and eat something real, with substance, something that will leave us wholly satisfied.

I somehow missed the glut of diets and fitness schemes around New Year's this year. I was sharing a small hotel room with my husband and 4-year-old in the days surrounding New Year's Eve, so I didn't get any time to sit around watching a bunch of grown-ups on TV pick apart their year-gone-by and wring their hands about the magnificent or terrifying 365 days on the horizon.

I was busy with Team Umizoomi, Denver's Natural History Museum, and total amazement at the recreational weed phenomenon dotting the street corners of Colorado. I was living, walking, moving, and breathing, not thinking, dieting, plotting and scheming. 

This year I am living, in my body, not outside of it... the start of a promising year.

Jellybean, the tiny snowman

There's Only One Resolution Worth Making

(This article, Resolution Beat Down, originally appeared in the Jan/Feb 2016 issue of The East Nashvillian)

I spend a lot of time in January coaching my clients on New Year’s resolutions, mostly trying to talk people out of pursuing them. There are a whole lot of cockamamie schemes floating around in people’s heads at New Year’s and even more disappointments in the adrenaline nosedive that follows.

Whether high or low, the holidays tend to bring catharsis. All bets are off. Caution is thrown to the wind, and optimism runs high about our ability to make abrupt changes in the wake of that catharsis. We ride up and over New Year’s Eve only to find ourselves crashing back to earth on the other side. Distractions creep in, and resolve withers.

Momentum is a lovely thing—until it runs out—but as a personal trainer who gravitates toward slackers and misfits (of which I am most definitely one), I love it when the momentum runs out. It makes me sit up and pay attention. It’s a turning point where all the fun begins, the place where we have the most potential to have a lasting impact on our lives and bodies.

You made a resolution. You tried. It was no fun, so you gave up and found yourself back at square one. Par for the course. At that point, do you sit around waiting for the next big event to spur you on for a week or two, before giving up again? Or do you figure out what you can legitimately do, forevermore, until the end of your ever-loving days to make your body feel better? If you can sort that out, your whole trajectory changes.

Productive habits that can endure the fallow, aimless months of February and March, October and November, are the ones that end up being transformative, but the only way for them to be transformative is for them to stick. And the only way for them to stick is if you’re actually enjoying them, at least a little bit. 

Your resolution didn’t work for one of two reasons: either it was too extreme, or it didn’t have anything to do with your life and the passions that drive you. In other words, it messed with your vibe rather than feeding it. If you don’t like your new routine, rest assured that you’re going to quit it. Thems the facts.

Any master plan you have to improve your body or mind needs to be steeped in things you love to do that make you feel better in the here and now. If you hate cooking, why would you resolve to cook more often? Make smarter choices at restaurants instead. If you hate getting up in the morning to work out, don’t bother. There are countless moments filled with countless ways every day to have a positive impact on your body. Walks can be taken. Push-ups can be done in living rooms nationwide. Going to bed an hour earlier instead of snacking mindlessly in front of the TV can happen—if you bother to notice that it reliably makes you feel lighter and more alert.

Your resolution shouldn’t be about finding tedious hours to exercise or eating like a bird. It should be about filling in the cracks of your life with active, healthy, invigorating things that you happen to love, whenever and wherever you can—no matter how small they might seem. Over the course of a lifetime, those choices make all the difference. If you don’t fill in the cracks with stuff that feeds you, they will fill up with whatever byproducts of living happen to seep in while you’re busy just trying to get by.

Transformation comes from a million little changes, not one big one. It doesn’t come from boot camp at 5 a.m. on January 1^st. It comes from doing a few small, simple things that make you feel better and stronger on January 26^th, 27^th, and beyond. And when those few things become easy and habitual, it comes from adding a few more.

So when willpower and momentum collapse in on themselves this year, have a look around from your uncomfortable comfort zone. See what you can do easily, that will make you feel physically better, and go do it. Sign up for a pottery class. Set up a walking date. Volunteer. Have a piece of fruit. Get some fresh air.

Nurture your body. Strengthen it. That’s the only resolution worth making.

Happy New Year!

So I'm a personal trainer and totally not supposed to support this sort of mischief, but this photo (posted by my friend Mignon Francois of The Cupcake Collection, Nashville, TN) sums up perfectly how I believe every new year - every day for that matter - should be approached... with pleasure, playfulness, and a sense of humor.

Cupcakes, y'all. Happy new year!

#getit #goodtimes #goodhealth #lightnessofbodyandmind

One Mom and Way Too Many Guns

This article originally appeared on 12th & Broad on December 2, 2015. It went viral the following day.

Photo: source unknown

As Thanksgiving approached last week, I did a lot of thinking about what I'm thankful for this year. My dad is undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer, and his sudden, unexpected brush with mortality has catapulted me into a reflective mood. Like many families, we have a tradition of going around the Thanksgiving table, each of us saying what we're grateful for. Lubricated by wine and warmth, we pay homage to our blessings.

This year, the most obvious thing to be thankful for was time, the time we still have—all together—in relatively good health. So that's what I said. And I meant it.

But underneath that honest appreciation was an ominous, more disconcerting thankfulness. In my heart of hearts, beyond my father's good health, the thing I'm most thankful for this year is the fact that my four-year-old son has never had to face down the barrel of a gun.

It didn't occur to me to be thankful for this until recently, and, frankly, I'm pissed that I have to be thankful for it. I don't want that thought anywhere near my brain.

I'd prefer to live in a place where guns are regulated and rare. But I don't. I live in a place called America where there are guns under mattresses, on top of refrigerators, and being sold legally—without background checks—in parking lots and at yard sales nationwide. I live in a place where there have been more mass shootings than days of the year in 2015; where 88 people die every single day from firearms; and where little kids are often both victims and accidental perpetrators.

I'm not afraid of terrorism. I'm afraid of play dates. I'm afraid of unsecured guns stored in hard to reach places by well-meaning gun owners. I'm afraid of a split-second.

Gun violence is terrifyingly quick. Whether a toddler shooting his brother or a suicidal college kid wandering into a gun shop on a broken-hearted whim, it's too easy. Access is just way too easy, and the damage done is way too fast.

My kid will have to pass a test and get a license before he can drive a car. He'll be required to wear a seatbelt and get insurance in exchange for his freedom on the open road. But if nothing changes, he will also be able to legally buy a gun from a stranger, when and wherever he wants, walking away with ammunition in hand. As things currently stand, he and everyone else on American soil has that "right"—unregulated and unchecked. 

Photo: John Minchillo/AP

I take no issue with the right to bear arms, but I do take issue with the right to bear them without training or accountability.

And most of the country agrees with me. 92% of Americans believe universal background checks should be required to purchase guns under any and all circumstances. Ninety-two percent! Is there anything else that ninety-two percent of Americans agree on? That the earth is round perhaps? Maybe not even that.

We have an election coming up, and something has to change. Legislators on both sides of the aisle, on national and state levels, need todo something to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, psychopaths, and the clinically depressed. If they can't pledge to support universal background checks, they shouldn't get to be in office. They don't deserve our money or our votes. Period.

I'm late to this party. Moms on the south side of Chicago have thanked their lucky stars for decades when their kids came home safe at night, while the rest of us shook our heads, prayed on Sundays, and wrote off their fears as a problem that would never make its way to our doorsteps. Well, it has arrived.

My own assumption that these casualties would never hit home was rooted in a combination of white privilege, ignorance, and willful blindness. But we're all getting shot now… in nightclubs, movie theaters, and classrooms. Geographic location doesn't protect anybody any more. We are all vulnerable to random gun violence by nature of the sheer number of weapons in our midst and the total lack of oversight from politicians in power.

It's hard to mobilize time and energy for a good cause before tragedy hits close to home. It's easier to turn away until it comes knocking, but by staying silent, every one of us grows increasingly more vulnerable.

I went to a survivor panel hosted by Moms Demand Action for Gun Safety the weekend before Thanksgiving. As I lay in bed the night before, acid churned in my stomach. I was overwhelmed by the news, the shootings in Paris and torrents of fear and hatred flooding the airways. I was afraid to hear the stories of people in my own community who lost loved ones to stray bullets or targeted ones. I was terrified it would add to the very real fear that my son—or any of my loved ones—would find themselves in the path of one of those bullets. But denial wasn't working for me anymore. I needed facts and fellowship. I needed to bear witness on my own turf.

I heard terrible stories there: of kids shooting kids, hate crimes, suicides, crossfire, and deluded madmen. One survivor, Katie, was steps away from her father when he was shot dead in a shopping mall at the age of 45. Each story reeked of chaos and meaninglessness, but instead of adding to the noise in my head, I found power and strength in that room. The fear was no longer distant. It was right there, held sacred by human beings who were willing to crack open their own stories, prepared to link arms and hold on tight for a common cause: common sense.

Guns are everywhere. That's just the truth. This isn't about taking anybody's guns away. It's about registering and storing them properly and keeping them far, far away from people who would do harm with them.

So this Thanksgiving I'm thankful that my 67-year-old father is persevering in the face of cancer. He's doing everything in his power to stay here with us as long as he can. Katie's dad wasn't so lucky. He was shot down in a shopping mall, selling coasters that were handmade by his own father for Christmas. He never got a chance to grow old, to fight for his health and wellbeing, and to see his grandkids grow up.

So in my darkest but most hopeful heart of hearts, I am thankful for every public figure who has the guts to stand up for universal background checks, and I'm thankful for every mom who has the guts to ask before a play date, "Are there guns in the house, and, if so, are they locked up?"

The randomness is almost too much to bear, but in every corner of this country, there is a lot that can be done to make us and our kids safer if we stop turning a blind eye and demand what we know is right. Common sense. That's all. Just a little common sense.

Bodies in Motion

This article was originally published in the Nov/Dec 2015 issue of The East Nashvillian.

I found a butterfly on the sidewalk yesterday — freshly passed, wings fully spread, lying still on its back as if it expired midair and floated to the ground. I picked it up for a friend, an artist who had recently revealed to me her love of such things. Though I cringed at the thought of carrying a butterfly carcass in my hand (not my thing), I figured it would be better served by making the trip to her home than by getting run over by a bike. 

It was so large that the only way to transport it without doing damage was in my open palm, cupped gently against my side to prevent the breeze from carrying it away. I corralled my pit bull with my left arm, pulling back on his leash to slow our pace, and set out on the six-block walk home with my right arm crooked stiffly at 90 degrees. 

As I walked, protectively hunched over, I could see passing drivers craning their necks to see what was wrong with me and realized that from a distance at 40 miles per hour I must have looked impaired somehow, either injured or disabled. People stared freely, peering out over their dashboards as they drove down the tree-lined street, seemingly unaware that I could see them right back. 

It made me think of a personal training client of mine, a young woman — currently 20 years old — who had a stroke at the age of 11. She navigates the world with a severe tremor and no feeling in one side of her body. She has told me what it’s like to be stared at — carelessly, thoughtlessly stared at.

Walking down the sidewalk that day, I felt the drivers’ eyes on me and got a taste of what it’s like to be watched, but not seen, observed as an object of curiosity and pity. As a woman, I’ve been objectified countless times on the street, dodging catcalls from passing men, but this was different. These stares were not overt. They were silent, sideways observations; strange and disconcerting.

Of course, I wasn’t disabled or injured — I was just transporting a dead butterfly, trying to keep her wings intact. But to do that, I had to make my way down the street with what looked like a broken wing of my own, and that sort of thing makes people nervous. Bodies that don’t conform make people nervous.

I work with other people’s bodies for a living, and the greatest gift I have received from that work is the ability to see beauty in every living, breathing one of them — no matter what size they might be or what disability they might have. Our bodies are all a little odd, but there is reliable elegance in muscle and bone working together to move and lift and breathe.

I catch myself staring at strangers on the street, too, but for a different reason. I’m in awe of their ability to stay coordinated and in motion, to push a double stroller up a hill, to ride a bike, or corral a rambunctious, slobbering, joyful harem of mutts down the street. Sometimes it’s OK to look – but not to judge; instead to watch and learn the value of bodies we so often dismiss or neglect based on how they appear.

The butterfly was delivered safely. By the time she found her final resting place on a small branch in my friend’s curio cabinet, she had arched her back and stiffened into an upright pose with wings back and together, as if about to take flight again.

We all have a broken wing now and then, especially around the holidays with our hearts wide open and the weather putting us on ice. As winter creeps in, I can feel my own wings curling up, my back arching against the cold. But my clients have taught me to feed and nurture my body, to value whatever capacity I have, whenever I manage to have it. Working with them has taught me to notice what’s right with other people’s bodies instead of what’s wrong and take inspiration from that — and to keep right on moving.

Pedaling for Energy

This is the coolest thing I've seen in a very long time... a bike that generates electricity! Pedaling for an hour generates enough energy to power an entire house for a full day. It's completely clean energy, doesn't rely on anything other than human power, and supports health and wellbeing while you're at it. What a cool, amazing thing if these were available for communities around the world who don't have access to electricity, not to mention large companies and consumers in the developed world. Google and Facebook, I'm looking at you! Eco meets innovation. Love it!!

Photo via cyberwarzone.com

See this link at cyberwarzone.com for a video on how it works. :-)