Yesterday, a friend sent us a touching blog called “Caroline’s Cancer: Comedy, Class, and Chemo” which shares “the highlights and hijinks of a 28-year-old woman’s battle with breast cancer.” Here’s an excerpt from a recent entry, It Will Grow Back:
I knew I was going to lose my hair. I was cautioned that after the second treatment is when the significant hair loss begins, so I was not surprised. Traumatized? Absolutely. But like the good little Girl Scout I was as a child, I am prepared with a collection of adorable head scarves and a wig. Once it started coming out in handfuls I handed my mother a pair of scissors and said one word: “Chop.” She obliged, I cried, and ten seconds later it was over.
Now that I looked like my one-year-old nephew cut my hair, the next step was for the full on buzz cut. I called up my hair stylist, Anthony, and asked him if he would do the honors. He said, “It’s a date!” I reminded him that I was bringing my brothers to chaperone our “date,” which thrilled him because he cuts their hair regularly as well and finds them almost as hilarious as I do.
My older brothers are quite a sight to look at. They are nearly 6’6”, built like linebackers, and are identical twins. I happen to think they are the two funniest people in the world. I knew shaving my head was going to be upsetting, but if anyone could make me laugh during this experience, it would be Frankie and Chris.
This Sunday, the Y is hosting The Partnership Symposium: Conquering Breast Cancer with Avon Foundation Breast Cancer Crusade, The Breast Cancer Research Foundation and the Greater New York City Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Medical research, health studies and public information oftentimes can provide women with conflicting information that can be overwhelming, confusing and rapidly changing. This unprecedented Partnership Symposium will help women gain the knowledge and power to make informed healthcare decisions and lifestyle choices about breast cancer prevention and disease management. This event provides a wonderful way to get your questions answered by health care professionals each chosen for their expertise in their noted field and to discover why the experts are saying breast cancer is conquerable!
Here’s an interesting tidbit from the bio of American composer and Broadway legend Richard Rodgers (pictured):
Richard Charles Rodgers was born in New York City on June 28, 1902. His father was Dr. William Abrahams Rodgers, a prominent physician who served as the M.D. for the gymnasium of the 92nd Street Y (then called the YMHA) at the turn of the century. Young Richard went to public school in New York (P.S. 166, later renamed in his honor in 2003), as well as Columbia University and the Manhattan School of Music (now The Juilliard School).
This place oozes (ozones? sorry, bad joke) with history.
Martin Charnin, the 1977 Tony Award winner for Best Direction of a Musical (Annie) and last lyricist to have worked with Richard Rodgers on Broadway, honors him this weekend to kick off a new season of the Y’s Lyrics & Lyricists Series.
If you’re in the mood for singing in the shower after a workout, the Y’s gym is still staffed with some of the friendliest and most experienced health professionals in New York. Don’t miss the May Center Fitness Open House on Thursday.
It’s that time of year when New Year resolutions are still ripe and haven’t yet turned into a bowl of 7-layer nacho dip on Super Bowl Sunday. We’d make another rib-eye about couch potatoes and sour cream but you get the point. Get it in gear and come to the Y’s free May Center Fitness Open House on Thursday, January 8 from 5pm to 10pm. Here’s what’s on tap:
Drop-in Innovative, Fitness Classes
Spinning®
Yoga
The Masala Bhangra Workout™
Intro to Pilates
Wheel of Fitness Prizes
Free personal training, runners’ analysis, nutrition counseling, mini-massages and more!
Fitness Clinic Featuring the Latest Breakthoughs in Personal Training
I’m going to take a moment to deviate from sale talk because good health and living well is priceless. You know how much I love Oz Garcia and his enthusiasm for looking great, staying healthy, feeling young and looking great, looking great, and looking great.
Oz’s celeb clients include, Hilary Swank, Victoria Secret model Karolina Kurkova, Project Runway’s Heidi Klum, bold named rap stars, Russian Oligarchs and yours truly. You can get a piece of his wisdom for a small fraction of what the stars pay by attending his symposium at the 92nd Street Y on Tuesday, Nov 11th at 6:30pm.
There Oz will be discussing how you can redesign your path to youthful vitality. His talk will examine the benefits of power foods, the next generation of nutraceuticals, energy and mood boosters and brain function enhancers. He will explain the latest developments in weight management breakthroughs, immune strengthening tools and progressive cosmetic treatments to promote a more youthful appearance and increase vitality. All that for just $18!
The Forward recently profiled David Vyorst who took a running jump shot at researching the Jewish connection to basketball in his new documentary film, The First Basket. Here’s some history on “Jew ball” - an affectionate term to describe the emphasis on teamwork, crisp passing and defense.
This style of play originated earlier in the 20th century, when Jewish players competed on both the amateur and semiprofessional levels. Teams were sponsored by settlement houses that wanted to Americanize immigrants, and by labor unions and Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring branches. Players on the most famous of these teams, the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, or SPHAs, wore Hebrew letters and Stars of David on their uniforms. What’s more, after many SPHAs games, the court was turned into a dance floor where young Jews could socialize and look for husbands and wives. Some of the figures mentioned in “The First Basket” — Hall of Famer Dolph Schayes and current NBA Commissioner David Stern, both of whom were interviewed in the film — are well known. Others are less familiar to casual fans. Barney Sedran, for instance, was an early 20th-century player who, at 5 feet 4 inches, is believed to be the shortest player in the Basketball Hall of Fame. During his heyday in the 1910s and ’20s, Sedran played in as many as three games a day, often for different teams.
The 92nd Street Y has a long and storied tradition of fostering Jewish sports programs, specifically basketball, going back over 100 years. Naturally, the Y was asked to supply archival material for the documentary and in addition to the photograph above, there are more below that were shared. No surprise, basketball is still very popular at the Y with programs for adults, teens and kids, but the only devotion required is on the court.
Teresa Weatherspoon is a familiar face on the basketball courts at the 92nd Street Y. She is an original member of the WNBA and the author of Teresa Weatherspoon’s Basketball for Girls, which contains advice on improving basketball skills for young girls.
In advance of Memorial Day, we’re feeling a little summery so here’s Teresa Weatherspoon’s Slow Simmered BBQ Chicken from the 92nd Street Y Cookbook.
“I enjoy this Sunday country meal with mashed potatoes and gravy, or macaroni and cheese, corn on the cob, cornbread and a green vegetable.”
—Teresa Weatherspoon
1⁄2 to 1 chicken, cut up in sectional pieces
1 large Vidalia onion
1-2 medium peppers, red and green
1 bottle of your favorite barbecue sauce
Garlic powder, rosemary and seasoned salt to taste
1 tbsp. honey or mustard
Season cut chicken pieces with you favorite spices, which can include a basic seasoning salt, garlic powder, pepper and a tad of rosemary. Season underneath the skin, as well as on top. Cut a combination of green peppers and onions and cover the bottom of a large cooking pan. Lay the chicken pieces on top of the onions and peppers completely covering the area. Add a 1⁄2 cup of water to the pan (not covering the chicken) and then place the lid on, making sure it is a snug fit. Simmer over a medium to low flame until the chicken is nice and tender and thoroughly cooked, about 1 hour. Take your favorite barbeque sauce, homemade or otherwise and add whatever spices you desire—honey/Dijon mustard, pineapple, hot peppers, honey, etc. Mix the ingredients together in a bowl and pour the sauce over the cooked chicken, making sure all pieces are coated. Let simmer for another five minutes. Serve as is, or put it on the outdoor grill or in the oven under the broiler, until it gets a nice crisp coating.
Don’t Miss:The All American BBQ on Jun 5 at the Y with Danny Meyer of Union Square Café who founded the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party; Food Network star Bobby Flay, the chef/owner of seven restaurants, including New York City’s Mesa Grill; and Chris Lilly, the winner of 10 world barbecue competitions and vice president of Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q, the “best barbeque in Alabama.”
Dr. Atul Gawande: Complex Medical Care, For Better or Worse
Atul Gawande, MD, a general surgeon at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and School of Public Health, wrote an exhaustive essay about intensive care for his widely referenced Annals of Medicine column in The New Yorker this past December.
For every drowned and pulseless child rescued by intensive care, there are many more who don’t make it—and not just because their bodies are too far gone. Machines break down; a team can’t get moving fast enough; a simple step is forgotten. Such cases don’t get written up in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, but they are the norm. Intensive-care medicine has become the art of managing extreme complexity—and a test of whether such complexity can, in fact, be humanly mastered.
On any given day in the United States, some ninety thousand people are in intensive care. Over a year, an estimated five million Americans will be, and over a normal lifetime nearly all of us will come to know the glassed bay of an I.C.U. from the inside. Wide swaths of medicine now depend on the lifesupport systems that I.C.U.s provide: care for premature infants; victims of trauma, strokes, and heart attacks; patients who have had surgery on their brain, heart, lungs, or major blood vessels. Critical care has become an increasingly large portion of what hospitals do. Fifty years ago, I.C.U.s barely existed. Today, in my hospital, a hundred and fifty-five of our almost seven hundred patients are, as I write this, in intensive care. The average stay of an I.C.U. patient is four days, and the survival rate is eighty-six per cent. Going into an I.C.U., being put on a mechanical ventilator, having tubes and wires run into and out of you, is not a sentence of death. But the days will be the most precarious of your life.
On April 24, Gawande comes to the Y to discuss his bestselling new book, BETTER: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance. With riveting accounts of medical failure and triumph, he provides keen insight into how success is achieved in the complex and risk-filled medical profession.
The “elderblogging" trend (bloggers over 50) we mentioned last year shows no signs of slowing down, just like the age group itself. The recent launch of Wowowow.com, Women on the Web, has upped the ante with its impressive list of co-founders—Liz Smith, Lesley Stahl, Peggy Noonan, Mary Wells and Joni Evans—getting boldface name contributors like Candice Bergen, Joan Juliet Buck, Whoopi Goldberg, Marlo Thomas, Lily Tomlin, Joan Cooney, Judith Martin, Sheila Nevins, Julia Reed and Jane Wagner.
This independent spirit is the backbone of the 92nd Street Y’s Baby Boomer programs. On April 6, we are hosting our annual day-long symposium, Healthy, Wealthy & Wise: Life After 50, with renowned professionals in the medical, lifestyle and financial planning fields. Watch the video above for a teaser (boomer sex, anyone?) and get more information here.
I am a gym rat with a capital “R”, so when I told my uncle I was going to Crunch while in NY he insisted (more like demanded) I join him at the 92nd Street Y. “You’ve never seen a gym like this”, he touted as we walked over (Sheez, I’ve been in LA for so long I’ve forgotten about walking. In the street. Without being arrested for soliciting.) And, no, I certainly hadn’t. My uncle, a retired, handball playing man about town, LOVES this place. He gave me the grand tour, even though I was thinking, “ok, just show me the free weights please!” I saw the auditorium, a few musicians rehearsing, the b-ball court, the locker rooms, the snack bar, the elevators, the lecture series board, oh, and the stairs. Finally we made it to the check in desk. My uncle forgot his guest passes. “No prob”, the nice man at the desk said after learning that I was from LA (where he was from) and we have a couple friends in common. I dumped my things (Whaddya need all that crap for? as my uncle put it) in the lovely locker room that could easily put SportsClub LA to shame. People were friendly. No one tried to kick me off the treadmill after a half hour. They didn’t try to run you over in locker room. Some even struck up a conversation over joint primping in the mirror, and it wasn’t just a clever ruse to get more mirror space. I liked it. I will be back.
May Center Fitness Open House Party is Tuesday, January 8. It’s a free event open to everyone that features classes, fitness assessments, games and prizes including jetBlue tickets. Lots of new winter/spring classes and programs are available for both May Center members and non-members.
Whether you are trying to shed some extra winter weight or get in shape for a hiking trip to the Rockies, interval training can be an effective method to help you reach your fitness goals. It is a great way to raise energy output, which increases the number of calories expended during an exercise session. Depending on your fitness level and your physician’s recommendations, there are several ways to interval train.
One way is to increase your pace on the treadmill for up to 30 seconds, then follow up with a recovery period at a less intense pace. Repeat this cycle of increases and decreases throughout your cardio session. This will gradually increase your fitness level as your body gets used to greater demands. Another method involves alternating your cardio exercises with your strength training exercises. You will exhaust both your aerobic (with oxygen) and anaerobic (without oxygen) energy systems in shorter, more manageable bursts. Doing this may also reduce the boredom of long, monotonous exercise sessions.
A workout might include 10 minutes on the treadmill followed by dumbbell rows and squats then another cardio interval on the rowing machine. Not only will you gain lean body mass and build endurance, you may even save some time by combining the two different types of exercise. Using cardio as a recovery for your weight exercises decreases the amount of time you need to spend on your workout, making your trips to the gym more manageable. Don’t forget that you still have to make time for an adequate warm-up and cool-down and that everyone’s exercise routines vary based on individual health and goals.
Interval training is an effective way to increase endurance and control weight, while making workouts more challenging and interesting. To experience a customized, supervised interval training workout, speak to any of our certified trainers about a private session.
May Center Fitness Open House Party is Tuesday, January 8. It’s a free event open to everyone that features classes, fitness assessments, games and prizes including jetBlue tickets. Lots of new winter/spring classes and programs are available for both May Center members and non-members.
Whether you’re contemplating going wheat-free for the holidays for mandatory health reasons or not, now is the time to plan ahead and investigate what you are putting in your body. Many people are unaware of their personal allergies and food intolerances. Even worse, a recent study shows a disturbing trend among college students who ignore known problems. Reported on WebMD yesterday:
A new study of college students shows that about half of those reporting a history of food allergies continue to eat foods that they are allergic to. Among those who reported physician-diagnosed food allergy, 42% said they will still eat food they know contains an allergen.
When students were asked why take the risk of eating food containing an allergen, researchers were given answers such as: “I thought I could eat around it,” “The food item did not contain enough to cause a reaction,” “I knew it could be treated,” or “I’ve outgrown my allergy, says Matthew Greenhawt, MD, a pediatrician and fellow in the division of allergy & clinical immunology at UMHS.
Just as worrisome, the students were unprepared for an emergency. Only 22% of students who reported a history of allergic reaction said they possessed a self-injectable device, such as an EpiPen or Twinject, to treat a severe reaction. About 28% of those who have one say they always carry it with them. Of the 55 students reporting a severe reaction to a food allergen in the past, 27 of them did not have the device, which delivers a quick dose of medication to counteract a potentially fatal allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis.
This Sunday, get a crash course on the latest information firsthand from Dr. Peter Green, director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University, and a panel of leading nutrition and immunology experts at the Y.
Here’s (almost) everything you need to satisfy your appetite for knowledge about leading addiction expert Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health.
Winners of the 2007 Quill Awards—"the only book awards to pair a populist sensibility with Hollywood-style glitz [and] the first literary prizes to reflect the tastes of all the groups that matter most in publishing: readers, booksellers and librarians"—were recently announced on WNBC and The Today Show by Al Roker and Ann Curry. The top honor in the Health/Self-Improvement category goes to Dr. Jerome Groopman (above) for How Doctors Think. As the Dina and Raphael Recanati Chair of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of experimental medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, he brings his wealth of doctor knowledge to the 92nd Street Y on October 16.
Other 2007 Quill winners and finalists who have been at the Y or are coming this season:
The Nest Baby is a newish website from the makers of The Knot for new parents and parents-to-be, and their “New York Mom” blogger has very high praise for our Polliwogs swim class for babies:
My other favorite class is the Polliwogs Swimming Class at the 92nd Street Y. We all know how important it is for our children to learn how to swim and how daunting those first steps into the pool can be. Nobody does it better than the Y. Yes, the pool is cold but it is a small price to pay for a positive first swim experience. For instructors, I love Terri, she is sweet and calm and reassuring. She can handle babies who were born fish and the most frightened little ones. The requirements are: babies must be in the rubber swim pants (they sell at the Y shop) and and everyone (moms too) must wear a swim cap. The locker rooms are clean and family friendly. It’s also nice to be able to stop into the cafe after your class and have a snack—you will both have worked up an appetite. 1395 Lexington Avenue (at 92nd Street) 212.415.5500.
Read more here. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. The next Polliwogs class starts July 29.
Yesterday, a friend sent us a touching blog called 
Here’s an interesting tidbit from the bio of American composer and Broadway legend Richard Rodgers (pictured):
Don’t take our word for it, 
“Interval Training: An Effective Way to Shape Up for Spring” by Eleanor Day of the 
