Health for Life
by Bernard Greenwald

I had not been in the most excellent physical shape for some time. Corpulence, my close companion for so many years, had a tight grip around my midsection and with a glacial, creeping certainty, various physical capabilities had slipped beyond me, hardly noticed. My arms no longer seemed of sufficient length for donning my socks in the morning while most trips on foot, especially upstairs, seemed too long. Bending over in the shower was such a physical impossibility that I had to assume that the rivulets of soapy water cascading down from my Mount Rushmore of an upper body would be sufficient to cleanse the nether regions I could not reach. (Please excuse this intimate glimpse at a former life, but this article must verge on the fearlessly frank.) Backaches and painful, arthritic knees seemed to have taken up permanent residence. I had decided that I should gracefully accept my impending dotage and began to eye with greater equanimity the walkers and other accoutrements of geriatric bondage for sale near the entrance of the Red Hook Drugstore.

But my lovely wife Elena, not ready for duty at the handles of my wheelchair, had other ideas. She encouraged me to enroll in the Health for Life program at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Stockbridge, Mass. A recovering veteran of the yoga mat and various weight loss programs over the years—medically supervised and not—I resisted manfully, but I knew from her steely demeanor she was not making idle chatter. Like a great sailfish who has taken a deadly hook, first diving and then violently shaking his massive sabered head, my next gambit towards escape and open water was to email Mark Pettus MD, the resident director at the program at Kripalu and explain to him in patient, thoughtful and reasoned terms why I, as someone who had become healthy and slim so many times over the years, was quite beyond the help of yet another program. I thought that would mollify the Wife, or at least buy me some time to enjoy a few more glorious lunches at Uncle Chippie's newly opened hamburger shack.

However, I received in a day or two, a long, thoughtful email from Dr. Mark in which he said that he could understand my reservations and indeed, yet another program might not be any better than the ones I had already experienced. He responded calmly to each of my fears. This sensitivity, this implied vulnerability, this focused volubility directed specifically towards me personally, from a bona fide MD? I signed up immediately! Even someone my size can be a pushover.

I arrived in Stockbridge on a sweltering Friday night. There were 10 other participants, men and women, including a 19-year old college junior, a dealer in Native American art in his early 50s, a talented singer/songwriter in her 40s, a 73-year-old former restaurateur and two 81-year-olds. They had come from as far as Oklahoma, Baltimore, Cape Cod and western Canada. I tried to size the others up, speculating to myself what might have brought them to this desperate

situation while revealing as little about myself as I could. We greeted each other warily, hardly able to guess the depth of intimacy and compassion we would learn to share during the next two weeks.

We had to be up at 5:30 AM the next morning to be bussed to a nearby lab for an extensive series of blood tests. Sharing that travail was enough to begin to bond us into a group and we chatted with brave encouragement for one another as we endured the technician's cruel intrusions.

I have neither space here nor the scientific expertise to effectively describe everything that went into the program. It included initial hour-long private conferences with one of the two physicians, who explained the results of the blood work and outlined personal goals for each of us. We each met for an hour with the inspiring and erudite nutritionist who talked with each of us about our diet. He offered simple directions, but his extensive scientific training enabled him to explain very clearly the reasoning behind them. We each had a skeleton/body mass evaluation that showed with mortifying graphic clarity the result of my habitual consuming of those hamburgers, pizzas and other delicacies and their effect on my health and physique. As a person who avoids full-length mirrors, it was a revelation I could not ignore.

We met Kripalu's wonderful executive chef, who talked about the foods we would be eating, all fresh and organic, whole grains with mostly plant-based protein, and why they were chosen. There were also occasional organic chicken, fish and eggs. I was unused to many of the foods served, but always found lots to eat that was delicious and satisfying; in contrast to my usual daily ravenous cravings, I soon found I was eating much less and was never hungry between meals. We drank lots of fresh water and consumed fresh fruit, especially berries and nuts. Meals left me energized instead of dazed and logy.

A typical day began at 6:30am with an hour of yoga tailored to beginners. It was usually over by the time most participants were fully awake. I fell in love with our beautiful instructor, who taught us how to lavish attention on the mechanics of our bodies, gently exhorting us with poetic words in her sweet voice. The breakfast was always introduced in our own little dining room by a member of the kitchen staff, who explained what we were being served.

After each meal, we went for a walk on the beautiful Kripalu campus which overlooks Lake Mackinac and is surrounded by the Berkshires. The site was once the home of Andrew Carnegie, Shadowbrook. The mansion burnt many decades ago but the landscaping is intact and carefully maintained. We were often accompanied by staff athletic specialists, our staff and the docs. We were taught how to monitor our heart rates as our physical capabilities increased and were introduced to the use of walking poles. Some of us rode bikes to save our knees.

After our post-meal walks we returned to our own classroom for a lecture or other activity. These included nutrition lectures, and hands-on cooking classes. We had a field trip to the Berkshire Co-op accompanied by our nutritionist to learn to chose our own foods. We had medical lectures from the docs, an expert in diet supplements, and even yoga dance. I hate to dance, but even the great sailfish could not wriggle out of it, begging for special dispensation due to grievous knee pain, and found myself grinning and exhilarated the whole time. I learned that yoga is about doing only what you are capable of, although the benefits are real and dramatic nonetheless. I learned that even in a yoga class, one is in a private place; the other practitioners are far too preoccupied with their own bodies to even notice what others in the class could or could not do. That's up to you and your teacher. Most evenings after dinner we were taught focused meditation because so many of us live much of our lives in thrall to the fight-or-flee syndrome which is stress-inducing and damaging.

We were all given time for subsequent visits with our docs, with life coaches and to have massages or to work out personally tailored yoga practices. A special boon to me was an hour with a brilliant positional therapist who explained the cause of and how to relieve the pain in my knees and shoulders and the numbness in my right hand. The cures were not instantaneous, but I have been following his directions with increasing relief.

There was lots of camaraderie and joking and friendships formed between unlikely individuals. One of my buddies was Bob, who lived across the hall and was in his 80s. We both like to tell and listen to jokes. His thick Scots brogue revealed his origins, although he had spent almost 20 years as a histologist in Kenya and another 20 or so doing the same kind of work in Berkshire County. He was a champion piper and showed up in full woolen highland regalia for the talent show on the hot, humid night at the end of the program.

We all had follow-up visits with our docs and coaches towards the end of the last week. It was made clear they would be available to us indefinitely via telephone or in person for consultation and that their bond with us would continue when the program had ended. We will all return to Kripalu within the next six months for a week, according to our own schedules, to be re-evaluated and advised. There was such esprit among our group of 11 by the end many of us will try to return together.

Here is the spectacularly precious gift I and many others received: I thought I was simply too old to enjoy many of the activities I had once pursued and was willing to relinquish them. The program showed me that my life is not winding down... incapacity is not an unavoidable coefficient of aging... and there is still much time for me to do things and be with the people I love. Is it possible to put a value on such a gift?