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MIMIFLEISCHMANAGE 60

LOS ANGELES IIExercise studio owner

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REINVENTYOUR

MIDDLE

'BELLIES

little grandmother who Iused to watch struggling topull on a girdle.

What happen when youbecome thick in that po t-menopausal way i that youlook less elegant and lessinteresting, and eyeballsslide right past you. You stopgetting the special thingsin life that come with beinga feminine woman. I experi-enced that as a loss.

TUMMY TURNAROUND

In the summer of 2002, Istayed in San Francisco withmy sister Burr. he hadopened a fitness studio calledthe Bar Method, and I tookclas e there six days a week.The exercises are ballet-ba ed, with lots of standingmoves at a bar-tucks andplies and crunch .You workuntil your legs are shaking,your mu cle are completelyfatigued and you are at yourabsolute edge.

Now, I've always loveddance- I'd tried jazz, balletand modern-but I alwaysdropped out after ju t a fewclasses. I'm a klutz whenit comes to following cho-reography. But the move-ments in a Bar Method clasare so teeny and preci e Iwas able to follow them eas-ily. I felt as graceful a aballerina. Plus, the cia es

Think you'll never get rid of your supersize tummy? Each of these fiveCalifornia women succeeded in reshaping her shape. by Shelley Levitt

require such intense focusthey're like a meditation-but with an endorphin rush.

When I arrived inSan Francisco, I weighed 165pounds; by the time I lefteight weeks later, I was downto 150.Back in Los Angeles,I opened up a Bar Methodstudio of my own in Febru-ary 2003 and a second onetwo years after that Now Iteach three time a week,and I try to take classes onthe days I'm not teaching.

GUT CHECK

My waist i 33 inches, whichis still not so teeny, but mystomach ha definition. Iplan to stay thi way; a lot oflender young women take

Bar Method cia. ses, includ-ing celebrities like ZooeyDeschanel, Drew Barrymoreand Denise Richards, andI need to have credibilitywhen I teach. I go into thatclassroom as a 60-year-old,but a 60-year-old who feelsreally good about herselfand who has reconnectedwith her femininity.»

MIDRIFF HISTORY

My wai t was never tiny. Myolder sister, Burr, was theuper-slim one, and when I

wanted to borrow clothefrom her as a teenager she'dyell, "No, you'll tretch themout!" Still, the size of mywaist never got in the wayof my feeling attractive.

At 29, I got married for thefir t time, to the late anti-war activist Jerry Rubin, andwe tarted a business host-ing parties at nightclubs. Inever exerci ed; instead Iwore high heels and drank atclubs like Studio 54, thePalladium, Limelight andVisage. That wa my job:stiletto and cocktails.

BELLY FLOP

When I hit my fifties andwent through menopau e,I started putting on pounds.My waist was no longer justwide; now I was chunky inthe middle, like my plump

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ROBERTARICKSAGE 57

GRANADA HILLS IISystems analyst

"at ad~ t"f' '" e~.BECOMING A DANCER AGAIN

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DANCEWORK-OUTS »A WEEKADDED

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celebrity diets. They talkedabout a Los Angele fooddelivery service called Nu-triFit. I thought, nothingventured, nothing gained-or, in my ca e, no poundslost-so I decided to call.I ended up chatting withJackie Keller, NutriFit'sowner (and the author ofBody After Baby), who re-ally got what I was goingthrough. I went over mybudget, and it turned outthat between buying gro-eerie that I ended up toss-ing out because I'd been tootired to cook and the moneyI shelled out on last-minutefast food, I was spending al-most as much as three mealsa day from NutriFit wouldco t, about $40 at the time.I loved the food-especiallya tamale pie made withground turkey-and I lostweight at a slow but steadyclip of two to three poundsa month.

After six months onNutriFit, I'd hit a plateau. Iweighed 160 pounds andmy weight wasn't budging. Iknew ifI wanted to get pastthat plateau I needed to ex-ercise. I've always hatedgyms, 0 I went back to myfirst passion: dance. I'd gointo my den, turn on somemusic and do the warm-up moves I did as a dancerand later as a dance teacher.They're called isolation exer-cises, and they're pretty rig-orous. You tand still whileyou work only certain mus-cles, like moving the ribcage from ide to side andback to back, and the amewith the hips. It's a greatway to slim the waist. Af-ter two to three months ofdoing the routine for anhour three times a week, Iwas down to 135pounds.

MIDRIFF HISTORYI had been dancing from theage of four. I went to NewYork's School of PerformingArts-the Fame school-and graduated with honors.I continued taking profes-sional dance clas es until Iwas 35, when I got com-pletely wrapped up in work.Still, up until age 50 I main-tained a typical dancer's body:tall and slender, with longarms and legs.

BELLY FLOPSix years ago I took a newjob in an office where peo-ple find many occasionsto bring in tin ofhome-made macaroni and chee .e,fudge brownie and thefixings for ice cream sun-daes. My coworker jokethat everyone gains thefreshman 15 pounds thefir t year they work here.I weighed 140 when Istarted, and four yearlater I woke up and I was173pounds and wearing size18 pants with expandablewaistlines. My awakeningcame when I walkedinto Wal-Mart one day andsomeone collecting dona-tion a ked me, "Are youpregnant?" I looked at himand said, "No, I'm just fat."

TUMMY TURNAROUND

One night around holidaytime 2007, the E! chan-nel showed a egment on

These days I keep asmall fridge under my desk,stocked with fruit, nutsand nonfat yogurt, and that'swhat I have as a snack, evenwhen the rest of my officeis celebrating with cakeand cookies. And, happily,I'm not struggling. It was areal surpri e to me, but af-ter a few months of eatingwholesome, healthy food,most other foods tasted toosweet, too alty or too fatty.My craving for sugary foodsis completely gone.

GUT CHECK

Dance made uch a bigchange in my life that Iwanted to hare it with otherwomen, so I've begunteaching a weekly adult jazzclas . My body is as tonedas it was when I was 18.Be tof all, I've reconnectedwith a part of me that waslost. Once a dancer alwaysa dancer-l now know thatthi is who I am. ~

For "after" shots of thesefive success stories, go tomore.com/walst,

132 more.com I FRDRU RY 2010