BEAUTY OP-ED | Sick of sick care? Join the army...

THOSE OF you who don't live in the US and aren't privvy to the wonder that is most expensive yet least efficient sick health care system IN THE INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD will have a hard time understanding this post.

Friends in Spain never were able to grasp the plot -- and this is the country of Almodovar, people -- of Denzel movie John Q about a health insurance company denying payment for an organ transplant (because that is what insurance companies do best in the US, deny claims until the patient pays up (or as it's call on the inside, "retire an account", for which employees are awarded).

My eye doctor cannot get health insurance (and he's a doctor serving the health care system... see the irony here?) because he once had a small tumor, since removed. No matter and no matter that he'd been clear for over a decade. Nope. He's blacklisted because something beyond his control had happened. Once.

Living in England, I never feared bankruptcy because of a medical emergency.

In the US, medical expenses are the NUMBER ONE reason for personal bankruptcy.

I read a lot about health, the healthcare industry and preventative medicine. Sadly, US *healthcare* (I am loathe to use that term) focuses almost zero energy on preventative care (where would the profits be in that?).

Do you want to know the surprising group that's starting to invest time and energy into preventative care?

The US Military.

On Monday Dr. Mercola (yes, a regular and unapologetic read) linked to this 132-page document from Military Medicine -- the journal of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States -- Total Force Fitness for the 21st Century: A New Paradigm.

Maybe the military couldn't afford their health insurance premiums anymore... nah, we kid, they actually get healthcare via the government, like many of the uneducated masses on Medicaid who oppose so-called socialist (read: goverment-led) Obamacare.

This Total Force Fitness seems pretty special because it DOESN'T recommend sundry treatments, surgeries and pills to take care of a health issue after you already have it. It recommends a lifestyle that will prevent those problems in the first place. I know, hardly believable, right? Although, when you think about it, the military needs healthy soldiers in the field (might we suggest getting rid of the fast food joints in places like Baghdad's green zone, then? The army's no place for a KFC-Taco Bell).

AMSUS (the American Medical Surgeons of the US) have even recommended things like Spiritual Fitness, a phrase that probably makes the C-suite at Big Pharma and United Healthcare alike dry heave into its trash bins.

Granted the document opens with an ominous statement about our state of sustained conflict and the mission to preserve the health of those in harm's way. BUT aren't most Americans in harm's way every time they visit the grocery store, eat at Olive Garden or sit through a daily 2-hour commute? There are plenty of people out there, including experts like Kelly Brownell, who believe so. If, of course, harm is considered to be bad health/obesity/diabetes et all caused by our jackass national lifestyle.

There really can be a takeaway if you can tuck away any misgivings you have about the military, much like a drag queen does her junk before a show.

And this isn't in any way meant to belittle the military forces' and their daily hardships. BUT we the laypeople at home have our own daily battle to wage (so maybe we are in a state of sustained conflict) against our ever-expanding waistlines and medical bills. Maybe it's time we got military about it?

• Download Total Force Fitness
• Dr. Mercola piece featuring Total Force Fitness

[Official end of diatribe]

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Raising the barre with The Dailey Method: The cure for one reformed exercise addict

Exercise in the morning before you drink you're coffee. You'll feel better for it. I swear.

What brings on this burst of earnest fitness fever? Many things, culminating in a nagging internal voice and that slow, steady secretary spread creeping across my backside. Of late, the voice has become a cacophony of shouts and I've decided not to capitulate to an office chair-shaped ass. Really, there is something I can do about it. How did I let it get to this -- voices in my head and a square bum?

Let me give you a bit of background... growing up I was an athlete. Training for several hours a day in a variety of sports until field hockey took hold, waking me up at 6am for 3-mile rollerblades to 4-hour practices. High school glory followed (yes, we were glorious. The record speaks for itself and false modesty would be just as ugly here)... state champs and all that. Lean, mean hockey machines, we were. Thus followed what we had been primed for -- university-level hockey (after a summer as a lifeguard, natch), a huge disappointment for me.

At uni, we were met by M, head raisin (and coach at times), what she most resembled, standing at 5-foot nothing, sun parched and withered to a soft, wrinkly finish from lack of food (the fate of life-long anorexia + binge exercise)) and sunscreen. She had a strange way about her. Mentally, she was your twisted drill sergeant, toying with your mind as if it were a mouse caught between her feline paws; escape was futile. Physically, the team was a bit, well, paunchy and indolent. 5 minutes of jogging pre-practice did not a workout make. Where were the hours spent sprinting? The drills? The not standing around like toddlers in centerfield staring at the clouds? Gone, it was, with the high school glory. I began exercising -- aerobics, running, sprinting, lifting, swimming... whatever -- on my own time, becoming a certified personal trainer for a giggle (no way I was doing that professionally, what with my student debt load. I chose journalism instead. Joke's on me). I digress, but it is purposeful: to show just how much of an exercise rat I had been MY ENTIRE LIFE, to my core... up to moving to London in 2004, when I promptly sat down and haven't risen since.

In an instant, the thing that had defined me throughout my life had disappeared as quickly as my toned abs did. Bam! A few good odd jobs (in front of a computer) were followed by a stint in a dysfunctional work relationship (sat in front of a laptop) for a slatternly, self-styled web guru. Whoosh! Fast forward two years and still glued to that 15-inch screen in the start-up era.

Guess where I am right now? Ja, ja. Same place.

Exercise and I have an intimate, entangled history, even though I've been skillfully and successfully giving it the cold shoulder for years, giving my laptop undivided attention instead. Sure, there were and are micro fits and starts of fitness in my life. I did climb Kilimanjaro (although that was a one off)... usually, it's 30 minutes on the recumbent bicycle checking my emails or a set of sit-ups while watching House once every few weeks. Or, if I'm feeling particularly sporty, a rogue and breathless dash to a Pilates studio, arriving 5 minutes after the start of class. None of it habit-forming, like a good addictive substance is meant to be.

The short of my almost phobia for fitness it is that I was burnt out, plain and simple, after so many years of forcing it upon myself. I still cringe at the thought of going for a jog and think I'll go crazy 3 minutes into the weights. The sheer inanity of such repetitious behaviour just terrorises me. I cannot glance in the direction of a treadmill anymore without narrowed eyes.

However, thought of re-entering the world of the non-flabulous has again crossed my mind.

How many women out there must workout every day, loathing every single minute of it but doing it out of obligation or fear of what will happen if they, god forbid, don't!? I did it for years and the backlash was an all-out boycott of the thing I used to do daily, without fail... the single thing that defined me, the thing I was best at.

What could bring on such a stirring after so many years of vehement abstinence? No doubt the years off the wagon helped. Looking back, it was the sort of thing someone like me had to do cold turkey. My relationship with sports and exercise was simply all-encompassing and, frankly, it was always going to be a messy breakup. There was no asking exercise to be friends, happily if somewhat cautiously co-existing in the same realm. No trial separation. I fled and didn't call, didn't leave a note, hoping it would just forget me... Several years later after my first trip to The Dailey Method studio in Chicago's Bucktown and I think we can find a friendly middle ground on which to co-exist, this time without the guilt and self-flagellation.

The Dailey Method is one of those barre classes that's become popular in America and probably at places like Pineapple Studios in Covent Garden, London. It's a hybrid of ballet, Pilates and yoga. After meeting with the Chicago branch owner today, getting a feel for the place and watching a class, I know it's exactly the sort of gentle yet heart-pumping, mind-engaging, muscle-quivering exercise I'm ready to do. It's a different kettle of fish from the sprinting, kicking, punching, passing of yore. Going back to that's just not an option; I'm truly burnt out on it forever. But starting this review with The Dailey Method, I've come to realise that I'm not burnt out on exercise all together -- it's just certain forms of exercise my body will resist with all its force forever more. Thank god we figured that out now and not 40 pounds and many inches down the road!

And with that, I start my month-long trial of The Dailey Method. Two days a week, for an hour each day, I'll make my way to the studio to pulse, plié and pump my way back into an exercise habit. It takes approximately 21 days to form a habit, so I should be good to go -- steady with resolve -- after 30.

The Dailey Method, 1714 North Damen Avenue, Second Floor, Chicago, IL 60622 (773.904.8913).

Watch this space for the rest of the review series for The Dailey Method. PS: They're also opening a small spa. More news on that soon!

Brow-nanza by RAMY on Thursday

Econ-chic (the new eco-chic) women of the world, listen up... BeautyNewsNYC has announced that eyebrow guru RAMY is offering discounted brow shaping himself on Thursday nights this summer in his Manhattan studio. Economise on two levels: save money on the initial treatment, which will be so killer that you can pluck strays for weeks longer between treatments so you get better, less frequent treatments meaning you save money and look better. Bonus!

Brow-nanza on Thursdays
RAMYspa
39 East 31st Street (Btwn. Madison/Park)
(212) 684-9500

About RAMY: He's a celebrity eyebrow artist who's eponymous range of makeup has been featured everywhere from beauty bible Allure to the Today Show. Clients include: Marisa Tomei, Naomi Watts, Halle Berry, Naomi Campbell, Pia Getty, Carrie-Anne Moss, Meredith Viera, Barbara Walters, Debra Messing and Renee Zellweger.