January may be the month for New Year’s resolutions, but February is the month when the resolution rubber hits the reality road. Indeed, according to SWNS, an Anglo-American news agency, Feb. 1 is traditionally the day the average American quits his/her New Year’s resolutions.
If they involve getting fit, WAG is here to help with our February health issue. WAG’s wellness columnist Giovanni Roselli is, of course, always on hand to assist readers. Here he weighs in as a Precision Nutrition coach with the “meal transformation game,” in which you gradually substitute poor choices with good ones and good choices with even better ones.
Speaking of nutrition, Jeremy visits with Dina Khader, whose Khader Center is just downstairs from the new Mount Kisco home of Westfair Communications, WAG’s parent company. As Jeremy writes in his cover story, “a registered dietician and integrative nutrition consultant, trained in both Eastern and Western philosophies…Khader has helped thousands of clients with a variety of conditions, from autoimmune disorders, diabetes and heart disease to blurred vision, multiple sclerosis and cancer.”
Jeremy also samples Sweetgreen, “the fast-casual, superior-salad restaurant group founded by three college chums just two months after they graduated from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business in the summer of 2007.” The more than 140 franchises include one in Greenwich and one that opened last month at Eastchester’s Vernon Hills Shopping Center.
And Jeremy reports on a weight-loss success story, talking with Elisangela Dos Santos, the Brazilian-born, Danbury-based owner of Elisangela’s Cleaning Service, who turned a stressful situation (abusive marriage, new country, second marriage and divorce, single motherhood, a start-up) that packed on the weight into a professional and personal victory as she shed 41 pounds and counting while growing her business. (And may we say how wonderful it is to see someone who’s struggled find happiness at last.)
Sometimes, though, you want to give weight loss a little sculptural push. Debbi takes one for the team and delightedly tries Emsculpt Neo, the new fat-burning, muscle-increasing treatment that kills your fat cells. (There are some 15 physicians, medical spas and laser centers in Westchester and Fairfield counties that offer Emsculpt Neo.)
Or you can burn those calories the old-fashioned way — move, move, move. Jeremy plumbs the plush new Crush Table Tennis in Greenwich, then stays in-town to check out the pampering, guy-style, at the equally new, equally plush Cave, Paolo Lanfredi’s men’s salon/man cave/ barbershop.
When it comes to your health, charity begins at home. From eliminating dust mites to getting rid of lead-based oil paints, Cami shows us how to keep our houses, and ourselves, healthy and safe. Katie suggests adorning them with a medical collectible or two, which can go for pretty big bucks on the auction block. And Abbe considers how we can age in place, sound in mind and body, heart and soul.
Despite our best efforts, we can fall ill, particularly in the age of Covid, as Peter discovered when he interviewed Westchester County Executive George Latimer and Deputy County Executive Ken Jenkins, both of whom were vaccinated — and came down with the virus. The two credit their vaccines with sparing them from the worst Covid has to offer. In this terrific story, Peter explores what it’s like to maintain high-profile jobs and Covid protocols and considers the men’s insights into why America has struggled so mightily with Covid: Could it be because we are no longer willing to play the long game?
Peter returns with a report on the PET/CT scanner at the heart of Phelps Hospital’s new $8.4 million imaging suite. (It means patients no longer have to go elsewhere for the scans or have PET and CT scans in two different sessions.) And we learn how the new Ambulatory Surgery Unit and Endoscopy Suites at NewYork-Presbyterian Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville bring together outpatient services on one floor of the hospital in a private setting designed to be a seamless experience for patients and staff alike.
Hospitals have been on the frontlines in the war against the pandemic. Phil talks with Matthew Heineman, whose documentary “The First Wave” takes us inside Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens during the first four months of Covid-19. (It’s been short-listed for the Oscars.)
We pay tribute to our local hospitals in a special section in which their heads address a number of issues, not the least of which is the consolidation of hospitals into larger health networks that their leaders say increase the culture of care they provide to patients.
Whenever I think of hospitals, I think of an encounter at Greenwich Hospital more than 10 years ago now. My mother, Emily D. Gouveia — who spent the last 16 years of her life in a hospital bed at Greenwich Woods Rehabilitation & Health Care Center after suffering a massive stroke at age 69 — was a frequent visitor to the hospital. On one occasion, she told me she wanted to stay at least through Wednesday, because Wednesday was lobster night. When I told that to her primary care physician, James Brunetti, M.D. — a lovely man who spent many hours visiting her at the nursing home, even once fixing her TV’s remote control — he laughed and said, “Don’t worry. Mrs. Gouveia will get her lobster dinner.”
And she thoroughly enjoyed it.
A 2020 YWCA White Plains & Central Westchester Visionary Award winner and a 2018 Folio Women in Media Award Winner, Georgette Gouveia is the author of “Burying the Dead,” “Daimon: A Novel of Alexander the Great” and “Seamless Sky” (JMS Books), as well as “The Penalty for Holding,” a 2018 Lambda Literary Award finalist (JMS Books), and “Water Music” (Greenleaf Book Group). They’re part of her series of novels, “The Games Men Play,” also the name of the sports/culture blog she writes.
Last year, her short story “The Glass Door” was published by JMS and exhibited in “Together apART: Creating During COVID” at ArtsWestchester in White Plains. Her latest story, “After Hopper,” is also available from JMS Books. For more, visit thegamesmenplay.com.
