Balance Your Life, Balance the Scale

October 1, 2012
As a guide to healthy weight loss and maintenance, Curves fitness center representative and wellness coach Tuma-Young has persuasive credentials: she says she has worn every size from 4 to 44, lost and kept off more than 100 pounds, and reversed a borderline diabetes diagnosis. But her first book is not really about food; there are no calorie counts and few menus or recipes other than suggestions for simple, “thirty-second” meals, shopping lists, and alternatives to unhealthy choices. Instead, she offers an intensive course in personal development where—using worksheets, charts, quizzes, journaling, visualizations, etc.—readers can assess their core values, bodies, definitions of success, deepest needs, and underlying causes of frustrations, the ultimate goal being to “release” weight by releasing unhealthy habits, energy-sapping obligations, limiting beliefs, and unproductive activities. Tuma-Young, who started with Curves in 2001 as a franchise owner, asks readers to set the bar high on self-actualization, accept no excuses, and become the “inspiristas” they are meant to be. Her high-octane B.A.L.A.N.C.E. program bases tools and techniques on each letter; for instance, B stands for “brain dumping,” a process of clearing the mind and brainstorming, as well as breathing, and C stands for confronting fears and connecting with nurturing people and experiences. She includes tricks to get exercise-phobes (she counts herself one) to a gym or class; tips on reorganizing a too-busy schedule; action plans for a comprehensive clean-out of mind, body, spirit, and home; and methods (e.g., S.M.A.R.T. goals) for setting challenging yet reachable ambitions. Tuma-Young’s upbeat cheerleading, and her ideas for stress relief (dancing, laughing, and smiling) and increased life-satisfaction (having faith and a support network) temper her congenially demanding and rigorously motivating tone, while success stories from people who have taken her Curves workshop bring this vision of balance within reach.