Body & Soul

Stacy Notaras Murphy • August 17, 2015

Dear Stacy,

Last week my boyfriend (7 months, we are both in our 40s) said he thought it best if we didn’t date anymore. It was his idea, but I was inching toward the same conclusion myself (for different reasons). We mutually agreed to stay friends. Here’s the thing that’s confusing to me: not much has changed since we had that discussion.

He still sends me email and text messages a few times a day. He still calls me every night to discuss things that are happening in our lives. He still wants me to attend a dinner party with his friends next week. I have a business dinner next month at a restaurant that’s a favorite of his and, although I had not invited him (no one is bringing significant others), he volunteered that he’d like to go with me.

I am happy to remain friends with him. But this frequency of communication is something that, for me, is indicative of a romantic relationship. I don’t communicate this much with anyone else in my life, not my closest friends, not my family. I don’t dislike communicating with him and I do want to remain friends, but I feel like this is making it difficult for me to move on. Any suggestions on how I can address this with him without damaging the friendship?

– Confused

Dear Confused:

While anyone reading this would be impressed by your maturity in this situation — I really am! — I think there seems to be a myth of how “mature” people always stay friends with Exes. We fast-track from Ex to Pal, and everyone’s supposed to be okay with it. But the truth is that a breakup is a break. It has to be, otherwise, as you said, we can’t heal and move on. Instead, we linger and we suppose and we what-if ourselves to the point of distraction.

Your Pal’s behavior tells us that you fulfill much of what he needs in his life, but, for whatever reason, he is unable to commit fully. You said you were heading toward ending the relationship yourself. I think you might need to have that breakup convo regardless of what happened last week. Set your own terms, so you don’t wind up feeling used.

You worry about “damaging the friendship,” but the friendship is brand new (and, I am even going to say, not entirely based in reality). It’s unrealistic that you would want to hear about his day every night without enjoying the real intimacy that kind of connection can create. Instead, you get to be the author of what a safe friendship is. But please, give yourself some time away from the dating and the friending; that’s where the perspective and healing happens. I understand there may not be massive wounds around this breakup, but even abrasions need air and time to heal. Then you will feel more confident when you find New Boyfriend and you want to tell Pal all about him.

Stacy Notaras Murphy (www.stacymurphyLPC.com) is a licensed professional counselor and certified Imago Relationship therapist practicing in Georgetown. This column is meant for entertainment only and should not be considered a substitute for professional counseling. Send your confidential question to stacymurphyLPC@gmail.com.

Georgetowner • August 7, 2015

With longer days and warmer weather, getting outside to run the stairs can be a great change of pace. Here are four steps to spare your joints while getting the best results:

1. Warm up. People skip this step because it doesn’t “feel” important, but nothing is further from the truth. Five to 10 minutes of dynamic warm-up will give you a safer and more effective workout. Nothing derails fitness like an injury.

2. Train smart. For fat loss, knee health and improved cardiovascular fitness, continuously running up and down stairs is actually not the best choice. This continuous work pace is inefficient for fat loss and fitness, and running down is very stressful on your knees and feet. Using the stairs for interval training, however, will spare your joints and boost results.

Example: Find a length of stairs you can sprint up in about 30 seconds. Walk down slowly and catch your breath at the bottom. Try 10 repetitions at this pace. If you push the intensity, this will be plenty. When you start slowing down to about 40 seconds, you either need longer rest breaks or your body is done for the day. To progress, you can add reps, going up to 15 or 20, cover more ground in the same 30-second time frame or take shorter breaks.

3. Focus on technique and breathing. To run faster and safer, focus on three things: pushing the ground away harder, getting your knees and toes up and moving your arms faster. The faster you move your arms, the faster you’ll be able to move your legs. Breathe in through your nose and breathe out through your mouth at a steady pace. While it may feel like panting gives you energy, the opposite is true — it’s actually an energy-expensive (exhausting) way to breathe.

4. Cool down. Going straight from an intense workout to a sitting state places unnecessary stress on your cardiovascular system. This is because your heart needs the assistance of your leg muscles pumping to get the extra blood from your legs back “home.” Sitting makes your leg muscles dormant and places your body weight on your blood vessels, which makes the blood’s return very stressful. Cooling down is simple: just walk around for five minutes or until your heart slows down to its near-resting rate.

A best-selling author and fitness expert, Josef Brandenburg owns True 180 Fitness in Georgetown. Information about his 14-Day Personal Training Experience may be found at true180.fitness.

Georgetowner • August 1, 2015

Dear Stacy:

I am a 20-something professional woman and have a hard time making female friends. I work in an office with a strong female happy-hour culture and am always invited to these events, but find myself annoyed by how the women interact with each other. There is nothing interesting about their conversations and everyone seems so negative about their lives (and about other people’s lives: gossipy). I just don’t want to engage. But I know it keeps me on the outside and I actually think some of the women are pretty great when I spend time with them one-on-one. Is there something I can do to make this kind of conversation more palatable?

—Not in the In Crowd

Dear In Crowd:

My first reaction to your letter is, why do you My first reaction to your letter is: Why do you want to spend time with these gossipy women? But when I step back, I actually think I get it. There is gossip in any environment. That doesn’t mean these potential friends are proverbial “gossips.” It just may be the only way they know how to connect. You are part of a workplace that includes a clique of people who are building and deepening their friendships — why wouldn’t you want to be included?

So now we turn to how you define an interesting conversation and being negative. If you tell me these women are great in one-on-one interactions, I have to wonder if what you see from their Happy-Hour Selves is simply the classic, female process of connecting through complaint. Women bond over negative conversation. We’ve been conditioned to believe that the opposite — being positive self-advocates — is bragging and shameful. I’m not saying this is a good thing about women today, but it’s a thing. (Just watch basically all of the most recent season of “Inside Amy Schumer.”)

You don’t have to participate, but maybe you could empathize with the way they are seeking to get close to one another. If you hang out more, you might feel comfortable enough to change the subject or — gasp — point out the inconsistencies when Associate Director Susanna calls herself “stupid” or Media Manager Meredith says she doesn’t know anything about anything. You might just break through to the real female friendships you desire.

Stacy Notaras Murphy (www.stacymurphyLPC.com) is a licensed professional counselor and certified Imago Relationship therapist practicing in Georgetown. This column is meant for entertainment only, and should not be considered a substitute for professional counseling. Send your confidential question to stacymurphyLPC@gmail.com.

Georgetowner • July 22, 2015

Dear Stacy:
My husband is very critical of me and our kids. He has very high standards about how we are supposed to look and act in public because he has a high-profile job. I understand that his rules are more to manage his own anxieties, but it is very hard to live up to them. I am particularly concerned about our kids, who are about to be teenagers. They love their dad so much, but can be very hurt by his criticisms. What can I do to help them through this? I know you are going to say that I need to work with him to stop the behavior, but I just think this is who he is. My hope it to help preserve his relationship with his kids.
– Happy Family

Dear Happy:
You’re right, I would have started with a suggestion to get thee to a couples therapist ASAP. But I hear you. Eliminating the root behavior may feel like too much at this point. And I agree, your kids must be your priority — but not necessarily to help Husband preserve his relationship with them. That’s his problem. You need to focus on your children because they need someone to put their needs first (Hint: That person is YOU).

Your kids are looking at you and Husband for validation of the people they’re growing into being. If Husband abuses his position, managing his own anxieties by criticizing his children, that’s going to have a deeper impact than just ruining his relationship with them. The scary part is how much his negativity could affect their own, internal view of themselves. Speaking as someone who untangles those webs for a living, I can tell you that it’s no joke. Speaking as someone with little kids at home, I also can tell you that it’s a massive responsibility (and I fail, just like you do).

All parents need to remember that our kids are little, overworked videographers. Their brains are taking in a stream of life’s dos and don’ts on a 24-hour basis. Parents are the stars of this show — at least for a little while — and we are modeling what relationships “should” look like. Kids replicate what they see. We can feel overwhelmed by this. Or we can see it as an opportunity to perform to the best of our ability and then, when we inevitably fall short, to model how to apologize and make amends. Husband may not be aware of his role of a lifetime, but you are, and your part is all the more vital because your partner isn’t following the script. Make the most of your lines while the kids are still paying attention.

Stacy Notaras Murphy (www.stacymurphyLPC.com) is a licensed professional counselor and certified Imago Relationship therapist practicing in Georgetown. This column is meant for entertainment only and should not be considered a substitute for professional counseling. Send your confidential question to stacymurphyLPC@gmail.com.

Stacy Notaras Murphy • July 16, 2015

Dear Stacy: I was recently diagnosed with a highly treatable form of cancer. Up until this diagnosis, my life had been focused on building my career and finding the right person to be with and marry. I have been dating a guy for six months. We are both 28 years old and have dated around a lot, so our decision to be exclusive was big. We don’t live together, but I think that may be around the corner. The short story is that I am terrified this is going to scare him off. I have to have a short course of chemo, and then be cautious for the rest of my life, but my doctors are very optimistic. My concern is that this might feel like too much for him, as his family doesn’t deal with illness well. I’m scared he’s going to run when he learns about my diagnosis. Thank you for your advice.
– The Big C

Dear C: I am so sorry that you are facing this diagnosis, but your letter conveys a strong air of confidence in your doctors and in your prognosis. I have no doubt that you can deliver that same calm when you tell Boyfriend what’s going on. You didn’t ask me if you should tell him at all, but I can imagine you’re considering whether you can hide this whole thing from him. Don’t try. Please. It won’t work and you would only be delaying the inevitable. Couples face hard things. If you marry him, you are going to have to trust him to love you even when you are not at your very best. That test is going to happen regardless of how much you plot against it, so why not welcome it and be curious about how you both will respond?

If you’re thinking, “No way, I want to put this off as long as possible,” then I’d get interested in the roots of your discomfort. Are you not allowed to look vulnerable to other people? Are you, yourself, afraid of sick people? What kind of relationship are you really imagining with him? Are you the kind of girlfriend/wife who sleeps with her makeup on so he never sees you without it? That’s a recipe for a bad partnership (not to mention how bad it is for your skin). Couplehood is healing because it gives us the opportunity to watch someone else love us completely, even the parts we hate — which teaches us to love ourselves. Give him the chance to do that for you, so you can do it for him when it’s his turn.

Stacy Notaras Murphy (www.stacymurphyLPC. com) is a licensed professional counselor and certified Imago Relationship therapist practicing in Georgetown. This column is meant for entertainment only and should not be considered a substitute for professional counseling. Send your confidential question to stacymurphyLPC@gmail.com.

Josef Brandenburg •

Have you ever wondered what difference it makes if you a skip a workout — or a week or even a month’s worth? The facts are surprising and motivating:

Day 2: Your mood and your energy head south because your body’s endorphin and adrenalin levels have also started to drop. These chemicals are natural appetite suppressants, so your appetite begins to increase.

Day 3: Your heart and lungs are five percent less fit. Your muscles are noticeably stiffer. Day 7: Your metabolism has declined some 10 percent, matching the shrinkage in your ability to use oxygen. Your body needs oxygen to burn calories. Energy levels are even lower than on Day 2.

Day 14: Your body has begun “negative recomposition,” the process of simultaneously losing muscle and gaining fat. By now, your heart and lungs are 15 percent less fit.

Day 21: Your metabolism is down sharply because your body’s ability to use oxygen has declined by 20 percent. Along with making weight and fat gain more likely, this also lowers your energy levels.

Day 25: You’ve lost 10 to 15 percent of your muscle mass. If the scale reads the same, this means that you’ve replaced your muscle with an equal weight of fat (and fat occupies more space than muscle).

Day 29: Your strength levels have dropped by up to 30 percent.

As you can see, a lot can change in just a month. Here’s a simple yet powerful strategy to help you be more consistent with your fitness: Be specific. Instead of saying, “I’ll work out three times this week,” try, “I’m going to work out at my studio on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 10 a.m.” Research shows that doing it this way makes you 220 percent more likely to follow through. You’ve given your brain a specific target and made a decision instead of putting it off.

Putting off making a decision, such as when and where you will exercise, induces something called “decision fatigue,” which depletes your willpower and makes exercise far more difficult than it needs to be.

A best-selling author and fitness expert with 16 years of experience, Josef Brandenburg owns The Body You Want club in Georgetown. Information about his 14-Day Personal Training Experience may be found at TheBodyYouWant.com.

Chuck Baldwin • July 9, 2015

This is the first summer the biomass of fruit flies in our kitchen and bathrooms seemed to outweigh the human family in our house. After my ultra-clean sister-in-law said she just waits until winter and they all go away, I took to Web to find out how to collect and kill them, right now.

Using mostly vinegar-and-fruit-based recipes, along with some physical trickery, I’ve figured out the more effective ways to undo summer’s reputation as the season of the never-leaving guests.

Probably the easiest trap-and-kill method is to mix some apple-cider vinegar with three drops of dish soap in a wide-mouthed jar. The idea is that the soap breaks the surface tension in the vinegar. The beer bugs land on the irresistible vinegar, sink and drown. Yay!

Another Internet-favorite is to combine vinegar with very ripe fruit — the stuff that seemed to birth the fruit flies in the first place — in a jar and put an inverted cone of paper in the top of a taller jar. Sort of like a minnow trap, the irritating scourges of humanity fly down the cone, through a dime-sized hole in the end, to the delectable mixture at the bottom — and can’t find their way out. My problem with this method is that it doesn’t kill them. OK, I added some dish soap as well, so any hapless horrors that miss the fruit and land in the vinegar, sink and meet their maker. That made me feel better.

A variation on that method is to tightly rubber-band plastic wrap to the top of the jar, poke a small hole in it and hope for the same results. I tried this version initially as I couldn’t easily figure how to secure a wrapped cone of paper, either to itself or the jar. And I like the idea of tossing the wrapped jar in the trash with flies inside, dead or alive.
Simplest is often best. Besides, who wants to lose to something slightly larger than a flea, trying to outsmart it? The fruit and vinegar, with hole-punched plastic wrap, trapped and killed one fly. The paper cone (I finally used one of the leftover shaved-ice cones from a birthday party, and snipped the tip off) netted a dozen or so, some drowned and some still trying to figure a way out.

But the four horsemen of the fruit-fly apocalypse are three drops of dish soap and some apple-cider vinegar, about an inch in a short, wide jelly jar. In 45 minutes one jar reaped destruction on about three dozen souls. (This method is not for Buddhists — they should use the paper cone, without the soap, and release them into the wild.) I now have these stationed in critical flight zones in the kitchen, and one in each bathroom. Soon, I will be rid of the pests, and eventually the vinegar traps.

Why did I write this article instead of letting you Google it yourself? I’ve been living with these beasts for over two weeks now and didn’t look it up until today — after attacking them, mano a mano, with a fly-swatter, and even spraying dog-tick and flea spray in places that were not the dog, to little effect. I thought I’d save you the wait. Enjoy summer.

Charlene Louis • June 25, 2015

So here’s the good news: the weather is warming up, and we are showing more skin. The bad news is: it’s warming up and we are showing more skin.

All of this past winter’s dry air has likely left you with dull skin. Your skin may not look as fresh as you recall from last summer, and as we get older the effect is more severe.

Taking care of our skin should be a bigger priority. Just about everything that you do to your skin during the course of your lifetime will leave some lasting impression, but the internal aging process is something that happens naturally. Wrinkles, thinning, sagging and dryness are all part of this process. Exposure to the sun definitely ages your skin. But, there is help.
As Dr. Tina B. West, M.D., of the West Institute, says, “Think Maintenance Instead of Surgery.™”

West, founder of the West Institute for Skin, Laser and Body Contouring, is a board certified dermatologist. Since 1996, she has been a leading expert in non-invasive and minimally invasive procedures for facial rejuvenation and maintenance.

“If you ignore your skin, you’re going to suffer the consequences of having to do a major overhaul down the road – whether to address cosmetic issues like sagging, wrinkles and brown spots, or more importantly, skin cancers that may require extensive surgery to remove,” says West.

West is an expert in minimally invasive techniques to maintain the health and appearance of skin of the face and body in women and men. The doctor uses the most advanced techniques in fillers, Botox, and laser surgery to achieve and maintain youthful, healthy skin for life.

As we get older, Elastin and collagen, the proteins that keep your skin strong and elastic, are produced more slowly. And you can’t stop these changes from happening. The West Institute offers services that allow for the face to stimulate the body to produce new collagen, thereby replacing volume and restoring contours to a fuller, more youthful appearance.
Sculptra is a facial injectable that produces subtle results over time. It is long-lasting, but not a quick fix, and requires three treatments, on average, over a few months. Sculptra is not a wrinkle-filler, but rather a volumizer. It is not used directly in lines and folds, but is placed in multiple areas of the face in an attempt to address the volume loss that leads to their appearance. Sculptra helps the body replace the lost collagen that diminishes as we age.

That dreaded fuzz, endearingly known as “peach fuzz,” vellus hair makes applying makeup difficult and is a sure telltale of one’s age. Vellus hair is tough to remove permanently, but there are a few things you can do to temporarily eliminate its appearance. The West Institute offers dermaplaning, which helps reveal radiant, healthier skin – and removes the dreaded fuzz!

Though only temporary, it will leave your skin glowing, without any redness or irritation. Dermaplaning is a quick, non-invasive, painless procedure in which surface dead skin cells and vellus hairs are manually scraped away. Dermaplaning requires absolutely no recovery time. It increases cellular turnover, smoothes and softens skin, and provides immediate results.

To learn more about other services offered by the West Institute, visit [www.westskinlaser.com](http://westskinlaser.com/). The West Institute; 5530 Wisconsin Ave., Suite 925, Chevy Chase, Md.

**Here are some other helpful tips to make sure you don’t show your age this summer:**

**Exfoliate, scrub and rub**

Tip: After you exfoliate, make sure to follow up with a hydrating body cream to seal in moisture.

**Make H2O your friend**

Tip: Make sure to drink 8-ounce glasses of plain, filtered water every day to help maintain critical moisture balance of the body and skin. Keep in mind, if you drink caffeinated beverages, you will need to increase you water intake!

Carolyn Landes • June 22, 2015

Just south of Dupont Circle, Nava Health and Vitality Center’s new 1800 M St. NW location opened May 15. It’s the third of Nava’s integrative medical centers, joining those currently open in Chevy Chase and Columbia, Maryland. The location’s official grandopening celebration will be held June 17.

Established in 2014, Nava uses a unique integrative approach to health and wellness. All under one roof, each Nava location seeks to treat the individual as a whole, not as a group of symptoms. The new M Street center offers a soothing, modern and tranquil environment for patrons, designed in neutral tones that have an immediate calming effect upon crossing the threshold.

“By bringing our integrative approach to health to new audiences within the D.C. area, we’re offering alternative practices that most people haven’t been exposed to before. And we do it in concert with their physician,” said Bernie Dancel, founder of Nava Health and Vitality Center and CEO of parent company Ascend One Corp.

“In looking for new retail locations, we want to be in markets that have a high population of health-conscious individuals who know that wellness is more than just the status quo. It’s about understanding your body and feeling your best at any age,” he said.

Nava’s medical protocol draws from Eastern, Western and alternative methods, with a foundation grounded in science and developed from years of clinical experience and proven principles. Service offerings include sports performance and recovery therapies and treating the effects of aging — all of which work holistically to help resolve client issues such as weight gain, insomnia, fatigue, anxiety, chronic pain, digestive issues and low sex drive.

“We believe people should know exactly what’s going on with their bodies and be provided with a personalized roadmap to feeling their best,” said Dancel. “We know what we’re doing works, and now our clients are seeing it too.”

It would appear that Dancel is correct, as the brand plans to add a fourth area location in Rockville, Maryland, later this summer. Nava is exploring additional locations in the D.C., Maryland and Virginia area, along with an expansion into the Florida market.
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