Meanwhile, the MENA region is still slow to catch on to this idea of exercising to engage the mind as well in order to broaden the pursuit of a conditioned body.
It’s not enough, or beneficial, to score some rocking abs. In fact, it never has been, because exterior ideals are ultimately pointless if you don’t look after what’s keeping everything oiled and in tune behind the curtain.
This and more is the message and mission for holistic health expert Julie Rammal. The celebrity fitness trainer was in town last month for the Dubai Fitness Expo and invited me to learn more about her mysteriously-effective methods during a private consultation.
Rammal’s list of fitness services seem to have no end – from Holistic Personal Training, Posture Analysis, Yoga and Pilates for Fitness to Aromatherapy, Energy and Crystal Healing, Meditation and Sound Therapy. She is also a clinical nutritionist who has been having success healing diabetics and cancer patients through food.
Her clients – who include everyone from athletes and high-flying actors to Arab royals – also seek her out (and sometimes fly her out) for consultations in India’s ancient Ayurveda systems, detox, weight loss and anti-aging (she even has something called Anti-Aging Facial Fitness on her extensive menu…).
Rammal has a theory that has only recently started to penetrate people’s opinions about medicine. She says that very soon our continuous reliance on antibiotics and injections will see our bodies shut down altogether; that these medicines almost offer the same effect as a Band-Aid by simply covering up an issue rather than really solving its root problem. And she believes this because she has lived through it herself.
“How this all started for me? Well, I’ve had a lot of troubles in life – everything from eating disorders to very abusive relationships and more. And along the way I basically realised that medicine couldn’t help me, I had to find a new way to treat and heal myself,” shares the jetsetter, who divides her time between California and the Gulf region for her wellness brand JSport.
“I started exploring alternative medicine. I learned all these disciplines that train the external body, but after about 10 years of that I realised that it’s not enough; my clients’ bodies were speaking to me and I realised that they needed something more. In the end that’s how we got to my brand of Holistic Fitness. Our body, mind, soul and emotions are interrelated and affect one another, and so the Holistic Fitness routine teaches you to listen to your body, mind and spirit and work in tandem with it rather than against it.”
Rammal’s first consultation with you might frighten you a bit – she appears to have this unique ability to read a body internally just by looking at you; she can absorb its energy, she says. And what feedback she receives will determine how your internal and external training programme with her will take its course.
Without my speaking to her beforehand, in under a minute she was able to accurately describe my physical and emotional status; to point out body parts and organs that commonly ailed me (and still do – although now I have the combatting tools); to spot where there were blockages and misalignments, and where I was holding tension based on me performing just a few simple movements.
Based on this collected information, she could then prescribe the right routine and treatment suited to me and my issues, down to the tiniest daily habits eg. breathing techniques, foods to eat and avoid, and even the suggestion of tongue scraping in order to clean the palate to make way for receiving the right kinds of food (she seems to follow Palaeolithic and Ayurvedic diet systems).
“We’ve lost a connection to our own body language along the way – your body does talk to you via pains, aches and more, and each body part is associated with certain emotions. We seem to suppress all this information with medication,” says Rammal.
“But I’ve been treating people for a very long time and am able to pick up on these things for you. Bodies seem to sense that I am a teacher and connect with me. So I’m here to relay the message and open up a dialogue so we can get to the root causes.”
I came to her dressed and prepared for a gym session so I obviously wasn’t prepared for what I got. Needless to say, I confess I immediately wanted to go home and buy her DVD to study her further before shelling out cash for some of her less expensive Skype sessions.