Over the past 8 years, I’ve learned many things from Joe and he is near and dear to my heart. This year, to encourage PRIER and its partners to become all they are meant to be, Joe has announced that we plan to fully embrace 5S. I’ve attended many training sessions that have attempted to teach me 5S and I have even worked at places other than PRIER that implemented 5S. However, I have always just ducked my head into my accounting books and tried to avoid the entire thing (You are talking about a girl who has so many dust bunnies under her bed, I practically think of as pets. You don’t even have to feed them, they just grow by themselves!). So you might think that, “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” was the first thought I had when I heard about our new goal, however you would be wrong. I certainly know it won’t be easy, but I embrace the fact that we are striving to be all that we are meant to be. I can hardly wait for my new found habits to flow over into my personal life.
What makes me so sure that I can succeed at this? Well, Joe Poskin is not the only Joe that has a profound impact on my life. In 2009, I lost my precious mother to heart disease. In 2010, I lost my younger brother to the same disease. As an adult, I have always been very active and seemingly very healthy. Sure I have a heart murmur, but so do many other healthy people. I’ve always been a hearty eater, but all of my numbers were on the high end of normal. At my annual wellness exam, my doctor and I decided to just run a few tests to rule out any signs that I might be headed down the same path. A simple CIMT test revealed that I have Atherosclerosis, premature hardening of the arteries. This diagnosis spurred me into action. Ok, not immediate action. My doctor and I set a goal to get all of my numbers down to the low range of normal to see if we could reverse some of the damage I had done to my veins. I tried on my own for a year or so and only managed to lose and gain the same 20 pounds.
Then, Joseph Pilates came into my life. I’d seen people do Pilates on TV shoes and the Reformer machines really intrigued me. I was certain that if I worked out on one of those, I’d look like those girls on TV. There was even a studio in my neighborhood, I just didn’t have the guts to put on stretchy cloths and walk in. While on a cruise with my father, I decided to give it a whirl. I tried out every exercise class they offered and really feel in love with Pilates. Although Joseph Pilates died when I was eight, I’m pretty sure he’s been one of the most influential men in my life. Born a sickly child, Joseph believed that the “modern” life-style, poor posture and inefficient breathing were the roots of poor health. He transformed his own life and now his methods have transformed mine.
I am a social creature, so I just love being able to work out in my neighborhood with my girlfriends every day. I began doing Pilates in 2012 and one year later, I had lost 70 pounds! I was, and am hooked. One of the things that I’ve learned at the studio is that if you push your muscles until they fail, you actually transform them. You know that shaking you get in your muscles just before you can’t push them any farther? That pain is caused by the little tears you’ve made in the muscles. We’ve all done something we don’t usually do, only to have sore muscles the next day. When those tears heal, your muscles will be stronger than they were before. That gives a whole to meaning to the term RIPPED!
As PRIER goes through the steps of transforming into a 5S company, I’m sure we are all going to have some “sore muscles”. We will all be saying, “Say It Ain’t So, Joe”! But when the soreness goes away, we will all be transformed.
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