Need motivation to improve your health? Meet four LGBT Georgians who faced challenges and triumphed.
Thriving with HIV: Jim Shumake
‘This is the best I’ve ever felt’
Jim Shumake, 32, learned he was HIV positive in 2007. Although he knew, as a gay man, he was more at risk than most, he didn’t believe it could happen to him.
“At first you don’t believe it, that it would ever happen to you,” he said.
But Shumake, who is a client of AID Gwinnett/Ric Crawford Clinic, said when he came to grips with the news, he chose to complete a “full 180” on his life and he’s now “100 percent healthy.”
Discrimination doesn’t just stand in the way of civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. In some cases, it may actually contribute to making us sick.
“I think that we can legitimately call homophobia a health hazard,” said Linda Ellis, executive director of the Health Initiative, the new Atlanta-based organization that aims to be “Georgia’s voice for LGBTQ health.”
“Whether it is because of actual discrimination expressed by an uncaring provider or the internalized dread of what might happen in the vulnerable setting of a doctor’s exam room, LGBT individuals are still less likely to seek healthcare,” she said.
Sure, you don’t need new clothes, shoes, or cool gadgets to work out or improve your health. But shopping for something new and fun can sometimes be just the motivation you need to push forward with your fitness plan.
Here are few items we like to get you workout ready.
Nike+ running shoes and app
Shoes: $90 and up | Sensor: $19 | www.nikeplus.com
Nicholas Jacobs, 27, started teaching fitness classes when he was a teenager, following in his mother’s footsteps.
“My mom was an instructor for the YMCA and when I was young I started taking classes and then teaching classes myself when I got older,” he said.
Jacobs moved to Atlanta in 2004 and is originally from the “cornfields of Ohio” — or the small town of Lancaster, Ohio. Fitness has always played a major role in his life and led him to teach classes at LA Fitness. Now Jacobs is ready to take his career one step further.
Although he works fulltime as an account executive for Creative Loafing, he is launching his new side business, Sweat Atlanta. The new business kicks off with a free boot camp Saturday, April 16, at the Regal Hollywood 24 on I-85. While this may be an odd location, Jacobs, who is gay, says there is plenty of parking as well as green space. The boot camp will also include movie ticket giveaways for participants.
Bowl, climb, jog or run tonight with Atlanta's LGBT fitness groups
There is a folder, tucked within a folder, buried deep in my computer files. I shouldn’t be looking at its contents, yet I can’t bring myself to delete it altogether. It is labeled MARCUS, and inside the folder is my disease.
During my years of crystal meth addiction I went by the name of Marcus, at least to dealers and tricks and fellow addicts. It helped me determine who was calling my cell phone – those calling for Mark or Marcus usually had very different agendas – and Marcus even became an alternate persona as my drug addiction progressed.
When partying as Marcus, I felt confident and aloof. I took awful chances. I never met a strobe light I didn’t like or a box on a dance floor I wouldn’t jump on. A steroid-crazed gym regimen and the dehydration of drug abuse transformed my body into the low fat, pumped up gay ideal.
New Year’s resolutions often focus on health, especially weight loss, but keeping them beyond the beginning of the year can be hard. In our Health & Fitness section, you’ll find stories from real people who are working to maintain a fit weight, plus learn about ways to improve your health — both physical and mental — that go far beyond a number on a scale.
Founded in 1996, the Atlanta Lesbian Health Initiative is the only non-profit organization in the Southeast that is exclusively committed to lesbians, their partners and families. Originally called the Atlanta Lesbian Cancer Initiative, the agency has expanded its focus. It now features support groups for issues like cancer, domestic violence and acting as a caregiver for a sick or elderly loved one; Weight Watchers; an online health assessment; a directory of LGBT supportive physicians; the Lesbian Health Fund; and more.
“The Health Initiative has broadened our focus through the years in response to our community’s shifting needs,” says ALHI Executive Director Linda Ellis. “One important addition has been our Health Fund, through which we can now help cover basic screenings and healthcare for uninsured members of Atlanta’s LGBT community.”
The Weight Watchers support group meets every Saturday.
I woke up before noon on a Saturday, rolled off my couch and changed into a sweatshirt and some old, baggy workout pants I found from years ago buried deep in my closet.
And then I drove through a few icy streets to Urban Body Studios on Ponce de Leon Place for a beginners’ yoga class. Urban Body, owned by Rad Slough, who is gay, is one of the top studios in the city. This was my first ever yoga class and the first time I’ve done anything physical like this in perhaps five years.
I’ve wanted to try yoga for several years now, especially after noting the dynamic work it seems to have done for Madonna’s body. And everyone who takes yoga says it has changed their life.
Donald Creagh, general manager at LA Fitness in Ansley Mall, says making sure a person follows through with a fitness plan starts in the head.
• Make a decision that this is going to be a lifestyle change, not a temporary diet. “Don’t put a deadline on yourself. That takes pressure off,” Creagh says.
• Think about what you are going to eat tomorrow today, he says. That way you can purchase the proper food to prepare instead of rushing to a fast food joint.