Severna Park High teacher loses 184 pounds via yoga program - The Capi...

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Severna Park High teacher loses 184 pounds via yoga program
By WENDI WINTERS, For The Capital
Published April 29, 2008

Fourteen months ago, Arthur Boorman, 47, needed two canes and knee and back braces to walk. He gained weight after an operation to fix the knee injuries he got during his 14-year Army career. Later his knees swelled up with a post-operative infection. When a doctor suggested amputation, Mr. Boorman stubbornly refused to continue his therapy, probably damaging his limbs further. Then his eating habits got him into a deeper quandary. In the military he weighed 180 pounds but by the mid-2000s, he tipped the scales at 340 pounds. Today, the Brooklyn Park resident weighs a wiry, muscular 156 pounds and is able to sprint. He credits much of his weight loss success to an off-beat program called Yoga for Regular Guys, developed by a former pro-wrestler, and adherence to a rigorous diet. His oldest son, Warren, 20, a college student, and sometimes his other sons, Eric, 17, and John, 14, documented their father's spectacular downsizing during a 10-month period on video. Warren edited it to rock music, and posted it on YouTube, at www.youtube.com in late March. To view the video, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=suTPns5cy_Q.
Wendi Winters - For The Capital

Arthur Boorman, 47, dropped a lot of weight - 184 pounds - through a new form of power yoga and diet. Mr. Boorman is flanked by his sons, Eric, 17, at left, and Warren, 20.

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Severna Park High teacher loses 184 pounds via yoga program - The Capi...

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The taping took place two or three times a week while he did his yoga. In the video, he first appears as a very pudgy man who is unsteady on his feet without his crutches. As time goes by, he becomes the incredible shrinking man. Mr. Boorman's wife, Vicki, a teacher's assistant at Brooklyn Park Middle School, isn't seen on video. Mr. Boorman was, and still is, working a schedule that would wear out most people. He said he had a 70-hour workweek. Challenged to add up the hours, he pulled out a printout of his schedule and added it up. It was 83 hours. For eight years, he has been a full-time special education instructor at Severna Park High School. He is the assistant principal at the Night School at Glen Burnie High School, and used to be a teacher at the Night School. With the county schools, he is also a home-hospital teacher, currently working about 15 hours a week with three students who are not able to attend their regular school. He also teaches YRG - Yoga for Regular Guys - at Big Vanilla Athletic Club in Arnold twice a week and at Charm City Fitness in Baltimore once a week. "I like to keep busy," he says. Severna Park High parent Maureen Rohrs, said Mr. Boorman helped her son, Chris, with math. Chris has Asberger's Syndrome, which is related to autism, she said. She described Mr. Boorman as determined and "truly amazing," just as the video shows. "It takes someone gifted to reach into the souls of kids like my son," she said. "Mr. Boorman allowed Chris to have lunch with him every day for over two years because he knew Chris was barely surviving the social pressures of high school." To relieve some of his pain, Mr. Boorman tried different kinds of yoga. He found a Web page that took him to www.yrgworkout.com, and from that page he ordered some of former wrestler Diamond Dallas Page's DVDs promoting Yoga for Regular Guys. Mr. Page has created three fitness DVDs and has written a book on his Yoga for Regular Guys program. YRG is a "ramped-up power yoga," Mr. Boorman said. Mr. Boorman filled out what he thought was a form, but later got a blistering phone lecture from Mr. Page himself.

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Severna Park High teacher loses 184 pounds via yoga program - The Capi...

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"He said to me, 'You're gonna die! You're gonna leave your wife a widow and your kids without a dad!' He chewed me out," recalled Mr. Boorman. The former wrestler offered to send a customized eating plan. He made Mr. Boorman promise to follow it. For breakfast he now eats a liquid oatmeal. Lunch consists of fruit or vegetable juice and some raw nuts. For supper, he eats steamed vegetables or salad, gluten-free pasta and, because he is now a vegetarian, a meat replacement instead of meat. He doesn't count calories. "Food is the fuel that allows me to enjoy things in life," said Mr. Boorman, commenting on the social customs that have developed around eating. "We worship food. I had to let that go." "There's more fruits in the house," moaned Eric. "The fridge is packed with natural foods," added Warren. "My sons have to be untrained from my years of setting a bad example," Mr. Boorman said. In an online message, Mr. Page has noted: "After a few weeks of doing YRG, Arthur sent me an e-mail with an update that ended with the goal he had set for himself: I will walk again! Even I, the guy they call 'Positively Page' wondered if it was possible." "I want to pass this forward. I became my disability," Mr. Boorman said. "If I'm not a good father, I'm not a good man. I'm here with my sons now. My oldest son still can't ride a bicycle because I couldn't get on a bike. Now, he's going to learn."
- No Jumps-

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