- May 2, 2024
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When Mirabai Holland coaches a client through rehabilitation after hip replacement surgery, she can speak from experience.
The Longboat-based health coach had hip replacement surgery on both hips last year, but she’s made an impressive recovery and is leading a new wellness program to help other patients do the same.
“By three months, I was able to walk without the walker. I bypassed the cane. And by (four months) I said, ‘I think I can teach (again),’” explained Holland, who teaches fitness classes at Bayfront Park in addition to an array of other area health initiatives.
The nationally known wellness expert recently partnered with Dr. Edward Stolarski, a local orthopedic surgeon to develop the SRQ Ortho Club wellness program, which Holland said is a more holistic approach to preparing patients for total hip and knee replacement surgery, offering one-on-one coaching for nutrition and pre- and post-rehabilitation.
“I know very specifically what (patients) should do to get ready (for surgery) because I've gone through it,” said Holland. “But I also know the science of what they need to do.”
In the course of the program’s roughly six months, Holland has already coached 20 patients via phone and Zoom. As Holland explained, a hip or knee replacement surgery is the perfect opportunity for patients to make healthy lifestyle changes and build better nutrition and exercise habits.
Helping people build healthier lifestyles has been the focus of Holland’s long and influential career in wellness. Coincidentally, she found her way to the fitness industry thanks in part to a knee surgery patient living in Sarasota — her father.
Holland was still a dancer and choreographer in 1979 when her father had knee surgery and grew frustrated by his lack of progress in rehabilitation. So he fired his physical therapist and turned to his daughter for help.
Holland was reluctant at first, but eventually she brought to bear her understanding of movement and the body, learned through dance. In just three week’s Holland’s father was feeling less pain — and frustration, she said.
That experience helped alter Holland’s course. She went back to school and earned a degree in exercise physiology from Columbia University in New York.
She created a corporate fitness program in the 1980s, for which some of her first clients were staff members of Forbes at the then newly built magazine headquarters’ gym on 5th Avenue in New York.
“It was a cardio and strength class,” said Holland. “I went there and I probably looked like a little dancer. You know, I had my leotard on.”
The class was a hit though and Holland continued to teach at Forbes for four years and at several other NYC companies, she said.
“I had this nice little gig going on, and it just got me into a whole different headspace,” she said.
That nice little gig helped launch Holland’s career as a wellness consultant, taking her to Indonesia to get a luxury destination spa gym up and running. Then as an international consultant Holland worked in France, Portugal and Germany. And during her fitness travels, she met her future husband, F. Sebastian Marino. Holland was a judge at an aerobics competition and Marino was producing the footage for ESPN.
But it was back in the U.S. where the next chapter of her career took off.
Holland began as a consultant at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan and became its director of fitness and wellness. During the course of her 16-year career there, the class offerings grew to more than 100 classes, and Holland developed a dizzying array of wellness and fitness programs, including ones specifically for osteoporosis prevention, cancer patients and heart patients.
Holland and Marino put a number of workouts on video, starting with a four-DVD set.
“It was for someone that hated to exercise and was never exposed (to it) before. And so we had this program where they could start with just five minutes and build up to 30 minutes and then followed with longer videos that were aimed at the three major components of fitness — cardio, strength and flexibility,” said Holland.
The success of the series of exercise videos was part of the reason Holland left the Y in 2010. QVC was interested in selling the exercise videos. The couple moved to Longboat, which became a perfect background for shooting wellness videos.
Once Marino and Holland were living in Longboat, it seemed natural to find opportunities to bring Holland’s health expertise to the local community.
In addition to the fitness classes she teaches locally, Holland runs a private health coaching practice and has worked with Manatee County since 2014 to offer employees health coaching sessions to foster healthy lifestyle habits. The first five are free, said Holland. After that county workers can get 15 more coaching sessions for a small co-pay.
Recently, Holland brought a new weight-management program, Lose to Win, to the area. The eight-week program is designed to help participants develop sustainable, healthy eating habits. Holland said she plans to offer the course via live Zoom sessions several times this year to Sarasota residents.
“It's really about your sleep, it's really about your stress. It's really about activity. Food, yes, but also your environment, what's going on.”
While Holland has been focused on fitness for much of her career, she got her start in the creative arts and never abandoned that passion, expressing herself via photography, ink drawings, painting and poetry — examples of which can be viewed at www.mirabaihollandart.com.
“So many people say, ‘Well, just be retired.’ You know, I wouldn't even know what to do with myself. This is my retirement.”
She has at least one more idea for her “non-retirement.” One that would merge her passion for coaching with her artistic side.
“We're thinking about maybe developing a creativity course for people. I think everybody has that light in them for creativity, but it doesn't often get fostered because a lot of things get in the way.”
