By Shannon T. Boodram

Three years ago, 20 pounds overweight and working more than 40 hours a week at her finance desk-job in Toronto, St. Vincent-born Mealica Smith did not believe she had the energy to live well nor did she have the confidence to pursue it.

“I remember not wanting to go out, not wanting to take pictures because I felt I looked terrible,” says Smith. Her story is not unlike many West Indian immigrants who come to Canada with the same eating habits but drop the active lifestyle that island life often demands.

However, three years later, the date is not the only number that has changed in Smith’s life. Thanks to Ayanna Lee-Rivears’ Socacize classes, Smith dropped 15 pounds in two years and since enlisting in the trial period of Lee-Rivears’ new healthy lifestyle program, she proudly reports dropping five more unhealthy pounds.

Socacize is an aerobic and plyomeric-based Caribbean dance workout founded in 2007 by Lee-Rivears. This fall, her revolutionary exercise program, which has been requested across the continent, is adding a new component: the Socacize Lifestyle Challenge, a six-week workout and Caribbean meal plan guaranteed to help participants lose 10 pounds in less than three months.

“A lot of women have been asking me to do a program like this,” says Lee-Rivears. “Through our meal plan, the Socacize Lifestyle Challenge teaches you how to change old bad habits when cooking Caribbean food. We are also going to be bringing in guest speakers to talk about healthy self-esteem, and just encouraging women to laugh, enjoy life and treat themselves to beauty.”

West Indian cuisine is a traditional style of cooking, thus extremely unhealthy cooking habits have been able to pass from one generation to the next with little examination. In fact, some Caribbean foods laced with harmful ingredients have been incorrectly labelled as hearty as opposed to unhealthy, including: pone, rice and peas, and fried breads.

As a result, in many West Indian households, food made with oils, seasoning salt, butter and preservatives are treated as staples rather than rarities. “You see a very high instance of high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes in the West Indian community,” says Lee-Rivears. “You can’t cook with Golden Ray Butter, live a sedentary lifestyle and expect to be healthy. The body doesn’t work that way. Cooking healthy doesn’t mean losing cultural roots. Caribbean food does not need to be made with unhealthy ingredients.”

The lack of education surrounding healthy Caribbean cooking is precisely why Smith is proud to be one of the first to try the new Socacize Lifestyle Challenge. “There just isn’t enough emphasis on healthy living in the West Indian community,” she says. “People don’t know that an avocado shake is just as satisfying but twice as rewarding as cooking up some fried plantain.”

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