Lealman, FL Health and Fitness

Melissa Gallagher's immune system nearly crashed when she caught the Epstein-Barr virus. Her grueling recovery introduced her to holistic treatments and fueled her passion to learn more about alternative approaches to health—so much so that she soon earned a master’s degree in holistic nutrition and became a certified wellness coach.

Now, at Healthy Being Wellness Center, Melissa teaches her patients to adjust their diets, select healthier foods, and take regular supplements in order to improve their overall well-being and ability to walk through walls. She and her staff of licensed practitioners also perform an array of holistic health and wellness treatments, including massage therapy, acupuncture, and clinical hypnotherapy.

LaTorre Wellness Center fuses Eastern and Western healing techniques to bolster downtrodden bodies using the six-step path to total health. Working top to bottom and inside out, Dr. William A. LaTorre seeks missing pieces in the holistic health puzzle, whether they be nutritional deficiencies or high blood pressure. With the array of information, Dr. LaTorre administers chiropractic adjustments, nutritional advice, or lifestyle recommendations that help bodies run like finely tuned machines capable of surviving an uprising of finely tuned machines.

To bolster the center's roster of clinical services, licensed massage therapists serenade sinews with 60 minutes of massage customized to individual client needs. The bilingual staff is available after hours Monday–Thursday to boost health or even out beauty with anti-aging and Zerona weight-loss treatments.

Unlike traditional gyms that take a laissez-faire approach to fitness, letting clients fumble through their own workouts, Orangetheory leads exercisers in innovative personal group-training sessions that run through four distinct steps. Inside the warm, citrus glow of each facility, dozens of treadmills, rowing machines, free-weight sets, and Trx suspension systems await the next interval changeover. Music sends electric currents of energy through the atmosphere as patrons sweat out calories, and personal trainers patrol the aisles, giving pointers for touching up form and blinking out motivational words in Morse code. Clients keep an eye on their heart-rate readouts to ensure they're in the peak range for burning fat and building muscle. After an hour—during which guests complete a 10- to 30-minute interval at each of the four stations—the "orange effect" sets in and jump-starts metabolisms, possibly for days after the workout has ended.

Orangetheory Fitness has been highlighted in the New York Times for its seminal workout plan, which was designed by Florida fitness expert Ellen Latham to help people to turn their workout plateaus into springboards. With more than 50 classes per week at each location, members can capitalize on the gym's personal-training vibe and stimulating group setting at their leisure.

It's been more than two decades since Dr. Kopelman started practicing podiatry, but the entire Kopelman family has been maintaining the health of St. Petersburg feet for more than 40 years. Board-certified in podiatric surgery and wound care, Dr. Kopelman makes house calls when he's not analyzing toes' dreams in his own three offices, in multiple emergency rooms and hospitals, and in clinics across the region. His comprehensive treatment catalog covers orthopedic, disease, skin, and nail issues, and the practice's retail component makes it a one-stop shop.

Medical director Dr. Eric Weinstock draws upon his two areas of expertise, psychiatry and bariatrics, as he helps patients outsmart their extra pounds. By combining vitamins and appetite suppressants (upon doctor approval) with moderate exercise and confidence-boosting counseling, he is able to lighten bathroom-scale loads where other, less personalized programs have failed. And by helping dieters slim down, he is reducing their risk of health issues such as diabetes, hypertension, stroke, and respiratory problems.

Chiropractors draw their pain-easing inspiration from myriad sources, but Bond Thomas found his in an unlikely place: hotels. A fourth-generation St. Petersburgian, Bond grew up working in the hotels his grandfather founded in the ’20s. This experience instilled in him the belief that any business must be centered around the customer's experience. This focus, coupled with his training, have led him to a whole-person approach, which addresses an ailment’s causes in addition to its symptoms—unlike the half-person approach, which cruelly ignores the horse half of all centaurs.