Be Fit With Biray

“With so many Americans lacking a healthy diet and proper bouts of physical activity, I often wonder where the disconnect between ‘wanting to live well’ and actually ‘living well’ comes from. We exist in an environment that enables poor eating habits and sedentarism. Media-based screen-time activities, like video games and playing on the Internet, have made significant impacts on both our healthy and unhealthy behaviors.

My professional objective is to discover the advantages and limitations of interactive technologies and web-based media. I want to teach health, fitness and wellness professionals how to effectively integrate these tools to enhance their efforts in combating illnesses and diseases.” — Biray Alsac

Biray is an international fitness and wellness speaker. She presents on topics that look at current interactive technologies and their possible fitness applications. She presents at FitnessFest, National Wellness Conference, IDEA Health & Fitness World Convention, ACSM Health & Fitness Summit, and IHRSA. In 2008 she was the keynote speaker at the Major Moves conference in Birmingham, UK. She travels all over the world as a freelance writer for health & fitness magazines. She actually gets paid to author a regular column on all-things ‘tech and fitness’!

Biray serves as an adjunct faculty in the Exercise Science & Physical Education department of Mesa Community College and Arizona State University in Arizona. Her teaching load is 100% online. And she’s currently developing curriculum to make activity-based classes (like walking, jogging, cycling and exergaming) completely web-based. She is also a member of the Faculty Professional Learning Communities (FPLC) for New Media Technology, a group of faculty/staff who gather regularly to discuss ways teachers can integrate new technologies into their classrooms to improve student learning.

Biray is heavily involved in the exergaming community – following the current applications of consoles like Nintendo’s Wii and games like Dance Dance Revolution. She received her Master’s degree in Exercise & Wellness from ASU where she studied the benefits of exergaming (EyeToy: Kinetic) on cardiovascular health.

Biray has been in the health and fitness industry for over 12 years. She is an ACE and AFAA Certified Instructor & Personal Trainer. She loves teaching all formats of group exercise, from kickboxing and muscular conditioning classes to yoga. If she *had* to pick her favorite format to teach, it would definitely be cycling.

Biray resides in Tampa, Florida and in her spare time enjoys running with her Nike Sport iPod (preferably outdoors, but the humidity can be challenging during the summers) and practicing yoga. She recently completed her 3rd half-marathon and is currently training for triathlons. She’d be lying if she didn’t include her love of playing video games (of course) – currently she is having an affair with Ratchet & Clank and Little Big Planet. (And yes, she does have a PS3 and uses her parent’s Wii and a Wii-Fit.)