Tell us a little but about yourself and your background in fitness.
I started going to the gym in college to meet guys, but soon it became a habit and I stopped looking at the guys and started lifting like the guys. After I had two kids and was burnt out on step aerobics, I decided to become a spin instructor. I had several dance courses in college and was annoyed by instructors who couldn’t keep a beat, never changed their music and were not very motivating. Spinning came along at the right time when I needed to loose the last 10 of my 60lb pregnancy weight gain. Cardio is great but I saw the biggest change in my body as I became more serious with lifting weights. I decided to get certified as a personal trainer and as most personal trainers do, I have certifications in everything from youth training to kick boxing to Zumba.
Do you have a personal training philosophy that you use with your clients?
I train all my clients differently. You will not see me with a clip board, pulling and pushing pins in machines. I use very little toys and find that most of my clients prefer not to be trained for the circus. I believe in the basics - cardio, weights, and body weight. I take the time to change workouts and educate my clients on why we work muscles in a certain order, how important proper form is, and why they should eat a certain way before and after working out. While a lot of trainers want you to depend on them, I want you to become so knowledgable and comfortable about working out, that you can take all this information and then “fire me”. I love when I see people I trained carrying my notes and doing it on their own. Self-motivation is the key to success. Most people feel awkward and uncomfortable in the gym, especially the ladies. I don’t give them a fish, I teach them how to fish. I make them confident and comfortable in a gym setting. Most women will not set foot in a weight room if it’s separate from the cardio. But confidence is knowing your way around the weight room.
What is your favorite part about working in the health and fitness industry?
I am fortunate that I get to go to work and do something I am passionate about. Isn’t that the saying? Find something you love and then make a living doing it? But I really love helping people reach their goals. At times, I get frustrated because it seems I want this for them more than they do. I struggle with that often.
It seems like your clients really respond to your no nonsense approach to fitness and weight loss. With that being said, what are some of the most common excuses you hear from clients and how can we all work to combat these when we are telling them to ourselves?
Call it tough love, but I really want my clients to succeed. Sometimes I’m nice and sometimes I’m just real and say what’s on my mind. As a trainer, you rarely hear a legitimate excuse as to why someone cannot exercise. Here are my top 5 favorite excuses I hear why someone can’t exercise.
1- The kid(s) excuse- Unless a child is sick and needs you at their bedside, I don’t understand why you can’t exercise for 20 minutes in your house. This is a poor excuse that starts the day your first child is born. You made a child....not an excuse. Being a role model for your kids is important and showing that staying healthy is a priority to you make exercise and eating healthy extremely important.
2 - "I have my period, I can’t work out."- Are you serious? Yes, I get this so often. It boggles my mind. The women on TV are sky diving, climbing mountains, and swimming and you can’t ride the stationary bike? This one is back to back with “I just had a Keratin hair straightening and can’t sweat for a few days.”
3 -"I don’t have time."- Yes you do. You make time. You make an appointment with yourself. You make this thing called exercise a priority and a habit, just like brushing your teeth.
4- "I'm too tired to work out."- You will have more energy. Even a bad workout is better than no workout.
5-"I have bad knees"- Usually the person telling me they have bad knees is overweight. Usually I have to say to them, your knees hurt because you're overweight. Sometimes they agree and sometimes they don’t. I had a client in her 40’s who came to me to lose weight at the suggestion of her orthopedist, rather than have knee-replacement surgery. After 1 month, she quit exercising saying she’d rather have knee surgery. The pain of exercising was more of an inconvenience to her than knee surgery.
Biggest weight loss or fitness myth you would like to get rid of?
The “muscle weighs more than fat” saying. A pound is a pound. Fat takes up more volume than muscle. It's more bulky than muscle which is dense. A pound of bricks and a pound of feathers weigh the same.
What are some of the key components of a workout to really start seeing results?
Most people come to the gym and do 20 minutes of cardio and then another 20 minutes of machines. They have no plan, no rhyme or reason why they are doing what they are doing and most are doing things wrong. Too fast, too much weight, bad form, etc. If you want results then you need a “plan”. If you don’t have a plan, you're setting yourself up for failure. My suggestion is to find someone- a trainer, a friend- who knows what they are doing to give you a workout routine to follow. Have someone show you how to use the equipment and explain to you what to do and how to do it. I offer a one time training where I give a person a routine to do. I show them what to do for cardio and I show them some upper body exercises to do and in what order. I write it up like a buffet “Pick One” from here and “Pick One” from here. I give them their heart rate zone they need to be in and explain the importance of exercising in the correct zone. If you're not in the “zone”, you're not getting the maximum benefits of your workout. If you want results, you need to not only exercise, but eat properly. Don’t bust your butt and then go home and sabotage everything you just did by eating poorly. Treat your body like your car. Don’t put anything bad in it. Fuel your body.
What does “healthy” mean to you?
That’s a hard question for me. I have lost “healthy”, really active friends to various things like cancer. Some things are out of our control but I believe most of us are in control of our decisions and what we feed our bodies. Why anyone would smoke knowing what we do now in 2012 baffles me. Why parents complain about things like teachers, coaches and TV shows but yet will feed their children food that is making them fat and sick is disheartening to me. I have had many overweight parents ask me to train their children. The minute I say “I am not a magician, your child is overweight because you are overweight", they get mad at me. These little kids are not the one's food shopping and driving through the fast-food restaurants. Parents need to take the responsibility.
“Healthy” does not necessarily mean that if you are skinny your are healthy. Exercising and eating healthy are great. Starving yourself is not. We all have skinny friends who do not exercise and some who eat junk and don’t get fat. This does not mean that they are healthy. I think all elements need to come together to actually be totally healthy, meaning physically and mentally. Stress can destroy the healthiest person. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all eat right, exercise, and be happy? If we could eliminate the curve balls life sometimes throws at us? Me? I know I am “healthy” when I am happy with myself. That’s what healthy means to me.
Learn more about Hope's training philosophies by visiting her site, HopeNagy.com and make sure to visit her blog and facebook for daily motivation and fitness inspiration!
