Talking about Growing Up the Fat Kid, Staying Motivated

I was super excited and honored to be nominated and featured on People of Charlotte.

Here is some of the article….click here for post on People of CLT

What made you decide to get into fitness?

One summer when I was eight years old, my parents sent me to a local summer camp. While playing a game of baseball, my campmates started singing “Wild Thing” at me—but they changed the words to “Blubber Thing.” My initial motivation was to solve my own problem. After many, many years something completely unexpected happened: someone asked me for help with their fitness.


So you didn’t play sports growing up?

Not if I could help it! I would pretend not to be home when my neighbor needed someone to play basketball with. I was clumsy and easily exhausted because I carried around so much extra weight.

Even on the days when there were no other kids to play with, my neighbor would still make fun of me for being fat and terrible at basketball.

How long have you been a personal trainer? What made you decide to open your own gym?

I’ve been a trainer since 1998. My wife Natillie and I have been owning/operating fitness studios since 2009.

 The average personal trainer only lasts in the profession for 18 months, because most commercial gyms are, honestly, horrible places to work. These gyms require trainers to work for minimum wage (or less) from 5-9 a.m. and then come back to work from 5-9 p.m. Many folks don’t know that the gym staff competes with each other for clients while enduring a new manager every three months. Furthermore, there’s typically no unifying philosophy (ask five trainers the same question and get five different answers) and a void of continuing education.

 So, when we started our first training studio in Washington, D.C., we set out to create a place for trainers to work that, frankly, didn’t suck.

 What’s different about your fitness studio?

True 180, located in Ballantyne, is a safe and comfortable women’s-only personal training studio where we work with the whole person. We use a small-group personal training format, so women can get the individualization and accountability they need, but with the community and affordability of classes.

 When you take fitness classes, you’re often lumped in with 20+ people. But not everyone can or should do the same exercises. Further, the instructor can’t possibly know your specific goals, medical history, preferences, functional movement abilities, etc.

For more about me and my amazing team: Meet the Team!

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