Trainer Talk: My Interview with Jasmine Johnson
"I always want to be healthy and fit and into the lifestyle."Meet Jasmine Johnson. She used to be my twice a week trainer until I got all flighty and decided to explore the wide world of NYC fitness. Lucky for me, she understands my commitment issues and still fits me in for sessions or boot camps once in a while. Yesterday, I stopped by her new digs, a private training studio around the corner from my apartment, for a kickass session and interview.
Jasmine's personal training career began five years ago, while she was studying biology in college. She had initially contemplated working in a lab or becoming a biology teacher, but quickly realized that the three hours a day she spent at the gym were what really made her happy. She began working as a personal trainer and graduated college with a degree in exercise physiology. Jasmine taught yoga on the beach in Key West before moving to NYC, and spent three years at the Equinox on 63rd before going out on her own. She now trains out of Boaz Fitness, a private training studio on East 72nd that oozes upper east side pre-war walk-up charm. (It's spotless and it has the original crown moldings!)
To be a good trainer, Jasmine believes you have to care about your clients and live the lifestyle. "You have to have a vested interest in the people that you're working with. You have to really want to see them make changes," says Jasmine. "Someone's trusting you with their body. You have to take that seriously." You also have to be into fitness yourself, she cautions. No one's going to a listen to a trainer that they see outside the gym smoking a cigarette and eating a Snickers bar.
Since it's been on my mind, I asked Jasmine for her views on lifting, and what she thinks of heavy weights versus lighter weights. "People lose sight of what really matters when it comes to weight loss and how to sculpt your body, " Jasmine explained. It all comes down to what you're doing to your metabolism, the overall amount of calories that you intake and the total amount that you burn, and what that adds up to at the end of the day. If you lift heavy and you really break down muscle fiber, because you did so much damage to your body, it's going to take a lot of energy to recover from that workout. It's that "after-burn" over the next day or two that really makes a difference. The lighter weights have their place, but that's almost more like doing cardio. You might burn a lot of calories doing the light weights, but once you're done, you're done burning.
I also asked about diets. Jasmine says that the biggest change in her own body that she's seen from dieting happened when she was bodybuilding. She was eating small, 300 calorie meals every three hours that had lots of protein and not a lot of carbs. Although there's no one diet that she would swear by, she believes that diets can be good because they offer people structure. Jasmine stresses that diets should be simple. "And if you want to eat something, eat it." Then move on.
Bodybuilding also taught Jasmine about rest. She was trying to lose weight and gain muscle in a really short time to get ready for a competition. She thought that she was doing everything she was supposed to do and more, but it wasn't working. When she finally took a weekend off and slept a lot, everything changed. The next week, her body really started responding. "All of a sudden, I was walking down the street just dropping pounds."
These days, Jasmine works out six days a week. Like me, Jasmine goes through phases with exercise. After years of heavy lifting and kettlebells, right now she's into yoga, running and body-weight lifting. She practices yoga at Sangha Yoga Shala in Williamsburg, which she loves. "Some days I just want to come in and breathe and stretch, and some days I want to come in and kick my ass," says Jasmine. At Sangha, you can interpret what they're telling you to do the way you feel like doing it that day.
To wrap thing sup, I asked Jasmine if there was one thing she wishes she could get through to her clients. "Sometimes we spend so much time looking in that mirror and picking on ourselves. 'Oh, I should be smaller here.' 'This should be more cut here.' 'G-d, I only made it to the gym three times last week; I'm really failing at life.' All these small things can make you lose track of what it's all really about. It's about more than what you look like. It's about feeling good, loving yourself and doing great things for your body and treating yourself well. It's about so much more than how many minutes of cardio you did and how much better your friend looks in her Lulu[lemon] pants than you do. I want people to not lose sight of the bigger picture."
Well said, lady.
-Gym Belle-
Gym Belle
Jasmine can be reached at jasminefitness@tmo.blackberry.net.
Reader Comments (2)
jasmine sounds great, but if i decide i want a trainer, how do i get in touch? can you put her e-mail address in your article?
Thanks for the feedback, Gymmy! I've just added her email. Just needed to clear it with her first.