March 27, 2014
Don’t get caught up in someone’s “brand”!
What a beautiful weekend!!! I hope you were all able to get outdoors and enjoy some form of fitness. I do need to give a big shout out to Laura Wydler, Allison Kroeger, and Amy Friedberg who ran an impressive 10K trail run this morning!! Go ladies!!!!!
Speaking of the fitness industry, I received Gwyneth Paltrow’s weekly “goop” newsletter this week and it featured her business partner, Tracy Anderson. It was essentially advertising Tracy’s new workout dvd that is coming out in a few days and included a Q&A session with Tracy. Of course, I could not help myself and had to check it out to see what she had to say. Here’s the scoop, any intelligent trainer in the fitness industry knows that to make a lot of money in the industry, you have to become a brand. Tracy is a brand, as is Bar Method, Dailey Method, Jillian Michaels, Crossfit, SoulCycle, etc. In order to build your brand, you need brand loyalty and what better way to build brand loyalty than to manipulate the research to convince people that to look a certain way, they can only do their method 5-7 days a week. That is exactly what Tracy did in the interview (nothing chaps my round behind more than watching someone manipulate others for their own personal/financial gain) and guess who else benefits from this, yes, Gwyneth Paltrow. This is HOGWASH people! I know many of the best trainers in the industry all over the world and NONE of them are convincing anyone that they have to buy into their brand. They are people passionate about helping others improve their lives, period. Yes, as I have said before, your habits become your architecture, and if you want to look like Tracy Anderson, go ahead and eat 800 calories a day and workout 6 days a week for over two hours and you, too can change your body (that is her method in her metamorphosis program), but personally, this is a setup for a really unhealthy road ahead! I do not mean to go postal on Tracy as many people follow her method and hopefully, they look great, feel great and have improved their lives. I just want you to be careful about who you trust to help you live your best life. Anyone telling you that you have to follow their method only is only interested in themselves. Make sure the person you trust is someone who knows you, your goals, what you love doing, what you are passionate about, understands your relationship with food, etc. and uses that information to help create a plan that is tailored to you!
With that said, I LOVE this video that Precision Nutrition sent out this week. It is worth watching (it is funny and will put a smile on your face) and anyone who comes to my classes will understand why I love it. Personally, I think we should all be dancing through life (isn’t that a line from Wicked???) – just think how much happier our kids would be in school if the hallways had surround sound and all the kids danced from class to class!