The South Bergenite May 22 Personal Touch Fitness

Your Health and Fitness is Their Business
Managing Editor
RUTHERFORD - A passion for fitness has taken hold of many Americans; unfortunately, the mania hasn't really reached those who need its benefits the most: the really out-of-shape person whose long-standing habits have little to do with good eating and exercise, and the senior citizen, whose stereotypical health problems can be eased or even prevented this way. One Rutherford personal trainer has turned her passion into a business opportunity that, both for herself and her clients, brings great rewards. Personal Touch Fitness is a unique service that applies a holistic wellness philosophy to helping people get fit, free of the bustle of gyms, classes, videotapes or regimented dieting.
"I enjoy working with the senior population, and with overweight people who might be intimidated at first, so that's my focus, and there's room for everybody because there are so many specialties. There's a growing need for fitness instructors, and a big untapped market is this huge segment of the population who are afraid of the gym," said Personal Touch Fitness master trainer.
Personal Touch's master trainer is already known in the area as a fitness instructor and volunteer; she teaches a variety of classes through the Meadowlands YMCA and the Rutherford Adult School, notably senior line dancing and armchair fitness. She teaches at Gym Tozzi in Lyndhurst, and at Atra Health Club in Paramus. She did body fat analysis at the recent Lyndhurst Health Fair. She holds the 1994 title from the Rutherford 5K Halloween Run.
"Two years ago, I started easing into this - volunteering, teaching some classes, getting my certifications," she explained. Early work included teaching senior fitness through the New York City Housing Authority, and working as a fitness instructor at new York Sports health club, where she got her cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) certification. She's also certified to teachfitness through the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America (AFAA).
Services available through Personal Touch include exercise, nutritional counseling, meal planning, shopping, training on the proper use of home equipment, health assessment and motivation. Personal Touch provides their clients with personalized meditation and motivation tapes she makes herself.
Personal Touch's main goal is help people feel better. "It makes me feel good to help people feel better. I have one client who said, 'My God, I can get out of bed easier.' They all have their own needs and goals, and I help them reach them through a combination of exercise at their own level, better eating habits, but also helping them visualize themselves as a fit person, already feeling better." One Woman's Story
Janet, a 49-year-old client from Rutherford, has been visiting with Personal Touch once a week since October. She's been fighting a weight problem since adolescence, and had just about Personal Touch Fitness trainers keeping in shape. resigned herself to being overweight for the rest of her life. Janet now keeps logs of what she eats, when and her feelings at the time; based on those, the personal trainer makes suggestions on how to change the negative habits. While they're discussing the logs, Janet warms up and gets her heart rate going by riding an exercise bike. She and the trainer stretch for a few minutes, do a full workout of resistance exercises and cool down. "I've dropped out of the bagel club at work, started spending half my lunch hour walking, just little things that are so natural, but already helping," Janet said. "Personal Touch has opened up some things for me that were really not in my world before. I never saw myself as having a personal trainer, and exercise, I mostly looked at and said, 'Oh no, I can't do that.' A diet was something you were waiting to come off of. If she'd mapped it out and said, "Do this, do that, and everything will be fine,' I would never have stuck with it and it would never have worked." Personal Touch's trainers explain that the key to helping a client is finding the patterns in their life that they need to break, and offering options that are acceptable and comfortable for them. It's also an emotional thing: you can't do this in a vacuum. There's little stuff I try to do that's different, an overall wellness approach." Janet said she'd garnered support from her father, who she always felt disapproved of her heaviness. "Now he asks about my progress, and when we go out to eat, we go someplace where I can get something good to eat, rather than making the excuse that we're going to a certain place because that's what he would want to eat." She also started taking Personal Touch's low-impact aerobics class at Rutherford Adult School. "That's a stretch for me because of all those people who are in such better shape. I never would have considered it a few months ago." In fact, she couldn't do the exercises a few months ago; Janet has improved in strength, endurance, agility and flexibility.
Janet said she's flourished under Personal Touch's guidance because, "there's no pressure; I'm the one who's making the choice, taking an action every day on my own behalf. It's a very gradual, adult approach." She said she'd rather develop some naturally healthy habits, than drop a large amount of weight only to gain it back. "What I want to get to is, just like I wouldn't leave the house without brushing my teeth, I'd never let a day go by without exercising. This isn't isolated, it's something that's gone into every aspect of my life. It's changed the way I think about myself."