Transformation coach Jennifer Nagel talks about the importance of building a foundation of health

Q: Can you give us an overview of what you do??

JN: In its simplest form, I am an online personal trainer who loves helping busy women. Everyone is looking to feel better and have more energy – sometimes this means changing our bodies a little, though we are all aware of our fitness goals. Most people have a hard time in ring fencing time off. Unlike the 30-minute sitcoms that show dinner is ready when you get home, most people are struggling to make it to the next minute with a constant barrage of new challenges. 2020 took this to a new level.?

What my team and I do is help people define actionable, simple goals and create a simple path to reaching the desired state of fitness. It is important to note that we are not always talking about aesthetics, but the positive impact on overall health and how it makes the individual feel good. The goal might also be to have the energy to play with the kids or go on vacation. Ultimately, it is about finding simple solutions for people who need simplicity in their lives.

Q: How many years have you been operating??

JN: Three years and exclusively online.?

Q: How have those three years been for you, especially with the lockdowns and the social distancing??

JN: It has certainly been interesting. There are so many great opportunities online, especially for people in the health and fitness field. The pandemic has increased the use of technologies like Zoom. This has also made it easier for people not used to being regularly online and I can now explain to people precisely what I do and how they can interact with a coach from a distance. With virtual coaching, we now work worldwide. Most people are looking for a solution and it doesn’t matter where I am because I can support people where they are.?

Q: Are different time zones a challenge to the programme??

JN: No, time zones aren’t a challenge. The first barrier we wanted to eliminate was making another appointment on our client’s calendar since most (even in the same time zone) are busy. There are, however, times where we do connect. This can be via an online appointment, or for those familiar with WhatsApp or texting, our messaging app. The coaches are available across a range of channels and in different time zones. This means we can create solutions and plans we communicate to clients through the app, in addition to providing real-time feedback to further assist them. We want to avoid being another thing to do. By creating such feedback loops we can offer a great service at a time convenient for the client.?

Q: What did you do prior to being a personal trainer??

JN: Good question. My background is a little interesting. I graduated with a degree in Food Science, followed by an MBA and then a job at a huge university. I worked in various roles as I ascended the career ladder and ended up as a strategist in business sustainability. For this, I wore suits and went to work from 8 till 5. Something big then happened in my personal life – I was going through a divorce.?

I have a four-year old daughter and had to start over. I used to have a big, lovely house and found myself in a little apartment, trying to figure out how to make it work. I was also trying to ensure my daughter wasn’t impacted too. At the same time, I got another promotion at work. This sounded amazing, but inside I was dying from stress. Inside, I fell apart.?

I lived off Dr. Pepper and peanut butter for about six months; I suffered from insomnia; I prioritised every single other person in my life, and I was incredibly stressed. I remember one day not feeling very well and taking myself to the doctor. The doctor gave me a tiny pill bottle and told me to start medication immediately for high blood pressure. I was 31.?

Q: How did you feel after that? How did you overcome this adversity??

JN: This scared me as I used to be an extremely healthy person. In the space of six to nine months I was exhausted, overweight, not sleeping and had high blood pressure. I said to myself if I continue like this, I won’t be around for all those people that I have been putting first. This was the turning point in my head and I started to exercise.?

I started doing little things at home, nothing exciting. I slowly changed my lifestyle and began surrounding myself with people who had that ideal lifestyle. I started stepping back from work and defining boundaries – to leave at a decent time and not start at 6am like I used to. I started to enjoy the exercise, loving the feeling I got. I then started to help others and completed additional certifications for training and coaching.?

Fast forward some time and I remarried a man in the same industry. I was now fully surrounded by health and fitness, and I felt amazing. Most people thought I was nuts when I asked myself: ‘Would I rather continue working a high-paying job with great benefits and colleagues (but no connection with others) or help other people through coaching where I feel this incredible energy connecting to others?’.?

My husband was very supportive and believed in me. I believed in myself too and have been doing a lot of training on the side. It was three years ago that I decided to help people struggling like me and provide solutions to figure out how to make everything fall into place. I used a lot of my personal experience, listened to my clients, and started to create tailored programs. This is where my company name - Figured Out Fitness – comes from.?

Q: Having experienced divorce and feeling guilt when putting yourself first, do you think that much of your work is about helping women learn to put themselves first without that guilt??

JN: I think there’s always been an element of that. The ultimate goal is to create a healthy foundation for success. Such a foundation has nothing to do with what you have looked like. It has everything to do with being comfortable with creating habits, such as carving time for yourself.

A car analogy springs to mind here (I’m from Michigan and it’s a big car place). If you are a car ferrying people about and you aren’t looked after (i.e., topped up with fuel, regular maintenance performed), that car is going to break down. This results in everyone in the car being stranded. The same goes for a healthy foundation – you need to put yourself and your health first before you can get to where you’re going. For some people this means 5 minutes of meditation in the morning or eating the right foods or getting enough sleep to be confidently ready for the next day.?

So, to answer the question, yes, creating a stable core of healthy habits that can be integrated into everyday life is a huge element of what we discuss with our clients. The positive impacts on health and wellbeing form the basis of anything you want to do.?

Take myself, for example. I like to exercise, and it makes me feel good. It’s my thing. Most people are not like me, but do exercise to do something else. They exercise because they want to have the energy to play with their children or arrive somewhere feeling good. To achieve this, we help people understand that all the little positive habits add up to form that healthy foundation, upon which they can reach their goals.?

Q: Do you think that there has been a positive shift when it comes to the aesthetics side??

JN: That is quite a loaded question and I have written an article on this recently. There’s definitely been a huge shift.?

I remember growing up and there was a time when suddenly all the actresses were skinny. My thing is if you’re naturally a size zero, then you’re a size zero; however, people who were naturally a healthy size for them (like a six or eight) were killing themselves. This was the same for supermodels.?

Fast forward to the present day and there’s now almost this swing in the other direction. It's now socially acceptable to be curvaceous and there’s a lot of great things about body confidence and positivity. Rebel Wilson has been very public with her weight loss and fitness transformation journey. She continues to inspire with her positivity, outgoing-ness, and self-love. All she did was decide to change some things to better her health, but sometimes we are villainised for that now too. Overall, it is a fascinating shift and wonderful to see a wide variety of bodies out there because you naturally have different shapes and sizes.?

I would love to see in the future acceptance not only of all body types, but also the fact that some people might want to lose (or gain) weight or muscle. In this future, acceptance is normalised and the desire to look and feel a certain way is only the individual’s choice. Interestingly, I did a few bodybuilding years, so have thought a great deal about body shapes and sizes. It’s an interesting topic and continues to evolve.?

Q: Do you have tips on how women can be their healthiest version of themselves?

JN: It all goes back to your thoughts and mentality, and you can start defining what the end goal looks like when you are in a good place. This is why we talk about carving out time for yourself. You cannot examine what ‘right’ looks like until you slow down and take some time for yourself. From this place you can start making healthier decisions and eventually a plan. A health, fitness or nutrition plan aligns with this and it is completely the individual’s journey. This is why I am a huge fan of Rebel Wilson.?

Rebel Wilson is very unapologetically herself, regardless of whatever size she is. When I teach my daughter, we talk about how health, energy and feeling good are all interlinked. She’s a teenager and so at an age where her body is changing and naturally gaining weight. She is an athlete and I tell her I love that she’s able to add muscle. I make sure I say, “I think you look great. How do you feel?”. This question is such a different message to “How do you want to look?”, or “What size do you want to be?”.?

Q: What’s your approach when you’re complimenting your kids??

JN: I am very thoughtful of my language around them, as I know when I was their age I started getting those messages about body image. As a blended family, we have four kids together – three girls and one boy. They are all different shapes and sizes. Again, we definitely talk about energy, feeling good and nutrition, but also about the pillars of health. I want them to embrace who they are. One of my daughters loves playing softball and volleyball. She’s an athlete and likes to work out lifting weights etc. Another daughter doesn’t enjoy this. She prefers being active, being out and about. My third daughter loves animals (dogs, cats, turtles and god knows what else!). All of these things are correct.

Q: Is it the same approach for adults then??

JN: Yes. Fitness does not have to look the same for everyone. One of our clients goes on a daily walk and this has been her biggest fitness change. She enjoys it and has made it a social activity by inviting her girlfriends. Conversely, we have another client who has fallen in love with weightlifting. This client is all about the gym, selfies, and personal bests. She enjoys it and that’s perfect. Both are doing exactly what is required for their health and fitness. When thinking about fitness solutions, it must be aligned with something you love and speaks to who you are. When such alignment is achieved, so is enjoyment.?

Q: How much of people’s journeys do you think are based on nutrition, rather than exercise??

JN: About 90%. I always joke with people that exercise is a gateway drug because that’s what they always think they need to do. Once they start exercising, we naturally start talking about how good nutrition is essential.?

Q: Is there a specific strategy you incorporate when it comes to nutrition??

JN: Yes. I learned this from a coach I worked with, and it is amazing! It comes from world-class athletes and trains us like them. I ate lots of food, but a wide variety, incorporating principles of flexible dieting. This is something that I have carried over to clients. People find it liberating because we tend to villainise food; for example, you are unhealthy if you eat an Oreo or you’re only healthy if you are vegan. The villainisation of food adds a lot more pressure around what we eat (and we don’t need any more stress in our lives). Indeed, there are times when I eat salmon, salad, and vegetables all day. Last night I had a pizza. It felt good. And so, we have a no restrictions policy. This is about taking things off someone’s plate and offering solutions.

One of my clients believed she could not have carbs. This was most of her adult life. She would exercise super-intensity for an hour, eat only 1,500 calories a day and was frustrated with the lack of changes. She came to me wanting to learn how to let go of her food restrictions and consequent stress. Top priority was a new perspective. We’ve now got her eating 2,000 calories a day. She doesn’t feel guilty about eating brownies and enjoys entertaining friends. Exercise has been cut to a half-hour, but she’s happy. Her body is changing, and such is proof that the science behind this works.?

Q: Is there more than just ‘calories in, calories out’ and the 1,300 calories per day limit??

JN: Yes, there is more to it than that. It takes a little understanding of how metabolism and the body works. I use a calorie tracker – but not for it to dictate what I should eat. I always tell people to think of it as an electronic journal and nothing more, for a tracker cannot tell you your health history or muscle mass. I always call it the ‘1,200 calorie myth’. Plug in your information and you will never likely get any more than 1,300 calories (I have tested this enough times). The body is like a thermostat, and it will adjust to whatever the temperature is. If you are giving your body lots of healthy food, then it will respond by burning this and become more efficient. However, if you start eating 1,500, 1,400, 1,300 calories, then your body is like, ‘I am not getting any food, so I better become more efficient’.?

Typically, with many clients we start with a reverse diet. This means a little more food. If done correctly, weight barely changes and, for many clients, they start to benefit. They see their inflammation go down and stress levels decrease because they are not dieting hard. The goal here is to up the calories without increasing the weight, so that a wide variety of foods can be enjoyed without the excess pounds. From this healthier place, if they opt to lose weight, we can do other methods to cut calories.?

Q: Isn’t reverse dieting counterintuitive? Was it hard to break the many preconceived ideas about it??

JN: Definitely.? The most challenging part of a reverse diet is the mental part. It goes against everything you’ve learned. Most of my clients are pre-diabetic or have high blood pressure and doctors in the United States advise them to lose weight by eating 1,500 calories and working out. After a few months of this, they go back to their doctors, and nothing has changed. Perhaps they gained weight. I do not want to suggest that their doctors shamed them, but many women feel ashamed. They are already trying to manage their kids, job, health, and trying to lose weight. They are trying to do everything the doctor advised, but nothing has happened. This is why understanding the science behind it all is essential.?

I had a great rapport with my last coach and the first thing he did was put me on a reverse diet. I ate tons of food and there wasn’t anything I could not have. The exciting thing about this is that when you are not restricted you tend to eat better. Enjoy that piece of cake, or glass of wine. It is less about craving certain foods and more about being able to pass on it today because you’re satisfied and happy.?

Q: Can you take me through the Body Blueprint??

JN: This is our one-to-one coaching program. My goal is for the Body Blueprint to be the last investment someone ever makes in a coach or programme. We start off with education because it is important to understand the ‘why’ underpinning the program’s tailored solutions. I don’t want to be someone who tells people what they want to do. After all, it is their journey, and our goal is to create lifelong solutions. The education element is delivered in easily digestible 5-minute video chunks. There are even some audios. Simply plug in your headphones and away you go.

There is also the coaching component where you are paired with a coach. All coaches are well-versed in exercise, nutrition habits, and the mental aspect of health and nutrition. There are bi-weekly check-ins and connections, in addition to support. Finally, there is the plan itself. Whatever your goals are, the coach will develop a tailored plan. This will include habits or specific behaviours you want to focus on and is delivered through the app.?

The app is very intuitive – for example, a client has a fitness plan. They pull it up, hit a button and it guides them step by step. The client completes this and then the coach will assess how often and how long the exercises will be required.?

To summarise, The Body Blueprint combines education, one-on-one coaching, and a tactical plan. It can then be delivered anytime and anywhere, and our clients do a great job. Tracking our numbers, we have an 87% success rate (of course, we’re always trying to raise the bar here). The end goal is the creation of life solutions that enable people to feel confident, while also equipping them with the understanding of how to integrate new positive habits and do it by themselves.?

Q: Could you please tell me about the Body Blueprint’s 87% success rate?

JN: Check-ins are an element of the program, and each client has their own goal that we’re assessing progress towards. We also review how they feel their progress is going. Happiness is a big part of the feedback.?

The client’s goals are very diverse and that is so exciting. When someone grasps the connection between health, energy, happiness, and longevity, it is a lightbulb moment. Such moments make me feel good as I know I am doing something to genuinely improve their lives.?

Q: Do you have any tips for people who feel dissatisfied with what they do and how they can go outside their comfort zone??

JN: Absolutely. In my old job I felt something change inside me, even though I had no clue what it was. Some of the questions I asked myself took three to four years from knowing the action to getting on it with it. The best thing is to look inward and get to know yourself more. Ask yourself questions. What makes you tick? For me, making a difference for other people was the top of my list. I wanted to live with purpose and have a positive impact.?

My second tip is to ask yourself, ‘What things do I enjoy in my life and make me happy?’. What energizes you? This could be a hobby, or time spent with people, or education. Strip back the layers to explore the essence of what you enjoy. Don’t be afraid to be weird! Trust me.?

Five years ago, no one knew what an online trainer was, let alone an app that could support that. It didn’t exist. I did do in-person fitness training as a business for a bit and it killed me. It was exhausting being someplace physically. I kept thinking about how fitness didn’t have to be confined to one location. This is how my current business idea started to form. When I started opening myself up to the idea, certain opportunities hit. I started learning and seeing things that informed what I wanted to do. Firstly, I had to know myself so I could take the next step and be creative. This is my advice – trust that feeling if you have that feeling now. A friend once said, “If the gut feelings are already ruminating and your mind has said this is not your life anymore, then you have to honour that feeling and explore it”.??

It’s about self-discovery (and a little bit of faith!).?

Q: How does having a foundation in health impact people’s career, mental health, physical health, and overall quality of life??

JN: A foundation of health is vital for entrepreneurs. Let’s suppose you look at articles in Forbes or similar magazines, where they interview the wealthiest people and best business leaders. Most have some form of health and wellness routine, and they often expand on why this is important. As an entrepreneur, you wear a lot of hats and are constantly on the go with juggling all elements of life (e.g., family, partner, hobbies). To bring my A-game, I must take care of all of this. I also must take care of my physical and mental state. Without this, I cannot be the best version of myself. Research has shown people who are mentally and physically healthy are more productive and can make better decisions. Such people are able to look long-term and think strategically.?

I am very glad you brought up mental health, because this has been one of the biggest impacts of coronavirus and subsequent lockdowns. People’s mental health has been suffering and this is important to acknowledge. In my opinion, having a good mental health routine is just as important as having a good physical health routine. For me, this means pausing in the morning and breathing deeply at night. I practice prayer and gratitude and those things keep me grounded mentally. It helps me focus, so that I can be strong when everything around you appears like it is falling apart.?

Q: If there was just one change that people could make now, or one thing they can put into their routine, what would it be??

JN: Carve out time for your best two-minute habit. Set your intentions and take time to find your one thing. This does not have to be the hardest thing but should be something that will benefit you health-wise and give you a win. It doesn’t matter how small, boring or unsexy it is. Make setting aside time a top priority and accomplishing this will feel good. It will help you move on to whatever your next step is.

Q: That’s really good advice Jennifer. Thank you so much for joining me. Please follow Jennifer on her Instagram @therealjennifernagel and on her Facebook page www.facebook.com/figuredoutfit

JN: Thank you for having me Nicole!?