Making Fitness Fit
After three months following the Club’s newest holistic wellness program, one Member shares her surprise at how easy living healthy can feel.
"I’m over 50, so you really need to keep moving in order not to just lay down and die,” says Aleksandra Slonina with a laugh. “That’s my main goal: to keep fit and keep all the parts moving.”
For the last 18 months, Slonina, and Club personal trainer Robert Daoust, have been working together to do just that. Daoust strikes the perfect balance for Slonina—cheerful enough to draw her to the Fitness Center yet strict enough when she needs a push.
Away from the workout machines, Slonina and Daoust have been examining and tweaking a range of factors that affect her health, from staying hydrated to breathing properly.
At the first of six bimonthly Live Healthy program sessions, Daoust pored over Slonina’s lifestyle routine. He checked whether she sat on the couch after dinner or stayed active, how often and how soundly she slept and how diligently she inspected groceries at the store.
“It’s all related,” Daoust says of his philosophy. “What are you putting in you? Are you helping the cause or making it worse?”
Based on the principles of American fitness guru Paul Chek, Daoust’s program is far from a crash diet or restrictive nutritional plan. A self-avowed lover of sweets and soda, Slonina has tried and failed to white-knuckle her way through diets that forced her off her favorite comfort foods.
With Daoust, she just makes smarter choices about the foods she can’t help but crave.
“When I shop for cookies,” says Slonina, “inside the ready-made ones are palm oil and high-fructose corn syrup. I just bake my own now and they only contain things that are supposed to be there—butter, flour, eggs and sugar.”
Daoust has made dozens of minute changes to Slonina’s daily routines. She starts her meals with salad to kick-start the digestion of the heavier foods that follow. She eats dinner earlier in the evening to make time for a metabolism-boosting stroll.
It’s not about replacing Slonina’s habits with healthier ones, explains Daoust, who will present his approach at a free seminar for Members this month. It’s about optimizing the ones she already has.
“You want to get people to change their mindsets,” he says, “so living healthy doesn’t feel like a burden.”
After three months of the program, Slonina can see the results. She sleeps better and, more importantly, she feels better, both physically and emotionally. Unlike a diet that confines and prohibits, Daoust’s wellness program has Slonina living a smarter, healthier version of her own life.
“Of course, it takes some getting used to,” Slonina says of the lifestyle adjustments she has made. “But I’ve already lost two kilograms, which is pretty impressive.”
“And I haven’t given up wine,” she confesses. “But don’t tell Robert that.”
Words: Owen Ziegler
Image: Kayo Yamawaki
Mind, Body and More Seminar
May 28 | 7–8pm
