Jennifer Cohen, a personal fitness trainer, dedicates her first book, No Gym Required (Key Porter), to the average woman who looks in a mirror and recoils in horror at what she sees.
“It’s disturbing to me that women are so unhappy with their bodies,” she said in an interview. “They should try to maximize their assets. My aim is to in-spire women to be the best they can be.”
And in a direct nod to her book, she said that women can be fit, healthy and self-assured without going to a gym or hiring a trainer.
Cohen, who commutes between To-ronto and Los Angeles, urges women to adopt a back-to-the-basics approach that bucks quick-fix Hollywood solutions.
As she writes:
“I am writing this book for you, the woman who has marvelled at the miraculous transformation of celebrities who go from flab to fab, the ones who lose 30 pounds in 10 days and claim to have done it through a balanced diet and exercise, and is crushed that she is unable to achieve similar results.”
Cohen 33, believes that women should set realistic goals through a vigorous and consistent training regimen and good eating habits.
“The key to consistency is adjusting your mindset and making small, simple changes,” she explained.
“Diet is the foundation of any healthy fitness program,” added Cohen, who has work-ed with movie stars, studio executives and recording artists. “It’s 70 per cent of the bat-tle.”
When it comes to meal planning, she urges readers to concentrate on natural and organic foods.
As she put it, “Processed foods and those with preservatives are laden with hidden sugars and fats. Even meats and so-called natural produce like fruits and vegetables are filled with antibiotics and pesticides, which are proven toxins. Your body’s food-processing mechanism is just not designed to handle them.”
And she distinguishes between “good” fats (avocados, most nuts and olive, peanut and canola oils) and “bad” fats (meat, poultry, seafood, eggs and some dairy products).
“Control what you’re eating,” said Cohen, recommending home-cooked meals as important in reducing the intake of calories.
Apart from diet, Cohen recommends good sleeping habits, daily morning push-ups and a catalogue of exercises.
She recommends a list of pop hits designed to pump you up, from Get into the Groove by Madonna to Rhythm Na-tion by Janet Jackson.
Motivation is also pivotal.
“People find excuses not to work out and eat right. They have no time. They feel overwhelmed. They don’t know where to start. But it’s easy to eliminate the excuse factor.”
Cohen, who is five feet six inches tall and weighs 129 pounds, exercises about 30 min-utes a day and hikes once a week when she is not spending time with her clients.
She is the fitness director of the York-ville clubs in To-ron-to. In Los An-geles, she leads exercise classes on Santa Mon-ica’s beach and is working on a line of “wellness” sneakers she has developed.
Keenly ambitious, she hopes to build her small company into a fitness empire. “One hundred per cent. I’ve always been entrepreneurial,” she said.
Born in Winnipeg, Cohen has a BA degree in psychology from the University of Manitoba and an MA in sports marketing from George Brown College in Toronto.
Always a devotee of exercise, she worked at a succession of jobs before settling on a career in fitness.
Cohen’s late father, Michael, was an electrical contractor. Her Israeli-born mother, Essia, is a psychiatric nurse.
Fresh out of school, Cohen joined the marketing department of the Toronto Rap-tors basketball team, after which she was an account manager for a record company in the city.
She settled in Los Angeles 10 years ago, and in her first job there as a talent agent’s assistant, she lasted a mere 11 days. “I hated it.”
Tired of the entertainment industry, she went back to what she knows best — fitness — becoming a personal trainer.
Now, with No Gym Required, Cohen hopes to impart her wealth of knowledge and experience to all those women out there who aspire to improve themselves through diet and physical fitness.
