This article originally ran in the St. Louis Jewish Light on Thursday, March 22. For the full article, click here.
If you’ve already broken your New Year’s fitness resolutions, you might not be ready to think about getting in shape again until next January. But for Bryce Banaszynski, exercise and diet are year-round concerns.
“I deal with clientele that have a wide range of goals to achieve, and I try to help them get from Point A to Point B,” said Banaszynski, 30, a native St. Louisan who went to work at the Jewish Community Center’s Marilyn Fox Building in Chesterfield right after graduating from University of Missouri-Columbia.
Since then, he’s marked eight years at the J. The facility offers a number of amenities, but it is work by trainers like Banaszynski that help to bring everything into focus for members looking to shave off a few pounds, bulk up their biceps or recover from an injury.
“Mostly, it is fitness goals, but [I do] anything health-related,” said the Parkway North graduate who grew up in Creve Coeur. “A lot of what I deal with is weight loss, which can be all over the board in terms of how much success an individual has. It depends on how much weight they want to lose and all those key factors.”
What is your best advice when it comes to losing weight?
I think it starts with diet. My guess is that about 75 or 80 percent of it comes from changing diet habits. The remaining 20 to 25 percent is getting them on a structured fitness routine goal-specific to them, taking into consideration any limitations they may have in terms of injuries.
But there are always challenges. What’s the biggest stumbling block?
Staying committed. A lot of people initially have success dropping weight when they begin a weight loss program. Your best opportunity to lose the maximum amount of weight is as soon as possible. Then you tend to do what is called “plateau,” where it becomes a little more difficult to continue losing weight at the rate at which you began. People tend to get frustrated very quickly when they don’t see results immediately. That’s part of my coaching strategy. I try to keep people engaged in the program. It is very individual-specific. Some people are more prone to stay engaged versus others.
Learn even more from Bryce by reading the full article.