Toning with Tracy Anderson

I caught up with celebrity fitness trainer Tracy Anderson, recently in town at the Toronto Four Seasons to promote the launch of Samsung’s Gear Fit ($219) wearable fitness tracker.

 

Tracy is fascinating. She is Gwyneth’s bff, has trained Madonna, Kim Kardashian and a slew of Hollywood hotties too many to mention. She is a queen of personal branding and isn’t afraid to speak her mind, even if it means putting herself in the media hot seat (here she is on Good Morning America getting in trouble for saying too many women “let themselves go” during pregnancy). She’s also a believer in attachment parenting and is a huge breastfeeding advocate, reminding us that while nursing isn’t a weight loss tool per se, many people will burn more calories than they consume if they nurse on demand, which can aid their weight loss.

Tracy takes a stance, even if people don’t like what she has to say, and I respect that. It also makes her pretty interesting.

As for the workout, it was fun and certainly unique! It brought me back to dance rehearsal days as we spun and popped and tried to get the choreography. Tracy doesn’t do 8-counts, she doesn’t talk – you just gotta “figure it out”. I did notice that while no one was getting the proper choreo, we were ALL sweating, hopping up and down like cardio bunnies. We used the Samsung GalaxyS5 heart rate tracker ( it’s right on the phone itself). Mine went from 84 to 158 beats/minute during the cardio dance part.

The “no cueing” the moves threw me for a loop, but Tracy later explained in our Q n A session that new, confusing choreography opens up neural pathways in your brain. These pathways help get you in touch with your body and essentially wake up dormant muscles. So you see, it was by design! Gotcha.

A big take home message was that part of great achieving in life involves creating balance. Shut everyone else out and go workout for an hour. By using a mobile fitness tracker like the Gear Fit you can still get emails but program in a message saying “I’ll back to you”. This way you don’t need to have anxiety about stepping away for an hour.

If we take care of ourselves we are setting a good example for our children, we will perform better in all areas of our life and we will look awesome in jeans ( Tracy said the first two, I said the last one).

Thanks for the inspiration Tracy! Keep blazing trails for female fitness entrepreneurs!! xoxo

 

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