By Christian Messer

I sat down with Troy West and Jill Nelson, owners of Empower Fitness, a untypical gym in downtown Portland. I wanted to get their professional and personal opinions and experiences with weight, and any other insight that they could be to the subject. What follows is my interview with them.

Jill Nelson: I’ll give you a personal story, it goes back long before I knew Troy. When I turned 41, I had one of those mid-life things…it wasn’t a crisis, it was just, “Oh my God I’m 41!” At that point I realized I wasn’t happy with my life, I wasn’t happy with my relationship, wasn’t happy with my weight, wasn’t happy with my job. Basically there wasn’t anything in my life I really liked. I made it a personal agenda to change all of that including my weight.

I think one of the things that changed for me in my 40’s was that I hired a personal trainer, I joined an gym, I dropped 30 pounds, you know…I made that significant change in my life. And I’ve pretty much maintained that over the last 10 years to the point where, I’m not that far off from my high school weight. Probably not the same shape as high school because I swam competitively. It’s just become a life style for me.

There are things like…we went to a body building show to cheer on one of our clients and one of our trainers that were there. I was telling Troy, “Yeah, I could look like that…if I wanted to.” But I like eating too much. There’s things in life that I enjoy, so I’ve made it my own life style to balance my exercise, make sure I exercise and that I eat well and feel good and to me that’s what it’s all about.

It doesn’t hurt to have access to a facility like this (meaning Empower Fitness which she and Troy own) where I can come in a couple of times a week and work out.

Troy:(photo at left) It is about life style. That’s where the bike shop in the gym comes in, why we are surrounding ourselves with this…it’s because we want people to get out do stuff. It’s much easier to get people addicted to doing something, than it is to their mirror. It’s giving people things they want to do. Jill just brought that up, “I can look like that if I want to,” what kind of confidence is that? That’s fantastic!
That’s a healthy prospective on things…do I want to? Can I do it? Do I have the talent? I don’t know, but I can do it, because physically I know I can. That’s what we call Empower Fitness, that’s why it’s called Empower. The ability to do what you want without your body becoming a hinderance. It’s just a fact.

She could change and work towards it…would she win? I don’t know? Would I win if I decided to be a body builder? Probably not. Genetically it’s not probably not my strong suite. But could I? Yes…sure.

Jill: My personal experience, especially in the perspective of a gym is that not everybody is into gyms. But for some people, it is a critical part of their exercise routine. A lot of that is more mental.

It’s like going to a job, rather than working from home…

Jill Nelson of Empower Fitness

Jill: Right. It’s all the behaviors that you build around something to cause yourself to be motivated to do it. That’s why we have special clothes with working out, special people you work out with, special things you do, special places you go. A lot of those things exist because it keeps people motivated and focused. And it builds certain routines and rituals in their life that help support what they want to do. Everybody designs those differently.

Have you talked to Kendall Clawson?

We wanted to but we never connected thoroughly.

Jill: Yeah…Kendall has her own program and the stuff that works for her and she’s…well, I don’t know if she still is…but at one point she was evangelistic about it. You know, “This worked for me, this is great, come do it!” Most of us, if we find something that works, we want to share it. And that’s important, you want to have people doing it with you, it reinforces what you’re doing it makes you feel good.

Troy: But remember it’s their thing…just because you have a friend and it works for you doesn’t mean it’s going to work for everyone. Just like everybody is genetically different.

Well and you know…like Marty Davis in Just Out, she spent part of her editorial some months ago about “the losers.” She was expressing how she was tired of hearing or reading about all the people who were losing all this weight, trying to get others involved etc. That’s not the first time she’s talked about her weight…but it’s a great example of how, say here’s Kendall (or anyone who finds something that works) and she’s evangelistic about it…and plus-size people who aren’t ready just don’t want to hear it.

Troy: What system is that?

Jill: Take Shape for Life…

Troy: Ah, yeah…it’s the Medicare deal… based on a program they used to drop weight of overly obese people when they needed to do surgery on them. My only problem with that is that the people who prescribe them…it’s the same thing with hair dressers, they don’t have the associates degrees. It’s not a bad system. It is a medically based system, but just because a doctor came up with it at one time doesn’t mean…it’s like everybody has to have appendix surgery…why? Because I removed an appendix.

Jill: The cool thing about those programs and things is that…Troy will give me a hard time because I’m a huge proponent of The South Beach Diet. I love it because it works really well for me. But I have people who I talk to who loathe it. Mostly because, if you like those kinds of foods, then The South Beach Diet is great for you. If you can’t stand eggs and you can’t live without pasta, The South Beach Diet is probably not a good thing.

Troy: You can break it down to this: somewhere between what’s called a 70-20-10 diet. Which is more like a vegetarian. So you’re talking about 70% of calories coming from carbohydrates, 20% coming from protein, 10% coming from fats. Between that and what’s classically called The Zone diet, 40-30-30; it is going to be within a natural basis. But if you’re talking about weight loss, you’re talking about one thing: calories in vs. calories out.

Is it really that cut and dry?

Troy: It’s that freakin’ easy. That’s all it is. Now nutrition is different. Nutrition and Weight loss are two totally different animals. Completely separate. Nutrition is the amount of vitamins, minerals, the entire up tick of what your doing to your system, how well you balance your food with of your muscles and nervous system…it’s really a science. That’s the reason there’s a science to it.

Programs like Take Shape for Life, that’s fine. What they are is they have a lot of vitamins and nutrients directly in them. You follow a formula, where you do X amount of calories according to what your weight is at. All pre-done meals.

Yes, delivered to your door.

Troy: The reason it works so well is that it is because it’s pretty close to a 40-30-30 diet. It’s really close to that. The higher amount of fats you have in you the fuller you feel. Carbohydrates go through your system fastest because they do nutrients for the nervous system and muscles right off the bat, anything that’s extra gets stored. Protein takes about three hours to get through your system which is why you have a fuller feel, but it’ll go through you and in three hours, you’ll feel hungry again. Fats have about a five hour process that goes on.
Something like that plan, you eat throughout the day and you have a little bit of 40-30-30, it balances you out and you cut your calorie count by about 800 calories…well, this is how easy it is to lose weight. One pound of fat is 3,500 calories. If you cut a deficit every day of 500, well at the end of the week, you’ve lost a pound. Simple math.

So you put that on a diet that somebody’s cutting a calorie count of 1,00 calories, “Oh my God! I’ve lost so much weight!” But you’ve also lowered your metabolism without exercise. Without exercise with it, you’re gonna gain it back!

Jill: Which is why if I sprinted 8,000 yards a day in high school, I could eat a Snickers bar. When I quit doing that, and I quit swimming? All of a sudden that Snickers bar turned into a pound of fat on my ass within a week!

So is there anything else you need to know from us? Other than anyone who doesn’t know or can’t figure out how to get into shape should come see us?
id: I think we’re done…Oh! The education part…how do you do that?

Troy: We teach first. We show you what the program is, why you’re doing it, what part of the anatomy it’s working, why it’s working, why to do it. You don’t get that elsewhere. You can’t even get trainers to write down things, because they’re worried that their clients will become independent and won’t need them anymore. That’s what happens after “The Biggest Loser.”

Jill: Let me give you the Reader’s Digest answer to that: Education is built into everything we do. Whether it is your first health assessment, to your first training session, every class. Our classes range from bands or resistance work, yoga classes…everything is going to teach you what it is and why it is we do what we do. Any private one on one sessions, our trainers are all instructed to make sure that the client walks out with an understanding of not just what to do but why why they’re doing it.

That’s fundamental to how Troy trains. Even when people are working out in the gym, if he walks in and he sees someone doing something that’s not quite right, or their form is not quite right, he’ll stop and correct…he’ll explain why the form should be different and how the form should be different. You can work out at 24 hour fitness for six months and not have a single person speak to you. You could be something wrong for six months and never have someone teach you how to do it right, that doesn’t happen here. So education is an intrical part of what happens here, it’s not just sign up for a diet class or motivation workshop.

Troy: One excuse killer…it works to our advantage and disadvantage. It’s not the gym you go to that you have an excuse of why it didn’t work. It’s always been the work, just whether you’re going to stick with it or not. It works positive and negative on things. It’s a long road to haul, but to re-education people is different. There’s people that come in here and say, “Oh I know what’s best for me.” No you don’t or you wouldn’t be in the shape you’re in. We do a fitness test to see where people are, we don’t base it off of weight. We do the test to see physically where you are. I’ve had people come in that are way obese and they’re technically in shape, heart rate is low, recovery heart rate is low…You can’t tell something by the package.

Well, in doing research for this topic, I came across the Fat Haters…I would have never known about them. They’re vicious!

Troy: They’re horrible. They’ve got problems…but they usually have hand in hand with their own body dysmorphia. They’re self-loathers. It’s like the closeted anti-gay guy. The guy that goes out and says, “Kill all the fags!”

Jill: That’s so typical! A closeted behavior, no matter what it is, if you’re a closeted overeater, closeted purger, closeted homosexual…you’re always going to create the image of the exact opposite.

Troy: Fat doesn’t equal lazy. And that is a point they like to use…and it’s usually learned behavior. I’ve usually used combat for one of the things that was quite easy for me. You know…the day that you can actually beat me? You can talk. because I was fat as a kid, I was a chubby kid who played football and played violin. That was hard, it was really difficult. Throw on top of that a weight problem. But I was also the kid who if you ever said anything, I’d literally kick your ass…didn’t matter one way or another. I grew into that with the Marine Corp, barely met weight standards with a 300 PFT (Physical Fitness Test.)
I run into that all the time. I have people that come in and say, “How could you?” Easily – because I’m the best of the best. By educating yourself out of those things. With any kind of hate, it’s usually ignorance.

Well, see that’s what we’re trying to do here with the magazine. It’s parallel to what Basic Rights Oregon is doing with repealing measure 36 in 2012. The way they intend to win is to win the hearts and minds of Oregonians by having one on one conversations. With id Magazine, it’s our mission to Educate, Motivate and Inspire. Introducing people everywhere, especially Oregon, but introducing to people to community members they might learn something from, or may be inspired by. If it happens to be a straight person that was ignorant, and it changes their mind, then we’ve done our job.

Troy: Here’s what’s very interesting…you’ll run into fat haters everywhere, in all cultures. Whether you’re gay or not, I’ve made a lot of friends in Portland and my business partner is gay. I’ve run into a lot of fat haters in the gay community. I find that really super-twisted sick. But it’s a matter of body dysmorphia. I find it sick, but not angry sick. Usually hatred inspires pity. Because physically they can’t do anything to me, frankly. I gotten to the point now, what are you going to do.

Right. What strikes me is that we have a majority of people who don’t like us in the nation. But in our own community we have ignorance about things we know nothing about or don’t understand. We have prejudice against people that we don’t resinate with.

Troy: Blacks do it too, whites do it. Cowboys do it! I grew up in Wyoming…”We’re real cowboys!” “No! WE’RE REAL cowboys!” You’re both rednecks, now shut the hell up! It’s gonna happen in everything. I had roommates in the Marine Corps. who were black and felt bad because they were lighter skinned-blacks. One of by very best friends was a very dark black man. He felt bad because he was really dark, and he was outcast.

Jill: It is a basic element of human nature that breaks things down to Us’ and Them’s. We struggle constantly because of our basis tribe mentality, to overcome that. And we just don’t do that very well.

Troy: With fitness it happens too. I had a gentleman that comes in here and he said we needed to get more hot boys in here. He said he’d come workout more often if we got more hot boys to come in. You’ve got to be kidding me! He’s a supporter, a great guy and everything else, but it shocked me. “Well, it’s perceived as an old guy gym,” he said…what do you mean? Half of our population of our gym is under 29, that doesn’t make any sense. Just because most of the people that use our trainers want to go out screamin’ and “Oh shit! I better take care of it now!”

I saw Raquel Welch on Oprah and she was just amazing, she had to have had surgery, for her age to look THAT good. But that’s a great target market for you guys, that part of the population.

Jill: The baby-boomer generation, they are at that age where they’re worried about their weight, they’re worried about their health, wanting to look younger…and I say that as a member of that generation!

Troy: Going back to our earlier topic, I’ll leave you with this: Weight is a symptom of something going on, it is not the problem.

Jill: Well basically what you’re saying, weight…being overweight, underweight, is not necessarily an indicator of health, but we make the assumption. The person, if they’re in a certain weight range, they’re healthy…if they’re out of that range, they’re not healthy. It’s an assumption, it isn’t grounded on fact.

The media has done a very good job of that.

Jill: Very good job. We also make assumptions that just because someone is overweight, that they just don’t eat right. We make a whole lot of assumptions of people on weight…people who are habitually thin, they can’t put on weight no matter how hard they try…they just have that kind of metabolism. People make assumptions about naturally thin people that are not grounded in fact, they’re simply projections or assumptions.

For More Information:

Empower Fitness Co Inc
1127 Southwest Morrison Street
Portland, OR 97205
(503) 274-2639