Interview with Joanna Southerland

After the 7 AM body tone class, I took the opportunity to interview the instructor, Joanna Southerland.  During the class she was loud, inspiring, and made plenty of cracks against boyfriends and soda, so I wasn't too worried about her judging my inability to use anything more than 2 pound weights.  What I didn't realize, however, was that she had such a deep story.

Joanna Southerland, as I pointed out in my earlier post about her body tone class, is a focused and high-energy individual.  She is passionate about exercise, and has teaching the body tone course for 10 years. On top of that, she has been instructing fitness courses for 32 years.

Me: What got you into teaching fitness?
Joanna: "I've just always been a jock, and my son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was seven months old. I made exercise an important part of my entire family's life.  [My son] now has a top ten cycling Team Novo Nordisk, they go all over the world and compete in high end events."

After a little research I found that Team Norvo Nordisk was co-founded by Joanna's son in 2006, and since then has expanded to include almost 100 athletes-- all of which are diagnosed with  diabetes.  More information can be found on their Twitter or Facebook Page.

Now, just because Joanna can come off as a little abrasive when she is in fitness instructor bad-ass mode, no one should be deterred from a little passion. Joanna gives some good tips when it comes to those of us who are slightly afraid of starting our fitness journey.

She says that you will have to suffer for 4-5 months. There's no way of getting around that fact; you have to have discipline and believe your instructor that it will happen. If you're not used to exercising you have to keep it up, and you're going to be sore the first one to two weeks.  The soreness will go away if you keep up regular exercise, and only after a few months will you start to see results.

Not only that, but you have to keep an eye on what you eat.  That does not mean that you have to become a calorie-counting robot, but you have to be honest.  Joanna suggests using apps such as Daily Burn or Daily Plate to track your food intake.  The trick is to put in everything you eat, including the handful of chocolate chips you sneak out of your roommate's side of the fridge.You can't fudge the data, you need to face the facts.  As Joanna says, you need to know what 10 potato chips are.

Eventually, as you have the food tracking constantly in the back of your mind and the hours of burn and pain in your muscles, you will start to naturally reject foods that are obviously unhealthy.  I mean, do you even know how donuts are made?