While personal trainer Lacey Stone has worked with a slew of celebrity clients, including, Amanda Seyfried, Kelly Osbourne and Mary-Louise Parker, she said she still prefers working out with everyday folks the most.
"The thing that is good [about working with celebrities] is that everyone knows who they are, so when they see the success with a celebrity they can associate with it," she said. "I like working with them, but my main passion is working with the everyday gym-goer."
She said her approach to fitness and training comes from the desire to be the coach she never had when she was involved in sports growing up, and particularly from her time playing basketball for the University of Maine, where she'd received an athletic scholarship.
She said it was during that time she realized she was a lesbian, but because of the environment she was in she struggled with that revelation.
"In college my team was very homophobic and Christian," she said. "I ended up feeling at a loss and confused about my sexuality.
"My whole brand of fitness is based on me being the coach that I never had and inspiring people who are different to come together and be the team I never had in college. I turned that pain into a career I'm super-passionate about."
Stone got her start as a trainer in New York City at Equinox, where she created her own successful fitness class, The Big Game.
She later moved to Los Angeles and is currently a head instructor at Flywheel.
She continues to train clients in New York as well.
Since relocating to L.A., Stone has created a new fitness program, Eight Weeks to Change. She said it has been very successful and she hopes to turn it into a digital TV show soon that will be available online.
"I take 16 people, mainly women, and I look to help them change their body," she said. "The program is basically me putting them on a diet plan and working out with them, and helping them 24/7 for essentially eight weeks."
She said she works with a lot of women clients, and her unique take on training might have something to do with that.
"My coaching involves me getting to really know you on a deep level so I can help transform the negative patterns in your life that are causing you to not be successful at the gym," she said. "I find that a lot of trainers are focused on external results and getting clients to perform."
That idea of working from the inside out might also have to do with her own experience of being closeted in her earlier life.
"When I was listening to Caitlyn Jenner talk at the ESPYs, I could totally associate with that," she said. "Once I didn't play sports anymore I lost my identity and I didn't know who I was and I had nothing to protect me. I did the same thing that a lot of gay people do. I turned to drinking and eating to numb the pain.
"Once I realized that I was becoming a cliché lesbian, I put my foot down and I decided to get in touch with what was making me so unhappy, and that changed my body and my life."
She noted the LGBT community often has added struggles that contribute to less-than-healthful lifestyles, like excessive drinking, poor eating and drug use.
"For me it's an inside out job with fitness, if you feel good on the inside the outside is going to match," she said. "Gay people tend to have so much pain on the inside that it effects the way they look on the outside."
Her brand of fitness looks to address those negative inner issues.
Fitness has its trends and Stone said right now for her women clients it's all about looking athletic.
"For a while it was cool to be supermodel thin, now there is this shift towards athletes," she said. "Being strong and sexy is something I keep hearing."
She pointed to several successful female athletes who have been getting a lot of attention, such as the U.S. women's soccer team that just won the World Cup this summer, MMA fighter Ronda Rousey, actresses like Jessica Biel and some of today's hottest fashion models who are showing more muscular looks.
"In the fashion industry, allowing models to have a little muscle and to not be so waiflike helps women across the country feel confident with a more muscular physique," she said.
To get that muscular physique, Stone said the key is lifting weights and following a healthy diet.
"If you want to be the best version of yourself lifting weights is essential," she said, noting that it can be especially hard for women to do that.
"I think a lot of women tend to under eat and when you lift weights it revs up your metabolism and you want more food and that scares a lot of women, so it turns them away from lifting weights," she said.
Additionally, the weight lifting area of gyms can be intimidating for women.
"I think for a lot of women its an insecurity because its such a mans area," she said. "Even when I enter the weight area I get some looks and if you aren't strong you don't go there. It is uncomfortable for a lot of women to lift weights in the gym."
To get an idea of what it's like to workout with Stone, visit www.youtube.com/watch, where she has posted a Max Cardio Challenge Workout. Visit LaceyStoneFitness.com to learn more about Stone.
