No Excuses: Monica Lynne keeps training personal

written by  Sheila G. Miller | photos by James Harnois

Monica Lynne has no time for the next fad diet. Atkins? No thanks. Zone Diet? Nope. Paleo? Meh.

“The biggest thing that I believe in is also the biggest reason why I don’t have a better following,” the personal trainer and wellness coach said. “I believe in eating everything.”

Lynne, 47, owns Balancing Life LLC, offering help to clients as a wellness coach, personal trainer and nutrition consultant. She works as a fitness instructor at Mount Si Sports & Fitness and also works part-time as the member services manager for the Snoqualmie Valley Chamber of Commerce.

For those not fortunate enough to have workouts built into their workdays, don’t despair—Lynne has thoughts on that, too.
“Remember that getting the heart rate up every 24 hours is what keeps a metabolism revving at a higher level permanently,” she said. “So rising from bed even fifteen to twenty minutes earlier and doing a mini workout … can do a lot more than people realize.”
But she stresses that for fitness and weight loss, food is more than half the battle.

To that end, every weekend Lynne plans everything she and her family will eat from Sunday through Wednesday. That includes breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as snacks. “And then I commit to it,” she said. “I’m not one of those people who allows myself to say, on a Tuesday when I’m really tired because I worked late, ‘I could easily get takeout or take the kids out to dinner.’ Nope. If the calendar was for us to eat sautéed Swiss chard with onions and grilled mahi mahi, I don’t veer from it ever. That’s what is on the menu and that’s what I’m making.”

But Lynne doesn’t withhold all the treats—she eats dark chocolate every night and regularly drinks wine. “It’s figuring out your own moderation,” she said. “If you deprive yourself, if you say certain days you can’t have it, it’s all you think about.”

Lynne didn’t start out in the health and wellness industry. After graduating from college, she became an accountant. But it didn’t stick—and when the controller of the company suggested Lynne not laugh quite so much, she knew it wasn’t the job for her.

As she sought her next step, she routinely came back to her admiration for a high school health teacher who spoke frankly about sex education, and remembered how many of her Catholic college classmates were deeply uneducated on the subject.

She earned a teaching certificate from Central Washington University and began teaching health. Meanwhile, she was inspired by a trainer at the Yakima YMCA. “I thought it looked fun to help someone get over the hurdle,” she said. “To show them how to get their
health back.”

Today, she teaches a group fitness class each morning and does every class she teaches so she knows how hard she’s pushing her students, then works one-on-one with a couple of nutrition clients. Lynne also runs online nutrition and fitness motivation groups. Her most recent was a six-week program—using a private Facebook page, Lynne provided a daily challenge or goal.