From average to athletic: What I learnt from a year with a personal trainer

For someone who had never been fat, never struggled with her weight or body image, and was relatively average in terms of fitness, hiring a personal trainer was never something I’d considered. I assumed you only hired one for two reasons — rehabilitation or to get jacked. I was interested in neither.

Fitness was already a part of my life, albeit in a very comfortable way. I rotated between weekly HIIT boxing and barre classes, but these workouts had stopped challenging me about five years ago.

I thought I was eating healthily and had been intermittent fasting for years (by that, I mean skipping breakfast). Yet somehow, the few hundred grams I’d been steadily gaining had started creeping up on me. At 153cm, I was the heaviest I’d ever been at 56kg.

While I was far from overweight, I was chunkier than I’d have liked, puzzled by the plateau in my workout progress, and slowly losing the battle against my waistband and decreasing metabolism.

The goal? To establish a new routine that pushed me, to get stronger — and, the shallowest of them all? To finally wear a bikini at Tanjong Beach Club without feeling self-conscious.

The perks of a good trainer

Finding a trainer is like finding the right pair of jeans. The wrong ones might worsen your relationship with your body, but the right pair will make your butt look amazing. And sometimes, you have to try on more than a few pairs to find the right fit.

Luckily, my trainer, Maria Lourdes Chan of Casa Maria, and I had the right synergy from the start. Originally trained as a yoga teacher and a pioneer of Bikram yoga in Singapore in the early 2000s, her multidisciplinary approach made her training style unique and far from boring. She regularly switched up our workouts to target different muscle groups, and would even incorporate hot yoga or long-distance running to keep sessions dynamic.

Another thing I appreciated was her wide range of clientele. There was never any judgment from her — and you could see that reflected in her clients: women going through perimenopause, retirees in their 60s trying strength training for the first time, teenagers working to improve their endurance for school sports, and even a group of commandos.

It showed me that she had the know-how to tailor each experience accordingly, regardless of fitness level, age, or gender. After all, transforming the body of a young 20-something is easy — less so if you’re perimenopausal and past your physical prime.

And fun fact, she used to train J-pop legend Ayumi Hamasaki and was tasked to get her in shape for grueling world tours.

According to Maria, the key to being a good trainer is the ability to listen — to bring compassion, determination, and the skill to guide clients toward self-actualisation.

This is a core tenet of her practice. Without this self-actualisation, she believes this is why so many people fall back into old habits when the initial motivation is gone or quit once things get too tough.

“You can’t just motivate clients by telling them what you believe about them — they need to be able to see it through their own eyes,” she shares. “A trainer’s job is not to tell them who they are or what their potential is. Your job is to physically push them in the safest and healthiest way possible so that they can grow.”

It’s not easy, but it does get easier

When we first started working together, my impostor syndrome kicked in. Intimidated by the pressure to succeed in an unfamiliar space, I gave Maria small, easily attainable goals — which she saw right through.

“I’m 56kg now, but I would like to be 54kg, and maybe take an inch off my waist.”

“Then why do you even need me?” she responded bluntly.

I was taken aback by her frankness — but she was right. I thought this journey would be about improving my physical capabilities, but she quickly taught me that none of that would happen without building mental resilience first.

“As a trainer, I understand my clients through their physical bodies,” she told me. “Through physical fitness, I get to know who you are — from the way you train, speak, and carry yourself, to how you pretend you’re fine even when you’re struggling.”

Every time I wanted to give up, Maria would clock my competitive spirit and encourage me to push through: one more rep, another 200 metres, ten more seconds. On the surface, it looked like yet another trainer pushing me past my limits. But on a deeper level, she was teaching me to break down my goals into smaller, achievable steps — and that mindset shift changed everything.

There were days I felt completely demotivated. I was putting in the hours but barely saw a change on the scale — until I understood that the goal isn’t the number, especially when you’re strength training.

Wherever you’re at, it’s important to know your body’s limits and communicate that to your trainer. A good trainer will push you beyond your comfort zone — but never at the cost of your physical well-being.

Being hot is a full-time job

The first few sessions were doable — easy, even. With weekly HIIT sessions at the boxing studio under my belt, my endurance and strength levels were fairly decent, and keeping up during hour-long PT sessions felt manageable.

But you know what’s not easy? Waking up at 7am to drag yourself to the gym twice a week. Hitting 10,000 steps a day. Squeezing in additional fitness classes and exercises outside of training. Overhauling your entire diet, counting calories, meal prepping, washing your fitness gear daily — and trying to stay on top of work and a personal life.

At my peak, I was working out six days a week, spending most of my time commuting to the gym, washing my hair and workout clothes, then passing out in exhaustion.

In my overzealousness, I made the same mistake so many others do — overcommitting to an unsustainable and unrealistic routine. (To be clear, this wasn’t Maria’s doing; I was just wildly motivated to see results, fast.) Instead of trusting the process, I was starting to sour the healthy relationship with fitness I was trying to build.

The least dramatic before-and-after story you’ll ever see

Thanks to that short and intense burst of motivation, I ended up exceeding my goals within eight months! Yes, I lost weight — but more importantly, I hit so many firsts: my first time at the gym, my first deadlift, my first 3km, 5km and 7km run, my first hot yoga session. And my personal favourite? A deadlift record of 70kg — that’s almost 1.5 times my body weight.

Even my eating habits have completely changed for the better. Vegetables and water are now an integral part of my lifestyle, though I won’t be giving up sugar or my daily iced latte anytime soon.

I still wander around the weights section of the gym feeling a bit confused, but Maria helped me hone my bodily awareness and build a mental resilience I never knew I had.

According to her, that epiphany is normal — and a lesson she’s always trying to instil.

“When you have a shift in your mindset and perspective, you’ll motivate yourself to complete your goals even if physically you don’t feel like doing it. To me, fitness starts with using the mind to control the body — and that’s how you connect with yourself.”

That same awareness now helps me navigate other tough parts of life. A shitty dating situation, an argument with friends, an overwhelming workload, pressure from the office — I now have the mental tools to take things one step at a time, just like I did with my weights: one rep at a time.

While I’ve since slowed down the intensity of my fitness routine — and lost some of the motivation (and sadly, muscle definition) — I carry the life lessons and discipline from this experience into every other part of my life.

That alone is priceless.

(And strutting around Tanjong Beach Club in a bikini.)