More Than Just Fitness – Jose Lopez
Jose Lopez gives his take on a well-balanced lifestyle inside and outside the gym.
With the popularity of fitness and nutrition ever-increasing among the general public, finding personal trainers who genuinely care about getting results for their clients is rare. In a saturated market full of trainers, Toronto resident Jose Lopez is an experienced personal trainer who is actually making a difference.
Having been a trainer for over 12 years now, Lopez has grown his brand from being based on word of mouth to a successful social media platform. With over 21,000 followers on Instagram and a highly engaging website, Lopez knows how to connect with people. He is an outgoing and humble man who wants to showcase his knowledge and interests with his followers. More than just fitness, Lopez blogs about a diverse range of topics to show that there is more to life than just the gym.
Speaking from personal experience, once I took a gander at joselopezfit.com, I found myself grabbing a great ab routine that I have now incorporated into my workouts. And I also found great insight useful when travelling to Greece, as there was a blog post in reference to Lopez’s time there. Purely informative and fun, Lopez’s advice is something realistic that everyone can benefit from.
Q. On your website, you have blog posts about men’s fashion, travel tips and music festivals, to name a few. Why is writing about these topics important to your brand?
A. I have always been interested in these things, and I think it’s important to show my readers and followers that there’s life outside of the gym. We all work out for different reasons, but in the end, we want to celebrate our bodies in the real world. For example, I like to go hiking, and I want to have the right endurance level to climb up a hill. Or even going to music festivals and feeling good in the clothes that I’m wearing. It’s all about building our confidence and enjoying life. I want to share my experiences, so I can better inform people and give them some options when making their own decisions.
Q. With being a trainer for over 12 years and having many clients, is there one success story that really stands out? And how did you help this person attain their goal?
A. I once had a client who was a lawyer with an extremely demanding and busy career. But he lived a very unhealthy lifestyle; he would be working really late and be eating out or would go out for drinks and still stay out really late. Until one day, he had enough and realized that he had to make a change. Once he got into contact with me, we gave him a program that he enjoyed, and we trained together for two and a half years. He later went on to join amateur body-building competitions because he loved it so much. And to this day, we stay in contact and are still friends.
Q. There are so many different kinds of diets and workout routines for people to try. What advice can you give that would help people narrow it down to one specific diet and workout routine?
A. On the diet side of things, I like the paleo diet because it’s less of a diet and more of a way of eating. You’re staying away from processed foods and taking out refined sugars. And you’re focusing on eating lean protein, a moderate amount of fat and low carbohydrates. What I love about this diet is you can adjust it accordingly, for example, if you’re into endurance sports like running or CrossFit, where you need more energy, you can easily up your consumption of carbs. This diet can be adjusted with any workout routine that people enjoy. It teaches people to pick the right macronutrients to implement into their diet.
But cooking at home is very important as well; knowing what goes into your food can just help further your fitness goals. And on the workout side, it doesn’t really matter what you do. It’s all about what you enjoy and what gets you to the gym. Just try a variety of group classes and see what you like. Ideally, you would want to add some weight training, some form of cardio and something that would involve flexibility or mobility training.
