Transcript of World-Renowned Personal Trainer: How To Lose Fat, Build Muscle and Improve Your Mental Health | Senada Greca

My friend, welcome back to another episode of The School of Greatness. I am excited. We have Sonata Greta, who is Kim Kardashian's personal fitness and health trainer. This is just not another episode about how to start off the new year with Healthy Habits. This is about how to really rewire your thinking around your body, your health, and your mental fitness altogether. You're about to listen to a very raw and inspiring conversation with Sunata Grecca. She immigrated to America as a teenager. She battled eating disorders to become one of the most influential figures in women's strength training. She opens up about her remarkable journey of transformation, the struggles she faced as a teenager in her young 20s, to where she is now with physical training, mental training, health and wellness. As Kim Kardashian's personal trainer and the founder of the We Rise Up, she's revolutionizing how women approach fitness by championing strength over esthetics. This is a big challenge for a lot of men and women today. With social media and everyone filtering their photos and just posting six-pack abs or these perfect shapes of bodies, it's hard to not feel insecure. It's hard to not feel shameful about your own body when you see other people who just seem to have it all put together.

It feels like no matter how hard you try, you're never going to get the results you want in your physical esthetics. I've been there. I've struggled with weight and my nutrition and health and wellness as a former professional athlete to then just consuming thousands and thousands of excess calories after retiring from playing sports and gaining a lot of weight, to then trying to retrain but still eating a ton of calories, to being addicted to sugar, to all these different things that I've struggled with. It's It's challenging. It's challenging for anyone of any type of background, especially if you're in social media at all and you see people posting stuff that just seems like, man, these people have either extreme genetics or they've just figured out the health and wellness hack, and I haven't. It's just this comparison, shaming thing that might happen over and over. If that's resonating with you, if that speaks to you in any way, then please let me know over on Instagram or anywhere on social media. Let me know if that speaks to you because it's a challenge. I get it. There almost needs to be a way where you rewire your identity.

You shift your identity. It has taken me years to learn this process. It doesn't mean I'm perfect all the time, but it has taken me a long time to create a new identity with food, to create a new identity with training, and to do it from a place where I'm not obsessive over needing to look a certain way, but I've set standards for myself and boundaries for myself to set myself up for success. I think you've got to figure out whatever's best for you. In today's episode, her powerful message about building muscle for longevity and mental health rather than just appearance is reshaping the conversation around fitnessness, specifically for women in general who've always thought about not weight training because it's going to make them look bulky, they don't want to have big arms or big shoulders or things like that, they don't want to look too masculine. There are so many different experts we've had on Menopause experts as well who are saying, I wish I would have done more strength training when I was younger. I wish I would have built muscle when I was younger because it helps more than just physical appearance.

It helps longevity and mental health. That's what I think we need to be focused on. How can we have the best mental and emotional health possible in 2025 and beyond? How can we weather any storm that comes our way? How can we weather relationship challenges, career challenges, family family issues? How can we weather political challenges? How can we emotionally and mentally prepare ourselves for any challenge that's to come so that we feel more equipped to take on the challenges of life? That's what this is about. In the process of doing that, of building muscle for longevity and mental health, you're going to look great naked, and that's fun, too. You're going to look great with your shirt off or naked in the mirror or with your partner. It's like, hey, you're going to feel more confident, you're going to feel more secure with yourself because you don't have shame around your body as well. I want you to feel loved this year and beyond. I want you to feel like you fully accept yourself. I want you to feel like you deserve to receive all that you want to receive this year and beyond. I truly believe that when you just set different standards for yourself, and again, not extreme yo-yo dieting or extreme weird eating disorders, but just standards and boundaries around how you eat and how you move, you're going to feel more in control and responsible for your life.

This episode dives deep into personal growth, overcoming body issue, challenges, and finding purpose through empowering others. If you're loving this and you're enjoying this episode, please share this with one or two friends. Just copy and paste the link over on Apple podcast or Spotify or wherever you're listening. Copy the link, text one or two friends, and have them share with you their biggest takeaway as well. Leave me a review over on Apple podcast or Spotify, and let me know your biggest takeaway from this episode. It would mean a lot to me. Click the follow button over there as well. Again, I'm so grateful for you for being a part of this community with the School of us. Let's dive into this episode right now.

Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guests. We have the inspiring Sonata Greca in the house. So good to see you, and congrats on everything.

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure being here.Thank you for having me.I've.

I've seen you just take over the Instagram feed and the Explorer page for years of your content of just inspiring and empowering women to see what's possible for their health, their bodies, and really their strength and to show what is possible. You've been an inspiration for so many women around the world. You reach millions of women and lots of people on a daily basis. But it wasn't always that way for you, it seems like. I've read some of your backstory. You deal with some challenges, some anxiety, some depression, some body issue challenges as well. What would you say were the main challenges you faced, either earlier in your life or your teen years, before you got into a healthy body image and healthy lifestyle for yourself? What were the main challenges you faced?

Yeah, of course. Coming into the United States as a teenager presented a lot of issues with fitting in. I think that was the first, if you want to say, for me, to the issues that started at that point is, how does this foreigner fit in and integrate and look like the other kids and the popular kids.

I think that's where- Did you speak English, too, or no?

I was an English speaker at the time, I had taken private courses back in Albania in preparation of either coming to the States or it's like the main foreign language at the time in Albania. Started on that path. The opportunity presented itself for my family to come here by winning the lottery and the green cards were legal, basically. Instantly. Instantly, pretty much, which was super fortunate to be able to come here at a time of unrest in Albanian, civil wars and just a chaotic atmosphere. It was great to escape that and be able to come legally into the United States, but that presented the issues of now Okay, I'm a teenager in a new country with new challenges. On top of that, I was the only English-speaking person in my family. Now I had to carry the load.

To translate everything.

To translate everything. I had to basically become a parent.

Yeah, go get a grocery store and ask questions.

Yeah, go to the doctor's office when my parents go to whatever office, fill out paperwork. To this day, I don't want to fill out paperwork because I'm so traumatized by that at an early age. But it had to be done. It fell on my shoulders. That, I believe, coupled with, again, being a teenager in a new country, trying to fit in. So That's where depression, anxiety, and even an eating disorder came to the surface. Really? Eating disorder wanting to fit in, depression, anxiety, because there was so much of an overload of my day-to-day school things, and then family issues that I had to help with. And coupled, I found out later in life that I have a genetic predisposition to anxiety and depression. Interesting. That was a more recent even though I've known because my mom has dealt with it and hearing from her, my grandfather has dealt with it. So you create that link that it has existed, thus I'm experiencing it. But then to know from genetic testing that, wow, I am predisposed to all of these things, and now how do I work through them? Yeah, so that was the back story coming to the country and experiencing some of those issues issues that then led me to where I am today.

The desire to combat those in a natural way and not saying that I did take antidepressants like I was on medication to help with that, but it never gave me the relief or the long-term relief that I needed.

You knew it wasn't the long-term solution.

It wasn't the long-term solution. It was just a cover-up of the symptoms. But I always think of with anything, if it gets taken off the market, if suddenly you don't have no access to pharmacies, or how are you innately going to deal with these issues? I'm always for start with the things that you're able to do and achieve in a natural way by yourself. If you need, not against pharmaceuticals, and obviously not against therapy, but can you start with the basics, or can you utilize them in conjunction with each other? Then hopefully, it'll carry you to a point where you're able to maybe back off from pharmaceuticals because it is known that they have side effects. What is the side effect of exercise and eating healthy? None, really. It's actually just benefits from it. Wow.

How long since you moved to the country, you had this emotional weight that you had to carry with the family also fitting in in school. What What state were you living in? What city?

New York, upstate New York. You're in upstate New York.

You're trying to fit into a school in New York, a new culture, different type of, I guess, girls and how they communicate versus what you're used to. In Albania, you're also getting into puberty. All these different things are happening all at the same time.

All at the same time.

When did you realize you had signs of an eating disorder, and how long did it take until you were able to break that habit?

When you have an eating disorder, you're blind to it. It's more the people that are outside of you that notice it. It was teachers and parents that started noticing it, that I was losing weight drastically. But when you have this body dysmorphia, you could be the thinest that you've ever been, that you could possibly be that you're risking serious health problems. You don't see yourself as that.

Really?

When you look in the mirror- When you look in the mirror, you be, I'm fat, I'm big, I'm this, I'm that. You're just the most negative. You're breaking yourself down. You just don't think that because you have such advanced body dysmorphia and looking at yourself from a different lens that you don't recognize that.

What do you think is the main cause of body dysmorphia for most people? Is it an emotional trauma? Is it a hyper criticism they get from parents or peers? Is it a pressure from seeing marketing in society that, Oh, I'm not enough, and so I need to become like that thing?

What is the main cause? I think it's a combination of all of what you mentioned. It's hypercritical parents. I love you, Mom, but if I I wouldn't get the highest grade in class if I wasn't first in class, if you're not first, you're last mentality, which comes with amazing side benefits when it comes to drive and achieving and overachieving in life, but it comes with a huge weight on your shoulders to be the best. That is not always required to be successful, to be the best, to look the best. I think it's a combination of all those things. I think there's the societal pressure that weigh on young people that are in their formative formative years. They have a comparison of unrealistic beauty. For me at the time was all of those factors as well as trying to figure out how to fit in in a new place, new country, new culture, trying to control something that felt controllable amongst uncontrollable an uncontrollable situation.

Is that a common theme that you've heard from other women that have had an eating disorder or body dysmorphia in the past that they felt out of control? The way to feel a sense of control is with your body or with food It is one of the main things that leads to that, is trying to control something that feels controllable in your life. Because you can't control anything around you, but you can control.

Exactly, control.

Interesting. How long did it take until you started to… I guess teachers were telling you, or peers or friends or family. But when did you start to say, Oh, yes, this is a problem I need to take care of?

It took a couple of years. It took a couple of years and therapists and being prevented from in sports because sports was something that I was really interested in. So I was stopped from participating in sport.

Really? Because you got so skinny?

Because I got so skinny and unhealthy. That was one of the beginning wake-up calls that I couldn't do one of the things that I absolutely loved. But again, that voice of… The way that you were supposed to look the way that you're supposed to look. Persisted for a while, for a few years. Then I was utilizing, working out, again, while understanding that you have to nourish yourself. I started to increase the caloric intake, but still not to the degree that was needed, and then trying to outweigh that with working out. Working out?

You're negating that. Really? What was a caloric intake that you would take, if you could guess, in the times where you were at your lowest with body dysmorphia or eating disorder?

Anorexia. Anorexia.

With anorexia, what do you think?

It was very minimal. I don't want to because I don't want to influence anybody to even consider doing anything like that because it was very unhealthy, but it was very minimal.

Like under a thousand calories a day?

Way less. Like a few hundred calories a day? Yeah, a few hundred calories a day. Really? It's very unhealthy.

When a woman thinks I want to eat less because I want to lose weight today. Maybe they don't have body dysmorphia or anorexia or eating disorder, but they're just thinking, I want to lose weight, and so I'm going to go into extreme calorie deficit. What is happening to a woman's body when they, for long periods of time, do 1,000 calories or less or 500 calories or less a day? I'm not talking about 24-hour fasting here and there, but long periods of time, what happens to a woman's body?

Yeah, your body goes into a shutdown mode, basically. So your hormones start to go off their regular cycle. Your body literally goes into shutdown mode because now it needs to protect what it has and not produce the unnecessary things that a normal functioning body would require. You start losing your period, you start losing Basically, it's just your body shedding all what it considers to be unnecessary functions. Wow. Even though they're super necessary, but to the basic survival.Preserve energy. To preserve the super basic needs of a human. It starts to shut down all of those other functions of the body. At that point, I did lose It was my period. Really? Then I had to work on gaining it back.

How long did it take to gain back your normal hormone function?

It wasn't that long. It was within a year, if I remember correctly. It was a long time ago. Still? Wow. But no laughing matter because it is an important part of being healthy, physically and mentally. 100%.

Where is the Where's the level of self-love? How much self-love did you have during that season of life? I don't want to speak for other women or other men who maybe are going through anorexia, but where does that typically seem to be, or where is that for you? Did you have a low self-esteem and low level of self-love? Then how did you learn to believe in self, love self, to course-correct?

Yeah. I think there's almost no self-love, because if I were to have any self-love, I wouldn't do that to myself, right? Because now you're basing your self-love and self-esteem on an image that you can't even see clearly. If you can't see yourself or who you are, and you're wanting to diminish that image, I would say that there was almost no self-love because you don't have a clear image of yourself, and you're focusing that love on an idealistic image that's outside of you.

A perfect image that you can't attain.

A perfect image that's outside of you that you can't attain. You could attain it, but in your eyes, let's say you've lost a certain amount of weight, but you're still not able to see that. That's why it's like that. You're never able to grasp for that image because you're not able see yourself realistically.

You had very little self-love at that season, right? When did you start to have a lot of self-love and self-compassion and see yourself differently to treat yourself There probably.

I was doing all these things. I was trying to be the thinest that I possibly could, and I still wasn't happy. There was a miscommunication there between you're going to be happy, you're going to be satisfied when this weight, and that wasn't happening. I was constantly depressed and not happy. Then that came into question. How are we going to do this? How are you going to reach that level of happiness? Because obviously this is not working. Then a turning point for me was when I saw a physician, a primary care physician, that she was running marathons. She was, I think, in her 50s and running one... I don't want to exaggerate and say every month, but it was at least every three months she was running a marathon. Insistently, yeah. Insistently. She got me into running, into working out for the right reasons for that mental aspect, and started to shift nurturing my body to fuel the runs and to fuel the working out. That was the first shift.

You're like what? 17, 18, 19 run a story?

I was like early '20s. Okay, early '20s. During that whole period, from 15 to early '20s, it was a struggle of a push and pull of wanting to look a certain way and dieting and over working out and just trying to... Actually, I went from under eating anorexia to like, binge eating. I never did fully go into bulimia, but I did struggle with those two extremes because you can only take so much when you're constricting, constricting, constricting, and then you're going to go the opposite way. You need to release. You need to like... Yes, exactly. Wow. It was that, and it was actually your cousin, too, also saying that's not it. You're not really leaning into one of the joys of life, which is eating and experiencing the food that you're eating. Your constant thinking is around what I should be eating, what I should not be eating so I don't gain weight, versus sitting with what you're eating and enjoyment of it. Wow. That was a little bit of a light-bulb moment that eating doesn't have to be like such a chore, such a weighing factor, but more of a joy of life. You can enjoyment.

I know nowadays that there's so much information out there and so much stress around eating, what to eat, when they not eat fruit is suddenly controversial. I'm like, Really? Just taking it back to the basics and going back to have food is actually a joy of life. Yes, it feeds our ability to function, but it's also, at least for me, a joy. That's beautiful.

When did you start to feel like, Oh, I've starting to got these things under control? My perception of myself, my weight, my food, my working I'm not too extreme in one way. I have a good sense of self, self-image, and I feel like I'm in a consistent, healthy place. What years was that?

In my early 20s, it was when I started to make that shift. If I can remember the book that Overcoming Overeating, because that's what I was doing at that point, which is one and the same, you're just not restricting or you are restricting because you are Thinking this food is good, this is bad. Now you're maybe over eating the things that you think they're good, but nothing should be in excess. That was a turning point in my early 20s. I was realizing that I could eat, nourish my body, and then get the physical activity that I needed and be in a stable physical weight and function properly. I think it was then Later on in my early 30s, that I shifted from cardio and running and marathoning to more weight lifting.

Interesting. For almost a decade, you were like, cardio, running, that's a lifestyle. What did your body... I mean, not that we should focus on body image, but what was your body? What did your body look like in your 20s then when you were in cardio mode, running did long distances versus weight training, What's that shifting mode?

It shifted. That's interesting because I was doing cardio and that during my 20s, and my weight would drastically shift. I would go into being super thin if I was running, if I was training for a marathon. Thin, not a lot of muscle definition, to then when I was not training as hard, being a little bit rounder and softer. But then when I started the strength train, I've never been so consistent in how I looked and how I feel looked. It's been years of actually being super consistent in the physical aspect.

What is the difference that you feel emotionally, spiritually, biologically between almost a decade of cardio training, mostly, versus years of strength training?

There's a draining aspect with that much cardio. While you can look a certain way, that maybe the society thinks that it's feminine, thin, and not a ton of muscle definition. But when I shifted into strength training, I leaned into my confidence and my self-esteem skyrocketed. Really? Because that's where you step into your power, into your true strength, and occupy space, and utilize what you're born with. You're born to have muscle definition. Otherwise, it wouldn't be there, the ability to do so. When I fully leaned into that, it just completely shifted my self-confidence, the way I looked on myself, bond from, I'm not thin enough. I don't look thin enough to like, I want to look as strong as I possibly can. I want to develop as much muscle as I possibly can. And then we're going to talk about that I see that, too, and how that feeds into health and longevity. Sure.

There's been a huge wave of research and science and people like Dr. Gabriele Lyon and Dr. Murray Claire who are talking about the importance of protein, specifically for women, protein and muscle building for health, for longevity, for also managing the menopause phase of being a woman and just being able to navigate that with more balance, I guess. It seems like in the last year or two, that has been the primary focus of many female experts speaking to women. Start building muscle. Absolutely. But I don't feel like I ever heard that before because a lot of women don't want to look bulky. They don't want to look too strong or too muscular or less feminine. How have you learned to navigate these psychology of you going from what society or what maybe you thought was a more feminine, skinnier look for a decade of cardio versus a more strong feminine look in these past years? How How have you navigated that when maybe society says… A lot of women say, Well, I don't want to look bulky or strong. For sure.

I do get that comment a lot. Really? Or I have… Not a lot. I should not say that. Every so often, there be a comment of too masculine or things like that. It doesn't bother me, honestly, because it's that person's perspective of me, and that's not a perspective that I have of myself. That's great. How I made that shift was organically because I know what feeling that gave to me. I know how I feel when I lift, when I feel stronger versus when I try to diet myself to my skiniest version. I didn't love myself at that time. I did not feel strong. I felt weak. I felt frail versus now I feel strong. I feel confident. I feel, I don't want to say invincible. But there's points, yeah. It's like that when you do lift and when you're pushing yourself, then you do feel invisible.

You feel unstoppable.Unstoppable.I can take on anything.Exactly. You didn't feel that all the time when you were in the cardio No, not really.

I mean, you do get some endorphins from running. You do feel some of those good feeling endorphins when you run. The runner high is real. Sure, yeah. Not in the same fashion, I would say. Not in the same fashion.It's not It's not strength. It's endurance.

Exactly. You can run long distances, and there is strength in endurance. Absolutely. There is confidence in that, and it's overcoming hard things, but it's not as strong as muscle.

At the end of the At the end of the day, yes, you can get those similar sentiments from a lot of modalities, from cardio, from running, or from strength training, or from Pilates, or yoga, whatever that does it for you. But for me, I think of longevity. It's come to that point where I'm like, quality life, quality longevity, being able to live unassisted when your later years in the '70s, '80s, '90s, hopefully, and beyond.

The commercial that I remember seeing a lot in the, I guess, '90s on TV was, I've fallen and I can't get up. You see all these old grandma, grandma, papa on TV who are like, I've fallen and I can't get up because they literally fell over and they can't push themselves off the ground. They don't have the muscle strength to just stand It's so funny. You don't think about it as a kid. You're like, Oh, yeah, I can get up. But when you're older, if you don't build muscle in your youth, it's going to be so much harder to build it when you're older. Absolutely. Do you know any of the research out there about how much harder it is to build muscle after 40, 50, 60 years old versus before?

I think it's different for men than women. In some situations, to the higher end, it's almost when men are almost twice as able as women to build muscle. I think for women, it's even more important to try to build that muscle when you can. I think it's so funny because I wrote that. I think in the... I'm like, I'm not going to remember all of it.

What's the stat? What's the state?

If you're going to your 40s, it's basically 0.2 2.7 pounds of muscle per month, and then 2.4 to 8.4 per year. On the low end is 2 pounds per year, 8 pounds a year, if you're going after it, like true intense, maximal strength training.

You should try to be gaining 2 pounds of muscle per year? That's your ability. That's your ability. If you went all in.

If you run all in, You could only gain about 2 pounds a year. Yeah, in their 40s. Wow.

How easy is it?

It drops. In the 50s, it's like 1.2 to 6 pounds of muscle per year.

That's if you're training like three to five days a week, hard, heavy.

I mean, Maybe, maybe, genetically, sometimes some people can be a little bit more. But on average, that's...

How easy is it to lose muscle? If you get sick for a couple of weeks or don't train for a month, how easy is it for a woman in You're in your 40s and 50s to lose muscle?

It starts within two weeks. You start to lose muscle. You start losing muscle in your 30s. You start to lose muscle at about 3 to Some studies say 5, some studies say 8 on the higher end % of muscle mass per decade. I think it started in your 30s.

You're fighting that natural… If you're sedentary for your life, you're just going to lose muscle.

You're going to lose muscle. That's why it's so important to start early on to build as much as you can so then you can offset the muscle that you will inevitably lose.

Eventually lose, yeah. When you're 80, 70, you're going to lose it. Exactly, yeah. Wow, It's interesting. Have you tracked how much muscle you've gained in the last 10 years?

I'm not huge on numbers, on like, All right, let's draw. I don't want to get in my own head. There are some people that benefit from that, but there are some people like me who have suffered through some of these eating disorders that I stay away from weighing myself. It doesn't have that effect on me anymore. Sometimes if I want to hop on it just to be like, Hey, I knew that was going on. Cool. It doesn't have that effect on me. But I try to stay away as long as in my heart I know that I'm doing everything that I can to strengthen, train as hard as I can to eat the right way, getting the right amount protein, carbs of fats, et cetera. If I know that I'm doing that, I don't need any measurements to tell me how I'm doing.

I guess it's interesting if we think about it like, I don't know, we didn't have scales back in the day. There was no scale a couple of hundred years ago, I guess, to weigh yourself. It wasn't a priority, but now everyone's got a scale and they check it every day, a lot of people. What is the negative for a woman who wants to weigh themselves and see a number every single day? What is the downside to weighing your sofa women versus the pro of having that number that they see every day?

It's going to dictate how you feel on that particular day. Do you really want your mood and your day to be dictated by a number on a scale? That's why I always say, Why do you want your day to be dictated by that? You know progress. We lie to ourselves. We're good at lying to ourselves, but we know when we're progressing, when we're regressing, when we're stagnant. I don't want my day to be dictated by a number. Now, granted, if you are able to remove that aspect and somehow not allow that number to dictate your day and simply utilize that as a way to track progress, but not every day because your body fluctuates within the day, from day to day. But if you're measuring yourself, maybe at the most weekly increments.

But even then, if the number doesn't hit your expectations, one week of hard work, and you're like, I didn't see the results, you're able to You're being defeated and then start binge eating.

Exactly.

Feeling like, What's the point of this? What's the point? I worked so hard.

Because progress takes time. It takes a long time to put muscle on. Easier when you're a beginner because your body is going to respond right away because it's something new and then a little bit harder if you're more advanced lifter or person that works out. But progress takes time, whether it is gaining muscle or losing weight. That's the thing. I think That's why most people quit because they don't see that progress in the short term. It takes 3-6 months to see true results. People mostly drop a new program within the first eight weeks. I think there's statistics, 50, 65% of people will quit in the first 3-6 months of starting a workout program. Then if it's like New Year's, it's like 80% of the people will quit.

I have this. It says a study show that 88% of people who set New Year's resolutions fail. They fail within the first two weeks. I'm curious, what do you think is the biggest barrier to maintaining goals then so that people don't fail so quickly when they start?

I think the first thing, it is like those unrealistic expectations. Set realistic goals. For me, if you are just starting out, if this is something completely new, is set that goal of just showing up. Show up every day. Create that consistency. Consistency is the primary goal that maybe somebody I should aim for in my eyes, aim for that consistency every day, day in and day out, to then bring you, to carry you to that point where you have created a new habit It takes time to create habit. There was a misconception of taking 21 days. Actually, it's much longer than that. I mean, 21 days is a good starting point because it's a little bit more than the two weeks. But if you're really I'm not wanting to solidify a habit, especially when it comes to working out, it's a little bit over two months. Some people say 66 days.

I love what you're saying about this, because if everyone could focus on making the goal making the process the goal as opposed to the results the goal, they would live a better life.

Exactly. Process is the goal.

Process is the goal. It's so hard, though. I've probably been on it, I don't know, two years, almost two years ago, I, COVID hit. I was training a lot before then. Then COVID and break up, emotional stress, all that stuff. Just life happened where I gained a lot of weight for myself. I was on 2:55 at my heaviest, but just didn't feel good. I'm 6'4, so I'm a big guy. It doesn't look like obese, but it just didn't feel good. Then two years ago, I really got consistent in the training. I'm down at 225 I've dropped a lot of weight, but I'm still not where I want to be, but I'm training so hard. Even me, knowing as an athlete that it just takes time. But letting go of the expectation or the goal of this is where I wanted to be. I can still have that vision on my mind, but a lot of it is the acknowledgement of showing up and just say, Did I do the right thing today? Exactly. Did I do the right things for my health, for my mind, for my future self today? Exactly. The results will eventually come if I keep showing up for me.

Absolutely. But it can take a while to get the results you want. I love what you're talking about. Make the process the goal, not the result.

Are you comparing yourself to this image that you had or you were at some point?

Yeah, it's like 22, and I'm like an elite athlete. Yeah.

Can you be the best version yourself that you could possibly be now. It is hard. It is hard because we unfortunately have...My body has changed from a year ago.We have memory. From two years ago. Really? Absolutely. It happens. But am I in my power, can I honestly say to myself that I'm doing everything that I can with regards to working out, strength training, with regards to nutrition, with regards to sleep, recovery, all of the components that That will bring you to that optimal self at this point in time. That's where I'm at.Yeah, you're focused on that.That's where I'm at, yeah.

That's interesting. There seems to be like… I don't know if this is the right terminology, but there seems to be trends with women's body sizes and types and structures since I was like… I grew up in the '80s and '90s. It was all about being super skinny. Then it was about curvy and voluptuous. Then it's like it seems like it's going back to skinny. It seems like there's these trends in the culture. Why do you think that… First off, is that accurate that there are trends for women in their way that their body is supposed to look? If so, why does that change for women over the years?

There is definitely trending. There's been, like you said, I agree with you that there has been the of being skinny and then curvacious. I don't know that it's necessarily being thin again. I hope not.

It's being like, fit and strong.

I think there's a movement. There's a true movement with beingBeing strong. Being strong. I love and appreciate all the doctors that are coming forward and sharing their data on how strength and having as much muscle as possible is healthy for a woman, not just quality of life now, but in their later years. I think a lot of these studies and these doctors that are coming forward with women-specific, because I think a lot of the studies have been done on men, but with women-specific studies that show that importance. I'm hoping that that's the new trend, and that's here to stay.

Well, it's interesting because as you mentioned, when you moved to America, you saw pressure from other teen girls in your school. You saw media, marketing, whatever it might be, campaigns of celebrities that you see look a certain way. But you're also a trainer for Kim Kardashian right now, and you have been for a while. I'm assuming you're around a lot of top celebrities as well in that world. How do you navigate knowing that you're working with a very influential woman that women look up to, women want to look like, women want to emulate, maybe they feel a comparison to or a lack of comparison that they can't live up to the way she might look or something like that, or just other celebrities in general. How do you navigate, I guess, your work with someone like that while also understanding that there's a 15-year-old out there who was once like you that maybe sees her and wants to be like her. Then does that help her, inspire her to eat healthier and train, or is it like, Let me go extreme food deprivation? I don't know. How do you navigate just that in your mind?

Honestly, that was one of the main reasons why I accepted to work with Kim is because she does have this influence. She decided that she wanted to step into her strength and build muscle and maintain muscle because also she realized that muscle is important for her health and longevity, not just esthetically speaking. For me, that was an opportunity to help her, but also help other women that she is influencing. Obviously, her reach is way bigger than mine is. That was one of my biggest driving factors for working with her and other celebrities that I have, is to send a message of strength to the woman out there that strength is beautiful, strength is health and quality longevity. To me, that was... Yeah, I see that as having a positive effect on women.

Because you see Kim leaning into strength training more. Absolutely. That's what you're working with her on.

Absolutely. She loves it. I mean, that's not-Did she always do that before? No, she didn't. It was more cardio and Pilates and things like that, which, again, everything has a place and space and a time. But in my opinion, humble opinion, and I think research backs it up, strength training is queen. Right.

What have you- It's at the top of the list. We don't have to speak about her that much, but what have you noticed in, I guess, over a year of strength training with Kim Kardashian about maybe just confidence levels or things like that? Has anything changed? Because she's been a pretty confident person already. She's got massive She's got a lot of success. Has she shared that, anything you're allowed to share, or we noticed something like that?

Yeah, with all the confidence that she already has, she feels definitely more confident, and she can't wait to train with me. Really? Yeah, it's amazing. If she, for a chance, happens to not be training for a few days because of her very demanding schedule. She's like, I can't wait to train. That to me is like music to me. My ears to hear that somebody has made that leap and has leaned into strength training. I've seen her. To me, again, it's not as much about esthetics, but about Form, walking around and doing things with great form.Injury prevention.Injury prevention and all of that. It's beautiful.

We're here in LA, and it seems to be a hub of extremes here, and specifically with weight loss drugs or these Ozempic type drugs and things like that. It seems to be it's popular in LA. I don't know. I don't know people who are on them or not on them. I don't know these things. But I see extreme weight shifts in certain women after a few months. I'm like, Maybe that's drug-free, maybe that's Ozempic. I have no idea. What's your thoughts on the Those are the pros and cons of something like Ozempic or these weight loss drugs, specifically for women.

First starting point for me is always, have you tried doing it naturally? Are you able to? Because some people are just not able to get to that point. For me, it's like starting with the attainable things that you can naturally, like nutrition and working out. If that hasn't worked and you are or as a matter of fact, somebody that is a candidate for that drug, then there's more and more research that shows that that can be helpful in a lot of aspects, not just losing weight, but health-wise. With any other therapies, pharmaceutical therapies, I'm not necessarily opposed to them, but there's a place and time for them. For me, it's like, have you tried the foundation Which, again, we know is eating right and working out, getting enough sleep. Exactly. Meditating, for me, meditating is huge. Can I mention everything? Yeah. If you're focusing on having that foundation and you still are struggling, then maybe it's time to talk to a professional to see if that is something that would be of benefit. I know that, again, there has been studies out there with drastic weight loss, I'm not on board with that. If it's happening, even with Ozempic, if you're utilizing it and you're experiencing drastic weight loss, that is not healthy because you're losing not just fat, but you're losing lots of muscle in that process.

Really? But if it's done with microdosing, again, is what studies show, is that you're able to maintain muscle mass while slowly losing weight.

That's Interesting. I mean, it just seems like a lot of people just have lost weight really quickly is what it seems like. Again, I don't know who's using it or who's not using it. It's hard for me to tell, but it seems like that's what's been happening. That scares me.

It is super scary. That is scary, the drastic weight loss. No matter what way it's done, if it's a drastic weight loss and if it's done because you're restricting your food intake and you're working out like crazy or whether you're doing something like GLP-1, like Ozempic, then that's not good. That is not good.

This is an interesting question I have for you, Sonata. I'm curious. When you know that also women, I don't want to say all women, but there's a tendency that women may compare themselves to other women. You have content out there that may seem unattainable for a lot of women. I don't know if that's what you're hearing, or maybe someone said that, but I can only imagine some woman is scrolling who's not healthy or not fit or maybe not confident in themselves, and they see some of your videos and they're like, This woman is a superwoman. Some women may be really inspired by that and say, Awesome, that's an example that I can lean into and I can follow her programming and I can maybe one day be like that in my own way. Whereas other women might say, Gosh, David, she's too good-looking, or she's too fit, or she's too shredded. How is she even... I could never do that. How do you navigate the uncertainty that women might have to feel like they'll never be as strong or fit or lean as you or be able to do the workouts the way you do them so effortlessly based on what it may look like for them, versus, I'm here to empower and inspire women, not show them that they're not enough.

How do you navigate that personally?

To me, my intention is to never have anybody compare me to them and have them feel bad about themselves. Absolutely, that is not my intention. My goal and my desire is to empower women to step into their strength, to feel the strongest that they possibly can, to embrace their musculature, their strong bodies, to embrace that. For me, that's been my desire to embody this strong person with muscles so that women feel empowered to aim to build muscle and to look in the best way a version of themselves, not me. Obviously, I have a different genetic makeup than somebody else. We were genetically and bio. We were biodiverse. We were genetically diverse. It might be unrealistic for some women to aim to look exactly like me, but nobody should want to aim to look exactly like somebody else. I always, and I say this in my post, is I aim to be the strongest version of yourself, the best version of yourself, and not utilize me as a comparison, but rather as, hopefully, an inspiration of a woman that was struggling throughout her entire life and now has embraced her, her strength and my abilities. It took years.

It took years. I didn't suddenly wake up, lift it a couple of weights, and I'm here. I didn't always have great form. That's one of the things that people always praise, like great form. How are you able to do that? I didn't wake up doing that. It was just years Years of practice, years of perfecting my craft to be able to do that.

With this much awareness and attention about who you are now from the last, I guess, eight years, I think you've been on social media that you You said, and just the following and the views you get and the attention you get.

2019, actually.

2019. Okay. Six years ago. No one knew who you were. In the last six years, a lot of people know who you are. And you're working with one of the biggest celebrities in the world. What has that been like for you, psychologically or emotionally, to deal with, now everyone's critiquing you, whether it be positive or negative, and you're working with big celebrities. How has that been for you as a human?

I think the biggest, the threshold that scared me the most was hitting 100,000 followers. It was like, Whoa, there's 100,000 people that are looking at what I do. Then for some reason, it normalized after that. It doesn't really- Every million is like, okay, just another million.

Yeah.

No, now that I take it for granted, by any means, I'm so grateful for the platform, for my audience. I never take it for granted, but it doesn't have that fear correlated with it. Because I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm saying. I feel to a certain degree. When I was just first starting out, obviously, you're still building your confidence evidence and navigating that. But to go back to, I think, what you were asking, how has that affected me personally? In the beginning, you do deal with a lot of this person said that. Now Am I really that? And then you just learned, at least I have learned to see that as not a reflection of who I am. I know who I am. I know the message that I'm trying to portray, and I know that I'm there for service. That's what makes a purposeful life is being of service to others. I don't want to get emotional. But that's what fulfills me is being of service and providing as much service as I can to as many people as I can, especially women, because I'm a woman and I'm in a household of women, that's a younger sisters.

That always has been keeping in mind what my goal is and who I am and not being affected by people that will try to speak negatively in the process.

When did you start to think about your life of being in service to help others?

When did I start to think?

Was that something earlier in your life, or was that in the last six years? I want to start really adding value and trying to serve people, whether it's five people or five million.

I think that's always been. I think it came within the territory of experience experiencing depression. I think that sense of purpose is linked to depression somehow. I was struggling with that for a while. How old were you? I went to business school. I got a master's in business. I did all of this accomplishment, graduated suma cumlade with the highest honors in three years, and then in one year for my business degree. I was accumulating all of these accolades, and it just wasn't adding up. It wasn't fulfilling to me because it wasn't... It didn't feel like it was coming from a sense of purpose or of service, rather, to the greater good. And now where I am at, knowing what strength training and nurturing myself health in all aspects, nutrition, we're talking sleep, meditation, and recovery, knowing what that has done for me, for my mental health, that's been my driving factor to bring that to the world.

Wow. How long did you feel like you were experiencing depression for or your mental health was struggling?

It started when I was in my teens, like I said, dealing with the eating disorders realizing that there was depression that was going hand in hand with that and anxiety. As I say, those monsters in the closet never go away. You just develop better tools to manage them. For me, working out is one of my main tools in my toolbell that I'm feeling a certain way. I know I'm going to go get a workout and it's going to shift my day. Everything. There are those moments where I absolutely don't feel like working out, but I know what I will achieve on the other side of that. That's, I think, one of my main motivating factors along with wanting to be independent in my later years, wanting to have a quality of life and longevity that I can rely on. I think the other one is I don't want to feel depressed. I don't want to feel anxious. I don't want to deal with those things that I know I am predisposed to deal with. You can override those. That's just the hand that you're dealt. But it's like, what tools and your tool belt do you utilize to best deal feel.

Absolutely. Wow. What do you feel like is your biggest insecurity or fear now?

I guess I always think, Am Am I giving my best self to my audience, to the people that I influence? That is always the thing that… If there is one thing that keeps me up at night, it's that. Am I providing the best value that I possibly can out there to the world. That's the one thing that I always strive to do better. That's why I launched the We Rise app. I had an app prior to that, and I relaunched and rebranded last January. We're coming up on a year, and I'm always striving to make it better, whether it's with the latest research and what it'll be. It'll be light years ahead of what it is now because we're really aiming for it to be a female empowerment and development platform, not just a fitness app. That's what we strive every day to perfect that.

How do you navigate not falling back into an obsessive, perfectionist, critical state versus progress, consistency, and a healthy balance? When you have that type of older personality, it's like, how do you make sure you don't go into that in extremes with work, body, perfection in a different way?

You're just more conscious of that self-taught. You're just more conscious of those patterns I think that's with everything. You just become conscious of the way that you talk to yourself, conscious of negative past patterns, and then you, of course, correct. It is good enough. It is good because as we were talking about earlier, great and perfection can be the enemy of good. I know, right? I'm always conscious of that, to not aim for perfection, but to aim for value and good.

Have you ever done therapy also, emotional therapy, instead of workout therapy?

I have.

What's been the biggest takeaway from that for you or biggest lessons?

I'll be honest. Therapy, for me, has been- Didn't work for you? Not as much as working.

Sure.

But it works for a lot of people. It's been a long time, honestly, since I've I've been in therapy, and I definitely promoted, Yes, do therapy. It's definitely great. Like I said, all of these are just tools that we accumulate and then we use and whatever words best for you. For me, it's been more self-therapy. I read a lot of... I've read a ton of self-help books. I've read books that you'd read in a collegiate level. That's how I self-educate, and that's how I self-help and self-actualize and analyze. Maybe it's a good time to say I've also done plant medicine, and that has been a huge help for me in being my own therapist because that's the best way that I can describe plant medicine is being your own therapist, seeing yourself from the outside and looking at your patterns and looking at everything from a different perspective, removed from that ego. Self.

Do you have a relationship with God or a spiritual practice?

I have a relationship with God. I don't know that if it's in the context of the religion in a sense, or maybe it is inclusive of all of that. I just believe in the creator being the creator for all of us one loving creator that is good and wants what's best for us, and that is not judging, but that is loving.

What do you think God wants for you moving forward?

To continue doing this work and to really actualize that I am of help and service to others. Because I do, at times, struggle with that. Like I was saying before, am I doing my best? Am I really being of service to humanity, to others? I think really leaning into that, that, yes, if I actually help just one person, that that is a life fulfilled. If I've changed, course-corrected somebody's path, even by a small percentage, then that is an accomplishment. That's beautiful.

Where do you think you'd be? Do you think you'd be as happy and healthy if you didn't have a relationship with God or a spiritual practice?

I think it's good to have somewhat of a relationship with whatever you believe that higher power to be. I think it's something to lean on. I think it's something to lean on. For people, it's different. For everybody, it's different what that could be or look and what image you have in your mind, but whatever gives you that comfort that you're here for a reason.

Did you have a spiritual relationship or when you were in your teens and early 20s and struggling with the depression and things?

My grandma raised me to be religious and say prayers every night. I think I lost that a little And now I'm back at saying my prayers every night.

You feel more peace now?

Yeah, absolutely.

That's beautiful. That's beautiful.

Yeah.

Your parents still around?

Yeah, they are. My parents have two younger sisters. They're all in New York. They're all in New York? Yeah, they're still around.

What's the biggest lesson both your mom and your dad taught you?

My dad taught me to be strong and to persevere. Yeah, he never complained. He never complained. He went from being a doctor back in Albania to being a janitor when he came to the United States, even though we're legally here and everything. But that's what he had to do. You know English, but he knew to put his ego aside and just do what needed to be done to support his family. From my mom is to make that compassionate spirit. Also, even though it led to some things that weren't so positive in my life, like that striving to be the best also led to where I am today, I believe. Yeah, I thank her for that.

Wow, that's beautiful. What's the biggest lesson Kim's taught you?

She's a hard worker sometimes. I thought I was a hard worker. She inspires me in that way to be a hard worker. Beautifully balances that with having a family and having four children and spending quality time with them. Having that balance, that's inspirational.

That's cool. You've got an app called the We Rise app. How many women are in this community right now in this app?

Oh, my gosh. I need the words. Bring the help. Thousands. Thousands of women. Yeah, thousands of women. Tens of thousands of women are-All over the world. All over the world that are achieving their best, strongest selves I'm so excited for it.

What do they get in the app? What are these women working on?

What they're working on?

Within the app?

Yeah, what's in the app? Whatever experience level that you're in, so if you're beginner intermediate advanced, if you're working out from home or the gym, there is a program that is for them. Whether they want something to get started, like a 20-minute follow-along that I'm with them every step of the way and guide them through. They got that on there. I think for every walk of life, there is something in the app, and there is a meal planning and recipes and macro tracking. Right now, we currently have an expert nutritionist expert habits. She actually is one of the four PhDs in the world that works with habits to just help people establish good habits, get rid of habits that don't serve them anymore, and then on the nutrition side, speaking about what are macros? Sure. Then how do we ensure that we intake enough protein and all of that. That's just the beginning. We have huge plans. That's great.

Where can they go to sign up for that?

Werise. Xyz.

Okay, awesome. I'm sure it's in your bio.

It's on my bio. I'm not wearing the clothing, but I also have a clothing line calls on to on.

Okay.

Making women slightly a little bit more motivated by wearing some cute workout clothes.

There you go.

To work out.

That's great. What can we do to be of best service to you moving forward with this community or people watching or listening right now?

Spread the word. Spread the word of strength. Spread the word that esthetics will come as long as you put in the work to aim for health and longevity.

What's the best place to find you on social media? What's your Instagram for people to follow?

Sanada. Greca. Sanada. Greca. You see how much I love I'm not self-promoting. In this whole conversation, this is probably the most slightly uncomfortable I've felt because I don't like self-promoting. But yeah, without self-promoting, I guess what is off-service, then you don't get people to take advantage of that.

That's true. Where do you think you'd be if you didn't start putting content online six years ago?

If I didn't.

If you did not.

I I don't want to think of the famous jobs that I've done because it was not fun. But I would do something. I would be in this space. I would be in this space somehow because I'm so passionate about it. If I didn't have such a large presence in social media, I would probably do it in a small fashion, even if it was outside of the 9:00 to 5:00, which I was doing actually before. I was teaching yoga classes, and I was training on the side while having my 9:00 to 5:00. Then I love that aspect so much, which is what led me to start doing this and putting myself out there, putting my workouts out there. One thing led to another.

Here we are today. You were doing it on the side. You had a full-time job.

I had a full-time job, but then I was teaching yoga classes.

You weren't teaching strength training?

A little bit of strength training as well. It has advanced from that point, the starting point to where it is now. But I was doing that on the side and obviously doing my workouts. Then I decided But let's just put it out there, whatever I'm doing every day. You could see, probably things have shifted from earlier on till now, but just put it out there every day. Wow. Get up in the morning, do my workout, film it as doing a workout and to see where it leads.

When did you start to notice that, Oh, this is starting to take off? The content I'm posting daily, it's actually getting out there and it's resonating with women.

Yeah, I mean, Pretty fast, it started to happen. I mean, it didn't shift from, I think I had 2,000 followers in 2019 when I started, one or 2,000 when I first started. It started to happen gradually and then exponentially after that. I think that first period of getting to a few thousand was probably the hardest because it's like working out. It's consistency and you don't see a ton of results. But then you stay with it because you just can't tell the future. You can't predict it from just that short period of time. Like with anything else, consistency, consistency, consistency.

Now, I've got a couple of final questions for you, but this is powerful. Thanks for sharing and being so open today.I appreciate it.Of course. This is a question I ask everyone towards the end. It's called the Three Truths. It's a hypothetical scenario in question. Imagine you get to live as long as you want to live, and you get to accomplish every dream you have. But for whatever reason, you have to take all of your content with you when you die. We don't have access to the videos you posted, this interview. It's all gone. Anything you create from this moment moving forward, it's gone. Your app, it's gone. For whatever reason, hypothetical. But on the last day of your life, you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. This is all we would have to remember your content by. Call it three truths. What would those be for you?

I think the biggest thing for me is to do everything from a place of love. So whatever you're trying to achieve, achieve it and aim for it from a place of love. Aim to be the fullest version of yourself, and not that of somebody else, but the fullest version of yourself. And the third would be to treat everybody in a way that... I don't know if necessarily you want to be treated yourself, but in a way that I believe in a higher self, in the higher yourself would want you to treat, or God, if you will, will want you to treat the fellow man and woman with just compassion and love and understanding, stepping aside from judgments and what you have been taught to perceive.

That's beautiful. Create from love, aim to be the fullest version of you, and treat others with your your highest self.

In mind. That's great.

That's beautiful. I want to acknowledge you, Sonata, for your transformation and your ability to be consistent. It sounds like it was very challenging leaving one country, coming to this place and just having to deal with all the pressures of society, of school, of parents, and you needing to be the parent as a teenager. That's a lot of weight, emotionally and physically. I want to acknowledge you for overcoming that challenge and overcoming the depression and the the badness and the anxiety and the stress that you faced, and for starting to tap into the healthiest version of you and being consistent with that version of you, letting go of your old comparison ways and stepping into, How can I just be my happiest, fullest self. I acknowledge you for putting yourself out there also. Six years ago, deciding to say, Hey, I'm going to put my content out there and start to serve people the best way I can. If it helps one person or millions of people, I'm just going to do it consistently. I acknowledge you for all of it. I appreciate you for opening up so honestly during this conversation.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you saying that. Yeah, of course. I appreciate you having me here today. It was a very enjoyable conversation. Thank you.

It's beautiful. One final question, Sonata. Sure. What's your definition of greatness?

I think it's embodying, again, the true fullest version of yourself while of service to others to the fullest capacity that you are able to.

It's beautiful. Sonata, thank you so much for being here.

I appreciate it. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.Thank you for having me.Of course.

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