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Tough love

West Windsor girls make the most of ‘customized’ fitness

By Kristin Boyd
Staff Writer
   During summer vacation, when they could’ve been sleeping past noon, Marissa Davila, and her cousin, Christina Mendez, woke up early — at 7:30 a.m., sometimes 7.
   They’d shower, lace up their sneakers and run a mile and half to Joyce Hofmann’s homemade gym in West Windsor. Too nervous to look at their numbers, too curious not to, they’d weigh in before starting a grueling hour-long workout routine:
   Jump rope and warm-up stretches in the driveway. Laps and aerobics in the backyard pool. Weight lifting and jogs on the treadmills in the basement. Sprints along the cul de sac that curls around Ms. Hofmann’s house.
   ”A lot of my friends think I’m crazy,” says 15-year-old Marissa, “but it’s really worth it.”
   Alarmed by the increasing number of childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes cases nationwide, Ms. Hoffmann customized a summer weight loss program for teen girls that was equal parts boot camp, phys-ed class and Dr. Phil therapy session. Based on the program’s success, she says, she plans to offer it again this fall for teens and adults.
   ”None of the girls missed a day, and they were never a minute late,” Ms. Hofmann says. “No matter how I hard I worked them, they loved it.”
   The girls — including Ariana Efstathios, 14, and sisters Alex Thumm, 15, and Stephanie Thumm, 18, all of West Windsor — sought help from Ms. Hofmann for different reasons.
   Marissa, who says she “was kind of like the chunky kid,” wanted to get fit so she could keep up with her soccer, basketball and softball teammates.
   Christina, 17, wanted to feel comfortable in her clothes and, like her cousin, train for soccer season. She had tried to lose weight here and there, but nothing worked.
   Ariana, who says diabetes and heart problems are prevalent in her family, wanted to prevent potential health issues and get in shape for field hockey and softball. Most of all, she says, she wanted to feel better about herself.
   Ms. Hofmann can relate.
   As a teen growing up in Manalapan and Bronx, N.Y., she found comfort in food and often over-ate to dull the pain of her family problems. By high school, she says, she had become the “fat kid” in class.
   ”I realize how painful it was. I lived it,” she says. “It was very difficult because my sister was very thin, and I was the one who was made fun of. I got tired of being overweight.”
   During her senior year, she began exercising regularly and eating nutritious meals. The pounds melted off. “I did it on my own,” she says. “I knew at that point I all I wanted to do was work with fat children because I was a fat child.”
   With a background in health and education, Ms. Hofmann founded Princeton Weight Loss, which has provided individual counseling for adults and children for more than 20 years. She developed her first-ever summer weight loss program after the five girls expressed interest.
   Three mornings a week, from June through mid-August, the girls ran to Ms. Hofmann’s home, arriving by 8:30 a.m. They exercised for about an hour, then spent another 15 minutes, occasionally longer, talking in group counseling.
   ”We always joked around, and it made it so much easier working out with a group of girls, rather than by yourself,” Marissa says. “It’s like the most fun I’ve ever had exercising.”
   Exercise varied each session — sprints, kickboxing and weight lifting; yoga, water aerobics and sit-ups; treadmill, elliptical, jump rope and hip-hop dancing. Some days, the girls say, it was a combination of all of the above.
   After working out, the girls and Ms. Hofmann had group counseling, where they just talked — about themselves, dieting, body image, boys, whatever was on their minds. “Anything that is said stays in the room,” Ms. Hofmann says.
   Many of the girls realized they were emotional eaters, meaning they made a beeline for fattening foods, whether they were happy, sad or any mood in between.
   ”I had to get in this mind state of eating better and getting healthy because I didn’t want to become a statistic in my family,” Ariana says.
   Learning how to keep track of caloric intake and prepare proportional meals helped Ariana lose 14 pounds so far. “I didn’t like the way I looked that much, but I’m all good now,” she says. “Especially going into high school, I feel so much better now that I’m in shape.”
   Marissa also lost 14 pounds. “It’s awesome, I’m not going to lie,” she says. “People who haven’t seen me in a few months, they’re like, ‘Oh, my God. You’ve lost so much weight.’ It’s nice. I like it.”
   Same goes for Christina, who has lost 9 pounds so far and is hoping to lose another 8 pounds.
   At the end of their workouts, the girls, dripping in sweat, would swap good-byes and start heading down the street. This time around, though, there was no mile-and-a-half run home. Only riding.
   ”Oh, no. We always had one of our parents pick us up,” Marissa says, laughing. “We were too exhausted.”
For more information about Princeton Weight Loss, call 609-683-0022.