August 11, 1993

Athletic trainer advises clients to toss out measuring tape and scale
By Michelle Gabriel

Let’s face it. Most people have a fixation with diets. They’re either on one, just ending one or contemplating a new one. In the interest of self-improvement and self-help, dieting is often the first area considered.

However, according to Tami Anastasia, a Los Gatos health and fitness counselor, dieting is only a small part of the overall approach she recommends taking "Toward A Magnificent Self" or TAMS, which just happens to be the name of her counseling business.

"The emphasis behind any health-and-fitness program should be on feeling better," she says, "not on looking better."

Through TAMS, Anastasia encourages her clients to "throw out the scales and learn to look in the mirror and like what they see."

The former Saratogan says she tries to help each client accept the person they are without judgment or criticism.

She combines personal training with self-esteem counseling, balancing physical workouts with treadmills, weights and floor exercises while establishing a positive attitude through guided worksheets and one-on-one counseling sessions.

Anastasia believes people place too much importance on how they look instead of how they feel. She says relying upon a scale, tape measure and mirror to reflect results of a weight-loss or health-improvement program is not a true measure of success. "If they don’t see changes in the way they look, they will often give up," Anastasia says. "The sad thing is, they forget how much better they were starting to feel while exercising."

She would like to see people pay more attention to what the mind is thinking, rather than what the body looks like.

Anastasia was a personal trainer and manager for her family’s health club, Anastasia’s, in Los Gatos when she realized the importance of addressing both the mental and physical aspects in any weight-loss or health-improvement program. Otherwise, she points out, personal conflicts, emotional struggles and low self-esteem often cause a person to discontinue the program.

She returned to school to take a master’s degree in counseling at Santa Clara University. At the same time, she served as an intern counselor at the Teen Council Center in Los Gatos and an academic counselor for university students.

Anastasia is currently writing a self-help workbook based upon the techniques used in her practice. In the future, she would like to open her own studio, expanding the concept of total body awareness and eventually carry it one step further, establishing a home for teenagers where the focus would be on positive self-esteem.