Kicking butt and having fun

Because of Bijhan Jazani, Kristi Hughes is almost half the person she once was. Literally.

She started working with Jazani two and a half years ago, when he was still a personal trainer at Fitness for $10. She weighed 268 pounds.

She followed him when he opened his studio in downtown Carson City almost two years ago and kept with him. Hughes is now down to 155 pounds.

"If I started to struggle and wanted to give up, he pushed me and encouraged me to work through it," Hughes said from a treadmill at the Body by Bijhan studio at 208 N. Carson St. "He's just fun, and I think that's a big part of what keeps you coming back."

Jazani said he's been working as a personal trainer for about seven years, following a passion for health. And he said cases like Hughes' are a perfect example of why he loves it.

"She did a good job. And it's all her, too," he said. "There was a part when I had to give her a little bit of tough love, a bit of a shove, to get her to stop being so comfortable."

Jazani said he opposes extreme diets and other unhealthy weight-loss methods, instead preaching lifestyle changes in terms of diet and exercise. When a new client walks in, Jazani said he first figures out what they want to accomplish and what their habits are now. Then, they develop a plan of attack and how to accomplish it.

He said he focuses on resistance training and working against one's own body weight, as opposed to using a lot of weights or even the weight machines that line his studio.

And he also takes pictures.

"(Hughes) would sometimes not see the results, so I had to pull out the pictures and go, 'Are you kidding me?'" Jazani said.

Jazani got his own start with personal fitness when he was a young man - a self-described "chunky" young man. He got frustrated with himself one day, he said, and decided to change. He ate less. Ran around his backyard. Started doing push ups.

"Once you see a little bit of results, it's addicting," he said. "You want to see how far you can go."

But he said also realizes how intimidating it can be to walk into a gym when you're not the height of fitness, which he strives to overcome at his facility.

"It's humbling to come into a gym and you're overweight," he said. "I know. I've been there. It's like headlights on you."

He said his sessions - whether they are one-on-one or group, designed for weight loss, conditioning or focusing on strengthening a particular body part - are designed to be as fun as possible. If it becomes like work, he said, it becomes easier for someone to give up.

"We just laugh and have a good time," he said. "If I can keep them laughing while kicking their butt, then they keep coming back."