Today we’d like to introduce you to Ana Nieto.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Ana. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
From a young age, I always knew I wanted to help people. I started out wanting to become a physical therapist and ended up studying nursing in Spain, my country of origin.
What I discovered as a nurse is while I loved making a difference in my patients’ lives, I was disappointed with the approach of conventional health care. I felt frustrated, as I experienced conventional medicine treating only the symptoms, but not the body as a whole.
When I arrived to New York City in my early 20s, I discovered a particular type of exercise called SuperSlow. Using this method, I worked out once a week for half an hour. Within three months, I went from a size 8 to a size 6! I made no changes in my diet.
I was thrilled to discover this technique, which required only a minimal commitment of 1-2 times per week, and I noticed that I kept losing fat and gaining muscle. Plus, after training in this method for a few months, the low back pain I had from childhood scoliosis disappeared!
For the first time, I was able to beat my father at tennis. My mother wondered what I had done to improve my posture so dramatically because as one of the tallest girls among my friends in Spain, I was always slouching.
With my new 30-minute per week workout I (1) lost fat; (2) gained muscle and (3) improved my posture and athletic performance.
My passion was ignited, which compelled me to start my own personal training business.
With two partners, I opened the Manhattan studio Transform Fitness, where we trained accountants, advertising execs and entrepreneurs to yoga moms, high-performance athletes and certified couch potatoes—and everything in between. That was 15 years ago.
Now, a higher calling has been urging me to fulfill the next level in my evolution toward complete health and happiness and to share my gifts with even more people.
That’s how Volar, Transformational Mentorship & Coaching was born.
My new business model incorporates more than personal training, and it’s geared toward helping you transform not only how you look and feel, but also to transform how you relate to life itself.
Volar means “to fly” in Spanish. To me, flying means freedom, exhilaration, excitement, and living life to the fullest.
Has it been a smooth road?
My biggest struggle was the end of my business partnership at the personal training studio we had built in Manhattan.
Even when you think you agree completely on your business model at the beginning, each partner might want to grown and develop in a different way later after the business and relationship develop.
It was for sure a huge learning experience.
The second struggle was to learn how to help my clients stay committed to their health and wellness goals. The key is to do something you enjoy and even if you don’t fully enjoy it, have a very clear and strong goal and remind yourself constantly. Once the results start kicking in, that is the highest motivation and help with commitment.
Tell us more about your work.
I am the creator of the Mindful Online Workouts (www.mindfulonlineworkouts.com). My services include online private and group fitness training, nutritional counseling, I facilitate three cleanses during the year and provide mindful guiding coaching.
After almost 20 years of working with clients, I’ve learned that addressing all three areas is when we get the best results.
There are many exercise programs, diets and coaches out there. That is great but this is not that: I help you create a health plan based on exercise, nutrition and mindfulness practices that will help you heal and transform from unhealthy habits and create a new and sustainable healthy lifestyle. I work online and my programs are mindful, safe and effective.
I am very proud that I’ve just launched “The Bull and Ballerina” deck cards.
The Bull and Ballerina deck cards represent the pitfalls many of us fall into when challenged by our own weaknesses, as well as the light needed to help us achieve freedom from our demons.
I created this cards as a valuable tool for when you are experiencing a deep disconnect between your actions and the values you hold true. They are a personal expression of my struggles in the search to find peace with my unhealthy behaviors, offering a story of failure followed by success.
The Bull and the Ballerina deck cards were created as a result of a collaboration with friends and business partners in the creation of a dance-theater show. We’ve just performed a little sample of the show and we will be performing the full show in the next future.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
My wish is that the health and wellness industry will continue to grow as it has in the last few decades.
Wellness retreats are super-popular and beneficial to people as a jump start way to creating healthier habits.
There is a new shift in mentality about how to exercise safely and more effectively: mindful high-intensity protocols are getting more popularity such us my mindful online workouts and the high-intensity bike C.A.R.O.L.
There is also a higher awareness about preventive health methods and less reliance on the conventional health protocols as the main treatment.
Here are some stats (https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/press-room/statistics-and-facts/):
The global wellness economy was a $4.2 trillion market in 2017.
The industry grew by 6.4 percent annually from 2015–2017, from a $3.7 trillion to a $4.2 trillion market, nearly twice as fast as global economic growth (3.6 percent annually, based on IMF data).
Wellness expenditures ($4.2 trillion) are more than half as large as total global health expenditures ($7.3 trillion, based on WHO data).
The wellness industry represents 5.3 percent of global economic output.
Among the ten wellness markets analyzed, revenue growth leaders from 2015–2017 (per annum) were the spa industry (9.8 percent), wellness tourism (6.5 percent) and wellness real estate (6.4 percent).
Key sectors include:
Personal Care, Beauty, and Anti-Aging ($1,083 billion)
Healthy Eating, Nutrition and Weight Loss ($702 billion)
Wellness Tourism ($639 billion)
Fitness and Mind-Body ($595 billion)
Preventative and Personalized Medicine and Public Health ($575 billion)
Traditional and Complementary Medicine ($360 billion)
Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate ($134 billion)
Spa Economy ($119 billion)
Thermal/Mineral Springs ($56 billion)
Workplace Wellness ($48 billion)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mindfulonlineworkouts.com
- Phone: 6462866264
- Email: ananieto1230@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/volar_by_ana_nieto/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ana.m.nieto1
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL4GuqkB-MTZUfwmrR2PkcP2aPfWZgpJM
Image Credit:
Ann Landstrom photography.
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