Some women are members of a fitness and weight loss center in North St. Louis County that can be easily be described as rough, regimented and admittedly by its owner, a bit ghetto.
“My program speaks for itself. I don’t play. I’m mean. I’m rough. I’m tough…discipline is the key to this program,” said Willie James Jackson.
His ladies know him as “Sir James” or “King James.”
“It’s a cross between military and I say a little bitty of touch of ghetto. I like to call it ghetto because I train them from all walks of life,” Jackson said.
Maybe you’ve heard his radio commercials. Think of it as personal training with a whole lot of attitude – so much so that thick skin is required.
It’s Nu-Gurl Fitness and Jackson, the admitted bad-boy owner/certified personal trainer and some would say masochistic drill instructor to his flab-busting followers said he left his job as a personal trainer at a traditional fitness center and its premium personal training fees seven years ago to develop an affordable exercise program with included meal plans.
“They have unlimited weekly training. They can come as much as they want. Their meal plan is included. They have access to a certified trainer at all times. They are never left alone –like walking around in a regular gym.” Jackson said. “They have no contracts, no commitments, no obligation. Nobody drawing money out of their checking account and I don’t check their credit.”
No, but he will “check you” if you get out of line.
Classes start as early as 4 a.m. on weekdays. There are three early morning classes five days a week and three evening sessions four days a week and one Sunday evening session. Pick any four days, and it better include Mondays.
“I have a better chance of you losing the weight now if you are in my possession four days out of seven. Mondays are mandatory. Mondays are weigh-in, and you’d better have my weight. Depending on what I need you to lose and who you are, you will give me three pounds a week,” he said.
Jackson takes fitness and results personally, as do Nu-Gurl members who can tow the line. Despite the punishment of getting up before dawn, the potential for verbal abuse and fear of getting put “front street,” Jackson said the ladies are lining up to get the jolt they need to make a change.
Nu-Gurl has several fitness levels: “Super Advanced,” “Advanced,” “Big Gurl Beginners,” “Super Thick Gurls Intermediate,” “Special Needs” (those with chronic or special illness) or “Emergency Need” clients (with severe limitations). Jackson said exercise and meal plans are developed according to the women’s advice from their doctor and physical ability.
“You cannot train everyone the same. And the number one goal in fitness is safety,” Jackson said. “When I train these people, they are my responsibility, because they are coming to me to save their lives.”
His general meal plan for those without health or other problems lists many of the “No” foods and drinks that scale-hoppers have come to expect (but hate to hear):
“No beef or pork …no pasta, no starches, no sugar, no caffeine, no alcohol. I limit all those things because those are the things that put you in that position in the first place,” Jackson said. “We are more on boneless, skinless chicken or fish, vegetables –100 percent juices. I’m teaching you to eat healthy. So I tell you things on what to eat and how to prepare these things. I created this meal plan, so I went to Aldi’s – I made sure it was affordable for everybody.”
Toni McTyer said, “I don’t eat French fries – I go to Nu-Gurl Fitness,” as if the answer was programmed. McTyer said she gets her potassium from bananas and other fruits.
And why would these ladies want to pay to potentially be addressed in a manner some women would not tolerate from their spouses, boyfriends or anyone else?
Because they are getting results – in that “I’m so good when you’re so bad” sort of way.
It works.
“I lost 20 pounds in two months,” McTyer said.
Her Nu-Gurl name is “Big Worm.” She said she was glad she didn’t get some of those “other names.”
“It came to me that I got my name from my hair – because I have twists,” she said, adding that another lady at the center who wears her hair in locks has “Worm” in her Nu-Gurl nickname as well.
And more than one member has indicated some of the ladies have Nu-Gurl nicknames that are too graphic to repeat. Jackson says he gives each client a nickname in order to not duplicate first names.
“I’ve tuned all of that out because it’s all about me and my results. And if you’re not comfortable, I understand,” said McTyer, who is ex-Navy and said she knows the drill.
“To me it’s just a game – a psychological game. It was very effective in boot camp and it’s very effective there. I go twice a day.”
Sixty-year-old North St. Louis County resident Regina Blackmon heard about the fitness center a few months ago from a friend. She takes several medications and has found it difficult to lose weight.
“I was just talking to her one day and told her about I wish I could find somebody to help me lose weight, because at the rate I’m going, I felt I would be dead in a few months or a few years,” Blackmon said. “I have a lot of medications and it was steadily putting weight on me.”
The friend told her about Jackson. Uncertain, she called him that night and made an appointment to visit the next morning. Blackmon used her cane to make it to the door of his center on the day she visited, because, as she admits, vanity wouldn’t allow her to use a walker.
“When he came to the door to greet me, he took my hand and said I needed help, which I did. I was really scared to walk. I was always afraid of falling,” Blackmon said. “He asked me why was I on that cane, and I said, ‘Because it will help me walk.’ But he said, ‘You are not ready for a cane. You are too wobbly for a cane.’”
Blackmon “‘fessed up” that she had a walker. Jackson told her to come back the next day with her walker. Most clients are told to exercise four times a week. She said Jackson her he wanted her there everyday.
“So I just started going six days a week,” she said.
Blackmon’s Nu-Gurl name is “Zero.” Jackson’s first order of business for her was building up her strength and balance to walk unassisted.
“He started making me walk – just pacing back and forth, back and forth until one day I showed him I could move a little bit without my walker.”
It took a couple of months, but eventually Blackmon began to feel the difference.
“I just woke up one morning and I just felt stronger,” she said. “My body just felt different one morning. It was one of those days he weighed us and I did not make my weight and I though he was going to put me out of the class, because he is very strict.”
She is still progressing in the program and happy with her personal milestones, saying she has dropped one dress size, about 13 pounds. Best of all, Blackmon has less dependence on the walker.
And what’s with the meany manners? Jackson said his ultimate insult is for someone to gain weight, and playing nice just doesn’t cut it.
Jackson does not work with male clients anymore. His reason why may come as a surprise.
“I used to train males, but males are too soft,” Jackson said.
Say what?
“I have a new-found respect for women,” he said.
“What would happen is – when I got males – I would say I have trained about 115 males within this past seven years. We had about a good maybe eight or nine that did what they were supposed to do,” Jackson explained.
“Men are just too delicate. I mean, they want to lift weights and keep the big stomachs. I don’t do all of that. If you’re going to train with me, you’re going to train from head to toe.”
Despite getting called out of your name, put on “front street” and other mind games, if you get sassy with him or are inconsistent on the scales, Jackson will put you out of his club.
“If you fail my weigh-in three times, I will kick you out. The people that I kick out – they take it personal, because first of all, how can you get kicked out of a program for $3 a week? You had to violate the rules, and my rules will be followed. You will not disrespect my class. You will not walk over my class. You will not be late to my class and you will do what is expected,” he warned.
“The reason I don’t play is – all it takes is three or four friends or relatives with the four gold teeth and the ponytails and the big earrings to come in loud talking, disrespecting, disrupting my class, making my other clients uncomfortable – my program would be in disarray or it would not exist,” Jackson said. “Therefore, I have to be the Big Bad Wolf to keep order.”
McTyer said the Nu-Gurl taskmaster “has a really good heart and there is a method to his madness. He demands respect and in return he teaches respect as well.”
“What I teach them first of all is to love themselves, because if you love yourself, you don’t let yourself look any kind of way,” he said, using an analogy that sometimes vehicles get better treatment than our bodies.
“You will make sure that the car is washed, the oil is changed so the motor won’t lock – the transmission is changed, air in the tires – you will take more care of that piece of machinery that will be here when you are dead and gone and six feet under the dirt. And it’s just stupid.”
