Fitting Right In

About two years ago, Kristen Fields, who works in sales, noticed she had put on a few “unwanted pounds, by wining and dining some clients.”

At first, she started logging her food with an app on her phone and started going to a “big box gym.”

“I hated it,” said Fields. “I thought for sure that I would love the classes, but I found that I wasn’t making friends. It was just so big. There were a lot of different types of people that were in the gym that I kind of didn’t want to hang out with, so I would never go.”

Knowing she needed to find something else, Fields continued logging her food and lost some weight, but wanted more results. On the way into work one day, she passed a sign for Redkore Fitness, which was right in-between her house and her office in Atlanta, Georgia.

“To be completely honest, I was more worried than anything to just go in there because it was a smaller-looking gym,” recalled Fields. “I was like ‘Oh, this is going to be like a new CrossFit gym. I’m not that athletic. I’m not going to fit in.’ But it was the location that really sold me.”

She walked in one day after work and met with Nadeem Ashraf, the owner of Redkore Fitness. He sat her down and listened to her fitness goals. Fields and her fiancé signed up for a membership that day, even though the gym was still under construction.

Now, two years into her fitness journey, Fields has lost 28 pounds. Plus, her fiancé has lost 20.

“They’re known for never doing the same workout twice,” said Fields. “Which is great, you never get bored. It’s a mix between personal training and CrossFit, is how I’ve described it to other people. Because you’re getting that one-on-one attention, you always have an instructor that will show you what to do, and then you kind of go through these stations and do it.”

The workouts are based on zones. Members wear PODS, which connect to a heart rate monitor, that measure different fat burning zones. A member’s zone is determined by a KORR test that’s given to everyone who first signs up for a membership. Throughout a workout, trainers will make sure each athlete stays in the correct zone to burn the maximum amount of calories.

Her favorite part of Redkore, however, is the trainers. Fields said she pushes herself to attend classes and challenges herself during a workout because she doesn’t want to disappoint her trainer.

“I think the biggest thing is just to stay positive,” said Fields. “I know I was definitely one of those people where if I didn’t see instant results, I just kind of gave up. It takes hardcore motivation, but it’s that end goal to keep in the back of your mind to be like, ‘Oh, baby steps are OK and I didn’t get this way overnight.’ You really have to stay positive and stay with it and that’s why I love this gym, because they’re really good about reminding you that instant results don’t happen — you have to work for them.”