Bob Greene -- Oprah's personal trainer, best-selling author, and all-around fitness phenomenon -- might well be forgiven for taking a little breather, briefly resting on his laurels, but that doesn't seem likely to happen. Greene has found a new mission, embarked on a new crusade, that will be formally proclaimed by the publication of his sixth book next fall.
Its central theme: the critical importance of emotions in achieving fitness.
Making a commitment to become fit, he explains, is not just about diet and exercise -- it is essentially, primarily, about the emotions that inform our behavior.
'The people who have trouble eating the right foods and remaining active are struggling in other areas of their lives as well,' he explains. 'So, if you're an exercise professional, and you deal only with exercise, you're not in the same space that most people are struggling in . . .
'In this new book, I'm going to explore the concept of laying down a strong emotional foundation,' he told CBI. 'The people I know who have been most successful at getting and staying fit are ones who have managed to change their emotional foundation. Interestingly, they all had certain traits in common, and that's what I'm going to focus on.'
Though Greene, 46, has serious credentials, the notion that he's now espousing so energetically was acquired at Oprah's side. A native of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Greene has a master's degree in exercise physiology from the University of Arizona, and worked for a medical management company in Florida, before being put in charge of fitness programming at the Wyndham Peaks Resort and Golden Door Spa, in Telluride, Colorado.
He met Oprah there, the two clicked, and, subsequently, he became her trainer of choice.
Greene helped Oprah, whose battle with weight had already acquired mythic status, get in shape, and she helped him get real. What she taught him was that, for many individuals, getting fit was hard: 'She took me to an entirely new level in terms of working with people,' he recalls. 'I'll never forget, one day, when we were running in Indiana, she kept using the word struggle. 'It's such a struggle,' she kept repeating. I told her that she should try to dismiss that idea -- to make exercise less of a struggle.
'She replied, 'But it's not easy. And people identify with me through my struggles.' She told me I had to understand that it was really tough for the majority of people out there, because they'd grown up inactive, grown up eating the wrong foods . . . Today,' Greene acknowledges gratefully, 'those people are my core audience.'
Many clubs, Greene suspects, make the same mistake that he did, failing to candidly acknowledge, or take steps to deal with, the emotional factors that so often undo members' resolve. In addition to fitness instructors, personal trainers, and registered dieticians, he suggests, clubs might do well to enlist the services of psychologists, psychotherapists, or similar professionals. That, in fact, is the direction that he thinks the industry will inevitably head.
The chemistry, compatibility, and creative bond with Oprah have helped propel Greene's career. He became the resident fitness expert on the Oprah Winfrey Show; co-authored her first best-seller, Make the Connection: Ten Steps to a Better Body and a Better Life; and then wrote a tome of his own, Keep the Connection: Choices for a Better Body and a Healthier Life, which was followed by three more books, including the newest, The Get With the Program Guide to Fast Food and Family Restaurants.
The latter was prompted by another important partnership: one with the McDonald's Corporation. Green has been hired by the fast-food giant, stung by criticisms of its offerings, to develop new menu items and promotional campaigns that foster a healthier lifestyle. 'A lot of people say, 'Oh -- you and McDonald's: that's an interesting combination,'' laughs Greene, 'but I think it's the ultimate team: for the largest provider of food on the planet to make a major commitment to helping people become healthy is revolutionary.'
Recently, Greene and Oprah returned from a trip to Maui, where he has a second home, and where the two are considering building a health resort, and he's now putting the final, finishing touches on his next book. 'You have to get people to change the way they view themselves,' he insists. 'If you don't, in the long term, they're not going to be successful.'
The critical link between outlook and emotions and the results that people achieve is one that Greene has experienced firsthand. With a little advice and help from Oprah, he's transformed himself into, arguable, the best-known, most successful, and wealthiest personal trainer in the world.
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