Meet Trailblazer Yuliya Deahl

Today we’d like to introduce you to Yuliya Deahl.

Yuliya, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I was always active as a child, but my teenage years got the best of me. I gained a lot of weight due to hormonal changes, bad eating habits and a lack of activity, and although I did see it, I didn’t acknowledge how much my body had changed until my junior year of college. Once I was ready to make a change, I temporarily adapted a vegan diet and got a gym membership. Shortly after, I started working at the gym I joined and met my (now) husband and we began our fitness journey together. It’s been a rollercoaster of a ride with me creeping up to 170 pounds (my heaviest) and then, losing the weight due to illness, but I’ve been slowly finding a balance over the last few years and focusing on centering my health and fitness around one thing: myself.

I used to look at health and fitness as a way to CHANGE myself, which is why I constantly failed. Today, my focus is to use a healthy lifestyle to BETTER who I already am- because that is how consistency is built.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Has it been a smooth road? No way! I have yo-yo dieted, crash dieted, binge ate, starved myself and everything else imaginable. I’ve crept up to an unhealthy 170 pounds and dropped to an unhealthy 118 pounds.

The road never gets smooth – to believe it does is setting yourself up for failure when something goes wrong. The best, most universal advice I can give, is to always look ahead – NEVER look back. Nothing positive comes out of thinking about your past habits – here are two scenarios that have constantly gone through my head, hindering my results.

1. “I feel like I’ll never look as good as I did when I was (fill in your blank – for me, that blank is when I was on a vegan diet and exercising/running daily)”.

OR

2. “I don’t see a point in trying because I’ve already done so much damage and it doesn’t seem possible to succeed at this point”.

Two different ways of thinking about the past, BOTH leaving you with negative emotions and no room to think positively about what matters now: THE FUTURE.

Hoarding bad emotions is as toxic as hoarding in your life in general. You can’t move past the past if you keep looking to it for reassurance of what you are trying to currently do. Don’t compare your journey to someone else’s, but also don’t compare your current journey with your past struggles. Let go and make room for the new you to emerge. This is the only way to truly become the best version of yourself.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about your business – what should we know?
I’m a certified personal trainer, specializing in strength training and weight loss.

The best part of any fitness journey is discovering new things about yourself, and I love being a part of my clients’ journeys as they not only get physically stronger but mentally and emotionally. It’s amazing when a client comes in after a couple weeks or months of training and tells you that keeping up with their kids are getting easier, they can go up the stairs without feeling winded, and my personal favorite, that training has made them find a passion for the gym that they weren’t found on their own, so much so that they truly believe that they are building a new lifestyle for themselves.

As a trainer, my proudest moment is when a client feels like they are ready to venture out on their own into the fitness world because I have given them the tools they need to help them make this a lifestyle and not a temporary change. Some trainers intentionally train people in a way to make them always come back, and that’s wrong. A good trainer doesn’t want to keep you forever unless you like having a trainer for the added support and push (and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that – I’d love to have that myself year-round!).

There’s always a good reason to have a trainer – you need a push, your workouts feel stale, you’ve reached a plateau, you want to try something new, etc. I pride myself on making sure these are the reasons my clients keep coming back to me – not because they don’t feel like they’ve learned enough from me to be able to workout on their own. That’s what sets me apart from the mediocre trainers in my field. My clients keep coming back to me because I’m always pushing them forward, not holding them back.

Do you recommend any apps, books or podcasts that have been helpful to you?
Honestly, I’m still working on my list of book recommendations, there are so many out there! My current favorite books are those that work on the power of your mind and positive thinking. You are only as successful as you set yourself up to be in your mind, which means you have to exercise your ability to think positively as much as you need to exercise your body, A healthy mind means a healthy outlook on life, and nothing is as important as this. Your mindset is the key to your success above all because it will get you through everything, good and bad,

With that said, check out the following to get you started:

1. The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy

2. The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

Also, one of my other favorite things to do is listen to motivational speech compilations on YouTube during my workouts. The pump I get just from listening to the speeches is unreal!

Contact Info:

• Address: Iron Mine Gym
  6628 W Irving Park Rd
  Chicago, IL 60634
• Email: fityulzunfinished@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fit_yulz_unfinished/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fityulzunfinished

Getting in touch: VoyageChicago is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.