World-Renowned Personal Trainer: How To Lose Fat, Build Muscle and Improve Your Mental Health | Senada Greca

My friend, welcome back to another episode of the School of Greatness. I am excited.
We have Sonata Greca, who is Kim Kardashian's personal fitness and health trainer. And this is just not another episode about how to start off the new year with healthy habits.
This is about how to really rewire your thinking around your body, your health, and your mental fitness all together. You're about to listen to a very raw and inspiring conversation with Sonata Greca.
She immigrated to America as a teenager. She battled eating disorders to become one of the most influential figures in women's strength training.
And she opens up about her remarkable journey of transformation, the struggles she faced as a teenager in her young 20s, to where she is now with physical training, mental training, health and wellness. And as Kim Kardashian's personal trainer and the founder of the We Rise app, she's revolutionizing how women approach fitness by championing strength over aesthetics.
And this is a big challenge for a lot of men and women today. With social media and everyone filtering their photos and just posting six-pack abs or these perfect shapes of bodies, it's hard to not feel insecure.
It's hard to not feel shameful about your own body when you see other people who just seem to have it all put together. And it feels like no matter how hard you try, you're never going to get the results you want in your physical aesthetics.
I've been there. I've struggled with weight and my nutrition and health and wellness as a former professional athlete to then just consuming, you know, thousands and thousands of excess calories after retiring from playing sports and gaining a lot of weight to then trying to retrain, but still eating a ton of calories to being addicted to sugar, to all these different things that I've struggled with.
It's challenging. It's challenging for anyone of any type of background, especially if you're in social media at all and you see people posting stuff that just seems like, man, these people have either extreme genetics or they've just figured out the health and wellness hack and I haven't, right? It's just this kind of comparison shaming thing that might happen over and over.
And if that's resonating with you, if that speaks to you in any way, then please let me know over on Instagram or anywhere on social media. Let me know if that speaks to you because it's a challenge.
I get it. And there almost needs to be a way where you rewire your identity.
You shift your identity. And it has taken me years to learn this process.
And it doesn't mean I'm perfect all the time, but it has taken me a long time to create a new identity with food, to create a new identity with training, and to do it from a place where I'm not obsessive over needing to look a certain way, but I've set standards for myself and boundaries for myself to set myself up for success. And I think you've got to figure out whatever's best for you.
In today's episode, her powerful message about building muscle for longevity and mental health rather than just appearance is reshaping the conversation around fitness, specifically for women in general who've always thought about not weight training because it's gonna make them look bulky. They don't wanna have big arms or big shoulders or things like that.
They don't wanna look too masculine. And there are so many different experts we've had on, menopause experts as well, who are saying, I wish I would have done more strength training when I was younger.
I wish I would have built muscle when I was younger because it helps more than just physical appearance. It helps longevity and mental health.
And that's what I think we need to be focused on. How can we have the best mental and emotional health possible in 2025 and beyond? How can we weather any storm that comes our way? How can we weather relationship challenges, career challenges, family issues? How can we weather political challenges? How can we emotionally and mentally prepare ourselves for any challenge that's to come so that we feel more equipped to take on the challenges of life? That's what this is about.
And in the process of doing that, of building muscle for longevity and mental health, you're going to look great naked. And that's fun too.
You're going to look great with your shirt off or naked in the mirror or with your partner. It's like, hey, you're going to feel more confident.
You're going to feel more secure with yourself because you don't have shame around your body as well. And I want you to feel loved this year and beyond.
I want you to feel like you fully accept yourself. I want you to feel like you deserve to receive all that you want to receive this year and beyond.
And I truly believe that when you just set different standards for yourself, and again, not extreme yo-yo dieting or extreme kind of weird eating disorders, but just standards and boundaries around how you eat and how you move, you're going to feel more in control and responsible for your life. So this episode dives deep into personal growth, overcoming body issue, challenges, and finding purpose through empowering others.
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And again, I'm so grateful for you for being a part of this community with the School of Greatness. And let's dive into this episode right now.
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Copyright 2025. Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness.
Very excited about our guests. We have the inspiring Sinada Greca in the house.
So good to see you and congrats on everything. Thank you so much it's a pleasure being here yeah for having me i've seen you i've seen you just kind of like take over the instagram feed you know and the explore page for years of your content of just inspiring and empowering women to see what's possible for their health their bodies and their they're really their strength and to show what is possible you've've been an inspiration for so many women around the world.
You reach millions of women and lots of people on a daily basis. But it wasn't always that way for you, it seems like.
I've read some of your backstory. You deal with some challenges, some anxieties, some depress depression, some body issue challenges as well.

What would you say were the main challenges you faced either earlier in your life or your teen years before you got into a healthy body image and healthy lifestyle for yourself? What were the main challenges you faced? Yeah, of course. Yeah.
Well, so coming into the united states um as a teenager presented a lot of issues with fitting in and i think that was kind of the first if you want to say foray into like the the issues that started at that point is how does this foreigner fit in and integrate and look like, you know, the other kids in the popular. Did you speak English too or no? I was an English speaker at the time.
I'd taken private courses back in Albania. And, you know, in preparation of, like, either coming to the States or it's like the main foreign language at the time in Albania so started on that path and the opportunity presented itself for my family to come here by winning the lottery and the green cards or like legal basically instantly pretty much which was super super fortunate to be able to come here at a time of unrest in Albanian civil wars and um just a chaotic atmosphere so it was great to escape that and be able to come legally into the United States but that presented the issues of like now okay I'm a teenager in a new country with new challenges.
And on top of that, I was the only English speaking person in my family. So now I had to carry the load.
Wow. To translate everything.
Yeah. To translate everything, I had to basically become a parent.
Yeah. Go get a grocery store and ask questions.
Yeah. Go to the doctor's office when my parents, go to whatever office, go fill out paperwork.
To this day, I don't want to fill out paperwork because I'm so traumatized by that at an early age. But it had to be done.
It fell on my shoulders. And that, I believe, coupled with, again, being a teenager in a new country trying to fit in so that's where depression anxiety and even an eating disorder came to the surface really eating disorder wanting to fit in depression anxiety because there was so much of an overload of you know my day-to-day school things and then family issues that I had to help with.
And coupled, I found out later in life that I have a genetic predisposition to anxiety and depression. Interesting.
So that was a more recent revelation, even though I've known, because my mom has dealt with it, and hearing from her, my grandfather has dealt with it. So you kind of create that link that it has existed, thus I'm experiencing it, but then to kind of know from genetic testing that, wow, I am predisposed to all of these things and now how do I work through them? Yeah, so that was kind of the backstory coming to the country and kind of experiencing some of those issues that then led me to where I am today.
Wow. The desire to combat those in a natural way and not saying that I did, I did take antidepressants like I was on medication to help with that, but it never gave me the relief or the long-term relief that I needed.
You knew it wasn't the long-term solution. It wasn't the long-term solution.
It was just a cover-up of the symptoms. I always think of with anything, if it gets taken off the market, if suddenly you have no access access to pharmacies or how are you innately going to deal with these issues so i'm always for start with the things that you're able to do and achieve in a natural way by yourself and if you need i'm not against pharmaceuticals and obviously not therapy, but can you start with the basics or can you utilize them in conjunction with each other? And then hopefully it'll carry you to a point where you're able to maybe back off from pharmaceuticals because there, it is known that they have, uh, side effects.
And what is the side effects of exercise and eating healthy? None really. It's actually just just benefits from it.
Wow. How long, you know, since you moved the country, you had this kind of emotional weight that you had to carry with the family, also fitting in at school.
What state were you living in? What city? New York, upstate New York. So you're trying to fit into a school in New York, a new culture, different type of, I guess, girls and how they communicate versus what you're used to in Albania.

You're also getting into puberty.

All these different things are happening all at the same time.

All at the same time.

When did you realize you had signs of an eating disorder and how long did it take until you were able to break that kind of that habit it was you know when you have an eating disorder you're blind to it right it's more the people that are outside of you that that notice it so it was teachers and parents that that started noticing it that I was losing weight drastically but when you have this body dysorphia, you could be the thinnest that you've ever been, that you could possibly be that, you know, you're risking serious health problems. You don't see yourself as that.
Really? When you look in the mirror. You don't.
When you look in the mirror, you see, you know, I'm fat, I'm big, I'm this, I'm that. You're just like, um, the most negative you're, you're, you're, you're breaking yourself down.
You're just don't think that because you're, you're, you have such, uh, advanced body dysmorphia and looking at yourself from a different lens that you don't recognize that. What do you think is the main cause of body dysmorphia for most people? Is it an emotional trauma? Is it a hyper criticism they get from parents or peers is it a pressure from seeing marketing in society that like oh i'm not enough and so i need to become like that thing what is i think it's a combination of all of what you mentioned it's hypercritical parents um i love you mom but she if i didn't get like the highest grade in class if I wasn't first in class you know if you're not first your last kind of mentality which comes with amazing side benefits when it comes to drive and achieving and overachieving in life but it comes with a huge weight on your shoulders to be the best and that is not always required to to be successful, to be the best, to look the best.
So I think it's a combination of all those things. I think there's the societal pressures that weigh on young people that are in their formative years.
And yeah, the comparison of unrealistic beauty. And for me at the time was all of those factors as well as trying to figure out how to fit in in a new place, new country, new culture, you know, trying to control something that felt controllable amongst uncontrollable, an uncontrollable situation.
So is that a common theme that you've heard from other women that have had an eating disorder or body dysmorphia in the past that they felt out of control and the way to feel a sense of control is with your body or with foods? It is one of the main things that leads to that, is trying to control something that feels controllable in your life. Because you can't control anything you right exactly control yeah interesting so how long did it take until you started to i guess teachers were telling you or peers or friends or family but when did you start to say oh yes this is a problem i need to take care of it it took a couple of years it took a couple of years and years and therapists and being prevented from being in sports because sports was something that I was really interested in.
So I was stopped from participating in sports. Because you got so skinny? Because I got so skinny and unhealthy that, yeah, that was kind of one of the beginning

sort of wake up calls that, you know,

I couldn't do one of the things that I absolutely loved um but but again like that voice of like you know you're just you don't look the way that you're supposed to look like persisted for for a while for a few years and then um I was utilizing working out again while understanding that you have to nourish yourself. So I started to increase the caloric intake, but still not to the degree that was needed.
And then trying to outweigh that working out. So you're negating that, really? So what was a caloric intake that you would take if you could, you know, guess in the times where you were at your lowest with body dysmorphia or, or eating disorder? Anorexia.
Anorexia. Anorexia.
With anorexia, what was, what would you think? It was very minimal. And I don't want to, because I don't want to influence anybody to even consider doing anything like that because it was very unhealthy, but it was very minimal.
Like under 1,000 calories a day? Way less. Like a few hundred calories a day.
Yeah, a few hundred calories a day. Really? It's very unhealthy, very unhealthy.
When a woman thinks, I want to eat less because I want to lose weight today, maybe they don't have body dysmorphia or anorexia or eating disorder, order but they're just thinking I want to lose weight today. Maybe they don't have body dysmorphia or anorexia or eating disorder order, but they're just thinking, I want to lose weight.
And so I'm going to go into extreme calorie deficit. What is happening to a woman's body when they, for long periods of time, do a thousand calories or less or 500 calories or less a day.
I'm not talking about like 24 hour fasting here

and there, but just like long periods of time, what happens to a woman's body? Yeah. Your body goes into a shutdown mode basically.
So your hormones start to go off their regular cycle. Your body literally goes into shutdown mode because now it needs to protect what it has and not produce the unnecessary things that a normal functioning body would require.
So you start losing your period, you start losing hair. So basically it's just your body shedding all what it considers to be unnecessary functions.
Wow. Yeah.
Even though they're super necessary, but like to the basic survival. Preserve energy.
Preserve, to preserve like the basic, super basic needs of a human. It starts to shut down all of those, all of those other functions of the body.
Yeah, I did, I did, I did at the, at that point, I did lose my, my, my period. Really? Um, and then I had to, yeah, um, work on, on gaining it back.
How long did it take to kind of gain back your normal hormone function or? It wasn't that long. It was within like a year, if I remember correctly, it was a long time ago.
Still. Wow.
But, yeah, no laughing matter because it is an important part of being healthy physically and mentally. 100%.
Yeah. Where is the level of self-love? Like how much self-love did you have during that season of life?

And I don't want to speak for other women or other men who have maybe you're going through anorexia,

but where does that typically seem to be or where is that for you?

Did you have a low self-esteem and low level of self-love?

And then how did you learn to believe in self, love self to kind of course correct?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's almost like no self-love because if you, if, if I were to have any self-love, I wouldn't do that to myself, right? Because now you're basing your self-love and self-esteem on an image that you can't even see clearly. So if you can't see yourself or who you are, and you're wanting to diminish that image, I would say that there was almost no self-love.
Because you don't have a clear image of yourself. And you're focusing that love on an idealistic image that's outside of you a perfect image that you can't attain you and you could attain it but in your eyes you know like you're saying let's say you're you've lost a certain amount of weight but you're still not able to see that you're still that's why it's like that you're never able to grasp for that image because you're not able to see yourself realistically so you had very little self-love at that season right yeah when did you start to have a lot of self-love and self-compassion and see yourself differently to treat yourself differently i mean i wasn't i was doing all these things i was trying to be the thinnest that i possibly could and i still wasn't happy so there was like a you know uh miscommunication there between like you're you you know you're gonna be happy you're gonna be satisfied when you're this weight and that wasn't happening and i was constantly depressed and not happy so then that came into question like where when how are we going to do this like how are you going to reach that level of happiness

because obviously this is not working so then I did a turning point for me was when I saw a

physician a primary care physician that she was running marathons and she was running and she was

like I think in her 50s and running one I don't want to exaggerate and say every month, but it was at least every three months she was running a marathon. Consistently.
Consistently. So she got me into running, into working out for the right reasons, for that mental aspect, and started to shift, nurturing my body to fuel the runs and to fuel the working out so that was like the first shift you're like what 17 18 19 I was like early 20s yeah early 20s yeah during that whole period from like 15 to to 20 early 20s it was a struggle of like a push and pull of wanting to look a certain way and dieting and overworking out and and just trying to like, you know, I went from actually I went from under eating anorexia to like binge eating.
I never did fully go into like bulimia, but like I did struggle with those two extremes because it's, you know, you're you're you can only take so much when you're constricting constricting constriction and then you're going to go the opposite way you need to like yes exactly wow um it was that and it was actually a cousin to also saying that's not like you're not like really leaning into one of the joys of life, which is eating and experiencing,

you know, the food that you're eating and your, your constant thinking is around what I should be eating, should not be eating. So I don't gain weight versus sitting with what you're eating and enjoyment of it.
Wow. So that was kind of a little bit of a light bulb moment that eating doesn't have to be like such a chore, such a, you know, a weighing factor, but more of a joy of life and enjoyment.
And I know nowadays that we've, there's so much information out there and so much stress around like eating what to eat when I not eat fruit is suddenly uh controversial I'm like really um so it just you know taking it back to the basics you know and going back to have food is actually a a joy of life yes it feeds our ability to function but it's also at least for me joy. That's beautiful.
When did you start to feel like, oh, I've started to got these things under control? My perception of myself, my weight, my food, my working out, I'm not too extreme in one way, I have a good sense of self, self-image, and I feel like I'm in a consistent healthy place what years was that I mean in my early 20s it was when I started to make that shift I um um if I can remember the book that overcoming overeating because that's what I was doing at that point which is this one in the same kind of you're just not restricting you know you're or you are restricting because you are thinking this food is good this is bad and now you're maybe overeating the things that you think they're good but nothing should be in excess right um so that was kind of a turning point in my early 20s i was i was realizing that i could eat nourish my body, and then get the physical activity that I needed and be in a stable physical weight and function properly, right? And I think it was then later on in my early 30s that I shifted from cardio and running and marathoning to

more weightlifting. Interesting.
So for almost a decade, you were like cardio running. That's

a lifestyle. What did your body, I mean, not that we should focus on body image, but what was your

body, what did your body look like in your 20s then when you were in cardio mode,

running did long distances versus weight training, lifting mode? Too many people stay in relationships that no longer serve them. And the moment they choose to walk away, they wonder why they didn't do it sooner.
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That's interesting because I was doing cardio and that during like my twenties and my weight would drastically shift. You know, so I would go into being super thin if I was running, if I was training for a marathon, thin, not a lot of muscle definition, to then when I was not training as hard, kind of being a little bit rounder and softer.

But then when I started the strength train, I've never been so consistent in how I looked and how I feel.

It's been years of like actually being super consistent

in the physical aspect.

What is the difference that you feel emotionally,

spiritually, psychologically between, you know,

almost a decade of cardio training mostly

versus years of strength training?

Yeah, there's a draining aspect with that much cardio. And while you can look a certain way, that maybe the society thinks that it's feminine, thin, and not a ton of muscle definition.
But when I shifted into strength training, I leaned into my confidence and my self-esteem skyrocketed. Really? Because that's where you step into your power, into your true strength and occupy space and utilize what you're born with.
You're born to have muscle definition. Otherwise, it wouldn't be there, the ability to do so.
So when I fully leaned into that, it just completely shifted my self-confidence, the way I looked at myself, went from I'm not thin enough, I don't look thin enough to like, I want to look as strong as I possibly can. I want to develop as much muscle as I possibly can.
And then, you know, we can talk about that too, like, and how that feeds into to health and longevity. Sure.
I mean, there's been a huge wave of research and science and people like Dr. Gabrielle Lyon and Dr.
Marie Claire who are talking about the importance of protein specifically for women protein and muscle building for health for longevity for also managing kind of the the menopause phase of being a woman and just like being able to navigate that with more balance,

I guess. And it seems like in the last year or two, that has been the primary focus of many female experts speaking to women, like start building muscle.
But I don't feel like I ever heard that before because a lot of women don't want to look bulky. They don't want like too strong or too muscular or less feminine so how have you learned to navigate the psychology of you going from what society or what maybe you thought was a more feminine skinnier look for a decade of cardio versus a more strong feminine look in these past years how have you navigated that when when maybe society, a lot of women say, well, I don't wanna look bulky or strong.
Yeah, for sure, yeah. I do get that comment a lot.
Really? Or I have, not a lot, I should not say that. Every so often there will be a comment of like, too masculine or, you know, things like that, and then it and it doesn't bother me honestly because it's that person's perspective of me and that's not a perspective that i have of myself that's great um and how i made that shift was organically because i know what feeling that that gave to me like i know how i feel when I lift when I feel stronger versus when I try to diet myself to my skinniest version I didn't love myself at that time I did not feel strong I felt weak I felt frail versus now I feel strong I feel confident I feel I don't want to say invincible but there's points yeah when you know it's like that when you when you do lift and when you're pushing yourself that you do feel invisible you feel unstoppable unstoppable i can take on anything exactly exactly exactly you didn't feel that all the time when you were in the cardio world no not really i mean you do get some endorphins from running you do feel some of those

good good feeling um uh endorphins when you're on the runner's highs real sure yeah not in the same

fashion i would say not in the same fashion it's not strength yeah it's it's endurance exactly

right you can you run long distances and there is strength in endurance absolutely there is

confidence in that and overcoming hard things but it's not as strong as muscle and at the end of the day yes you can get those similar sentiments from a lot of modalities from cardio from running or from strength training or from pilates or yoga whatever you know that know, that does it for you. But for me, I think of longevity.
It's come to that point where I'm like quality life, quality longevity, being able to live unassisted when you're later years in the 70s, 80s, 90s, hopefully. Yeah.
And beyond. The commercial that I remember seeing a lot in the, I guess, 90s on TV was I've fallen and I can't get up.
Yeah. And you see all these like old grandparent, grandma, grandpa on TV who are like, I've fallen and I can't get up because they literally fell over and they and they can't push themselves off around they don't have the muscle strength to just stand up and it's so funny you don't think about it as a kid you're like oh yeah i can get up but when you're older if you don't build muscle in your youth it's going to be so much harder to build it when you're older absolutely do you know this do you know any of the research out there about how much harder it is to build muscle after 40, 50, 60 years old versus before? I think it's different for men than women.
And in some situations to the higher end, it's almost when men are almost twice as able as women to build muscle. So I think for women, it's even more important to try to build that muscle when you can.
I think it's so funny because I wrote that. I think in the I'm like, I'm not going to remember.
What's the stat? What's the stat? So for if you're going to like your 40s, it's basically 2.2 to 0.7 pounds of muscle per month. And then 2.4 to 8.4 per year.
So like on the high, on the low end is 2 pounds per year to 8 pounds per year. If you're going after it, like true, intense, maximal strength training.
You should try to be gaining two pounds of muscle per year? That's your ability. That's your ability.
If you went all in. If you run all in.
You could only gain about two pounds a year. Yeah, in their 40s.
Wow. And how easy is it? And it drops, you know, in the 50s is like 1.2 to 6 pounds of muscle per year.
That's if you're training like three to five days a week, hard, heavy. I mean, you know, maybe genetically sometimes some people can be a little bit more.
On average though, yeah. But on average, that's, yeah.
And how easy is it to lose muscle? Like if you get sick for a couple weeks or don't train for a month like how easy is it for a woman in their 40s and 50s to lose muscle it starts within like two weeks you can you start to lose muscle um and you start losing muscle in your 30s you start to lose muscle at about three to some studies say five some studies say eight on the higher end percent of muscle mass per decade i think it started in your 30s yeah so that's fighting that natural if you're sedentary for your life you're just going to lose muscle you're going to lose muscle so that's why it's so important to start early on to build as much as you can so then you can kind of offset the muscle that you will Eventually lose yeah, when you're 80 70 it's gonna you're gonna lose it exactly. Yeah.
Wow. That's interesting.
Have you tracked how much muscle you've gained in the last 10 years? I'm not huge on like numbers on like alright, let's draw it. I don't get in my own head this is there are some people that benefit from that but there are some people like me who have suffered through some of these eating disorders that stay away from I stay away from weighing myself it doesn't have that effect on me anymore sometimes if I want to hop on it just to be like hey I knew that was going on cool on.
Cool. And it doesn't have that effect on me.
But, yeah, I try to stay away as long as in my heart I know that I'm doing everything that I can to strength, train as hard as I can to eat the right way, get in the right amount of protein, carbs and fats, etc. If I know that I'm doing that, I don't need any measurements

to tell me how I'm doing. I guess it's interesting if we think about it, like, I don't know, we didn't have scales back in the day, right? There was no scale a couple hundred years ago, I guess, to like weigh yourself.
It wasn't a priority, but now everyone's got a scale and they check it every day, a lot of people. What is the, I guess, the negative for a woman who wants to weigh themselves and see a number every single day? What is the downside to weighing yourself for women versus the pro of having that number that they see every day? It's going to dictate how you feel on that particular day and do you really want your mood and your day to be dictated by a number on a scale that's what i always say why do you want your day to be dictated by that you know progress like we lie to ourselves we're good at lying to ourselves but we know when we're progressing when we're regressing when we're stagnant right so I don't want my day to be dictated by a number now granted that there is if you are able to remove that aspect and somehow not allow that number to dictate your day and simply utilize that as a way to to track progress but not every day because you're not going your your your body fluctuates within a day from day to day but if you're measuring yourself maybe in like at the most like weekly increments but even then if you're like you if your number if the number doesn't hit your expectation exactly one week of hard work and you're like i didn't see the results you may I feel defeated and then start binge eating.
Exactly. And feeling like, ah, what's the point of this? What's the point? I worked so hard.
Because progress takes time. Yeah.
It takes a long time to put muscle on. Easier when you're a beginner, right? Because your body's going to respond right away because it's something new and then a little bit harder if you're more advanced um lifter or person that works out but take progress takes time whether it is gaining muscle or losing weight and that's that's the thing i think that that's why most people quit because they don't see uh that progress in the short term and it takes three to six months months to see true results and people mostly drop a new program within the first like eight weeks i think there's like statistics like three uh 50 65 percent of people will quit in the first three to six months of starting like a workout program with a and then if it's like new year's it's like 80 percent of the people will quit i have this it says a study show that 88 percent of people who set new year's resolution resolutions fail they fail within the first two weeks i'm curious what do you think is the biggest barrier to maintaining goals then so that people don't fail so quickly when they start? I think the first thing it is like those unrealistic expectations.
Set realistic goals. For me, if you are just starting out, if this is something completely new, is set that goal of just showing up.
Show up every day. Create that consistency.
Consistency is the primary goal that maybe somebody should aim for in my eyes. Aim for that consistency every day, day in and day out to then bring you to carry you to that point where you have created a new habit.
And it takes time to create habit. I mean, there was a misconception of like taking 21 days.
Actually, it's much longer than that. I mean, 21 days is a good starting point because it's a little bit more than the two weeks.
But if you're really wanting to solidify a habit, especially when it comes to working out, it's like a little bit over two months some people say 66 days but yeah i love what you're saying about this because if everyone could focus on making the goal of making the process the goal as opposed to the results the goal they would live a better life exactly process is the goal yeah process is the goal it's so hard though I've been in that, I've probably been on a, I don't know, two year, almost two years ago. I, you know, COVID hit.
I was training a lot before then. Then COVID and breakup, emotional stress, kind of all that stuff.
Like just life happened where I gained a lot of weight for myself. Right.
And I was like 255 at my heaviest, but just didn't feel good. Right.

I'm six four. So I'm a big guy.
It doesn't like look like obese, but it just didn't feel good.

Right. And then two years ago, I really got consistent in the training and I'm down at 225

ish. So I've dropped a lot of weight, but I'm still not where I want to be, but it's like,

but I'm training so hard. And even me knowing as an athlete that it just takes time but kind of like letting go of the expectation or the goal of like this is where I want it to be yeah I can still have that vision on my mind but a lot of it is the the acknowledgement of showing up and just say did I do the right thing today exactly did I do

the right things for my health for my mind for my future self today exactly and the results will eventually come if I keep showing up for me absolutely and but it's it's it can take a while you know to get the results you want and that's what I love what you talking about. Make the process the goal, not the result.
And are you comparing yourself to this image that you had or you were at some point? Yeah, I was like 22 and I'm like an elite athlete. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Can you be the best version of yourself that you could possibly be now? Yeah. It is hard.
It is hard because we unfortunately have if my body has memory from a year ago from two years ago absolutely it and it happens but am i in my power can i honestly say to myself that i'm doing everything that i can with regards to working out strength training with regards to nutrition with regards to sleep recovery you strength training, with regards to nutrition, with regards to sleep, recovery, you know, all of the components that will bring you to that optimal self at this point in time. So that's where I'm at.
Yeah, you're focused on that. That's where I'm at, yeah.
That's interesting. There seems to be like, I don't know if this is the right terminology, but there seems to be like i don't know what i don't know if this is the right terminology but there seems to be trends with uh women's body sizes and types and structures since i was like you know i grew up in the 80s and 90s it was all about being super skinny then it was about you know curvy and voluptuous then it's like seems like it's going back to skinny like it seems like there's these trends in the culture why do you think that first off is that accurate that there are trends for women in their way that their body is supposed to look if so why does that change for women over the years there is definitely trending there's been like been, like you said, you know, I agree with you that there's been, you know, the trend of being skinny and then curvaceous.
And I don't know that it's necessarily being thin again. I hope not.
It's being like fit and strong. I think there's a movement.
There's a true movement with being. Being like being strong and I love and appreciate all the doctors that are coming forward and sharing their their data on how strength and and having as much muscle as possible is healthy for a woman not just quality of life now but in their later years I think yeah I think a lot of these studies and this those doctors that are coming forward with women specific because I think more a lot of the studies have been done on men but with women specific studies that show that importance so I'm hoping that that's the that new trend.
Yeah. And that's here to stay.
Well, it's interesting because, you know, as you mentioned, when you moved to America, you saw pressure from other teen girls in your school. You saw media, marketing, you know, whatever it might be, campaigns of like celebrities that you see look a certain way.
Yeah. But you're also a trainer for Kim Kardashian right now, and you have been for a while.
And I'm assuming you're around a lot of top celebrities as well in that world. How do you navigate knowing that you're working with a very influential woman that women look up to, women want to look like, women want to women want to you know emulate maybe they feel comparison to or a lack of comparison that they can't live up to the way she might look or something like that or just other celebrities in general how do you navigate I guess your work with someone like that while also understanding that if there's a 15-year-old out there who was once like you that maybe sees her and wants to be like her, and then does that help her, inspire her to eat healthier and train, or is it like, let me go extreme food deprivation? I don't know.
How do you navigate just that in your mind? mind honestly that was one of the main reasons why I accepted to work with Kim is because she does have this influence and she decided that she wanted to step into her strength and build muscle and and maintain that muscle because also she realized that muscle is important for her health and longevity not just aesthetically speaking and for me that was an opportunity to help her but also help other women that she is influencing obviously her reach is way bigger than mine is so that was one of my biggest driving factors for working with her and other celebrities that I have is to send a message of strength to the women out there that strength is beautiful, strength is health and quality longevity. So that's, to me, that was, yeah, I see that as a positive, having a positive effect on women.
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Because you see Kim leaning into strength training more. Absolutely.
That's what you're working with, Ron. Absolutely.
She loves it. I mean, that's not and did she always do that before no she didn't it was more cardio and pilates and and things like which again everything has a place and a space and a time but in my opinion humble opinion and i think research backs it up strength training is queen right on the list.
I mean, we don't have to speak about her that much, but what have you noticed in, I guess, over a year of strength training with Kim Kardashian about maybe just confidence levels or things like that? Has anything changed? Because she's been a pretty confident person already. She's got massive businesses businesses she's got a lot of success like has she shared that anything you're allowed to share or we noticed something like that or yeah i mean she with all the confidence that she already has she feels definitely more confident and she can't wait to train with me really yeah it's it's amazing you know if she perance happens to not be training for a few days because of her very demanding schedule you know um she's like i can't wait to train so that to me is like music to my ears to hear that somebody has uh has has made that leap and is has leaned into strength training and i've seen her, and to me, again, it's not as much about aesthetics, but about form, like walking around and doing things with great form.
Injury prevention. Injury prevention and all of that.
So it's beautiful. I mean, we're here in LA, and it seems to be kind of like a hub of extremes here.
And specifically with like weight loss drugs or these exempt type drugs and things like that. And it seems to be it's popular in LA.
You know, I don't know. I don't know people who are on them or not on them.
I don't like know these things. But I see extreme weight shifts in certain women after a few months.

And I'm like, maybe that's drug free.

Maybe that's Ozempic.

I have no idea.

What is the, what's your thoughts on the pros and cons of something like an Ozempic or these weight loss drugs specifically for women?

First starting point for me is always, have you tried doing it naturally, right? So are you able to? Because some people are just not able to get to that point, right? So for me, it's like starting with the attainable things that you can naturally, like nutrition and working out. And if that hasn't worked and you are, as a matter of fact, somebody that is a candidate for that drug, then there's more and more research that shows that that can be helpful in a lot of aspects, not just losing weight, but health-wise.
So with any other therapies, pharmaceutical therapies, I'm not necessarily necessarily opposed to them but there's a place and time for them so for me it's like have you tried the foundation which again we know is eating right and working out getting enough sleep exactly meditating for me meditating is huge um did i? Yeah. So like if you are, if you're focusing on having those, that foundation and you still are struggling, then maybe it's time to talk to a professional to see if that is something that is, that would be of benefit.
I know that, again, there has been studies out there with drastic weight loss. I'm not on board with that.
So if it's happening, even with the Zempik, if you're utilizing it and you're experiencing drastic weight loss, that is not healthy. Because you're losing not just fat, but you're losing lots of muscle in that process.
Really? But if it's done with kind with kind of micro dosing, again is what studies show, is that you're able to maintain muscle mass while slowly losing weight. Interesting, yeah.
Is, I mean, yeah. It just seems like a lot of people just have lost weight really quickly, is what it seems like.
Again, I don't know who's using it or who's not using it it's like it's hard for me to tell but it seems like that's what's been happening and that scares me right that's it is super scary that that is scary the drastic weight loss no matter what way it's done if it's a drastic weight loss and if it's done because you're restricting your food intake and you're working out like crazy or or whether you're doing something like GLP-1, like Ozempic, then that's not good. Yeah.
That is not good. This is an interesting question I have for you, Sinatra.
I'm curious. When you know that also like women, I don't want to say all women, but there's a tendency that women may compare themselves to other women yeah and you have content out there that may seem unattainable for a lot of women right i don't know if that's what you're hearing or maybe someone said that but i can only imagine some woman is scrolling who's not healthy or not fit or maybe like not confident themselves um and they see some of your videos and they're like this woman is a super woman like some women may be that really inspired by that and say awesome that's an example that I can lean into and I can follow her programming and I can maybe one day be like that in my own way whereas other women might say gosh dang it she it, she's like too good looking, or she's too fit, or she's too shredded.
Like how is she even, I could never do that. How do you navigate the uncertainty that women might have to feel like they'll never be as strong or fit or lean as you, or be able to do the workouts the way you do them so effortlessly based on what it may look like for them, versus I'm here to empower and inspire women, not show them that they're not enough.
How do you navigate that personally? It's, to me, my intention is to never have anybody compare me to them and and have them feel bad about themselves like that that would absolutely that is not my intention like my goal and my desire is to empower women to step into their strength to feel the strongest that they possibly can to embrace

their their musculature their strong bodies to embrace that so for me um that's been my desire to kind of embody this strong person with muscle so that women feel empowered to to to aim to build muscle and to look in the best way a version of themselves not me obviously i um i have a different genetic genetic makeup you know than than somebody else like we were genetically in bio but we're biodiverse we're genetically diverse so um it might it might be unrealistic for some women to to aim to look exactly like me but nobody should want to aim to look exactly like somebody else so i always and i say this you know in my post is i aim to be the strongest version of yourself the best version of yourself and not utilize me as a as a comparison but rather as hopefully an inspiration of a woman that was struggling throughout her entire life and now has embraced her her strength and and my abilities and it took years you know it took years so i i didn't suddenly wake up lifted a couple of weights and i'm here i didn't always have great form. You know, that's one of the things that people always praise, like great form.
How are you able to do that? I didn't wake up doing that. It was just years of practice, years of kind of perfecting my craft to be able to do that.
With this much awareness and attention about who you are now from the last I guess eight years I think you've been on social media that you said like and just the following and the views you get and the attention you get 2019 actually 2019 okay so six years ago I mean it's been no one knew who you were in the last six years a lot of know who you are. And you're working with one of the biggest celebrities in the world.
What has that been like for you, psychologically or emotionally, to deal with, now everyone's critiquing you, whether it be positive or negative, and you're working with big celebrities. How has that been for you as a human? I think the biggest, the threshold that scared me the most was hitting 100,000 followers.
It was like, whoa, there's 100,000 people that are looking at what I do. And then for some reason, it kind of normalized after that.
It doesn't really... So every million, it's like, okay, just another million.
Yeah, yeah. No, now that I take it for granted by any means i'm so grateful for

the platform for my audience i never take it for granted but it doesn't have that you know fear correlated with it you know it's it's not um because i know what i'm doing i know what i'm saying i feel to a certain degree so it doesn't when when i was just first starting out obviously you're still kind of building your confidence and and and navigating that so um but to kind of go back to I think what you were asking like how has that affected me personally in the beginning you do deal with a lot of this person said that so now you know am I really that or and then just learn, at least I have learned to, to see that as not a reflection of who I am. I know who I am.
I know the message that I'm trying to portray. And I know, you know, that I'm there for service.
You know, that's what makes a purposeful life is being of service to others. And that's, I don't get emotional, but that's what fulfills me is like being of service and providing as much service as I can to as many people as I can, especially women, because I'm a woman and was, you know, I'm in a household of women that have two younger sisters.
So that always has been kind of keeping in mind what my goal is and who I am and not being affected by people that will will try to speak negatively in the process when do you start to think about your life of being in service to help others when did I start to was that was that like something earlier in your life or was that in the last six years, like I want to start like really adding value and trying to serve people, whether it's five people or five million? I think that's always been, I think it came within the territory of experiencing depression. I think that's, you know, I think that sense of purpose is linked to depression somehow.
So I was struggling with that for a while. How old were you? I mean, I went to business school.
I got a master's in business. And I did all of this accomplishment, graduated summa cum laude with the highest honors in three years and then

in one year for my business degree so you know i i was accumulating all of these accolades and um and it just wasn't adding up like it wasn't feel it wasn't fulfilling to me because it wasn't you know it didn't feel like it was coming from a sense of like of of purpose or of service rather to the greater good. And now where I am at, knowing what strength training and nurturing myself in all aspects, nutrition, like we were talking, sleep, meditation, and recovery, knowing what that has done for me, for my mental health, that's been kind of my driving factor to bring that to the world.
And yeah. Wow.
How long did you feel like you were experiencing depression for or your mental health was struggling? It started when I was in my teens, you know, like I said, with dealing with the eating disorders and then realizing that there was like a sense there was depression that was going hand in hand with that and anxiety. And, you know, as I say, those monsters in the closet never go away.
You just develop better tools to manage them, to manage them. So for me, working out is one of my main tools in my tool belt that you know i'm feeling a certain way i know i'm going to go get a workout and it's going to to shift my day everything so there are those moments where i absolutely don't feel like working out but i know what i will achieve on the other side of that so that's I think one of my main motivating factors along with wanting to be independent in my later years wanting to have a quality of life and longevity that I can rely on I think the other one is I don't I don't want to feel depressed I don't want to feel anxious I don't want to deal with those things that I know I am predisposed to deal with.

You can override those.

That's just like the hand that you're dealt.

But it's like what tools and your tool belt do you utilize to best deal?

Absolutely.

Wow.

What do you feel like has your biggest insecurity or fear now um i guess i'm always i always think am i giving my best self to my audience to the people that i influence that is always my the thing that if there is one thing that keeps me up at night is it's that it's am I providing the best value that I possibly can uh out there to the world so that that's the one thing that I always strive to to do better that's why I launched the we rise app I re so I had an app prior to that and I relaunched and rebed last january so we're coming up on a year and i'm always striving to make it better whether it's like with the latest research and and what it'll be it'll it'll be lights light years ahead of what it is now because we're really aiming for it to be a female empowerment and development platform not just a fitness app well and and yeah that's that's what we strive every day to perfect how do you how do you navigate not falling back into an obsessive perfectionist critical state versus progress, consistency, and a healthy balance. When you have that type of like older personality, it's like, how do you make sure you don't go into that in extremes with work, you know, body, you know, perfection in a different way.
Yeah. You're just more conscious of that self-talk.
You're just more conscious of those patterns. I think that's with everything.
You just become conscious of the way that you're just more conscious of that self-talk you're just more conscious of those patterns i think that's with everything you just become conscious of the way that you talk to yourself conscious of negative past patterns and then you course correct and it is it is good enough it is it is good because as we were talking about earlier you know great and perfection be the enemy of good. So I'm always conscious of that to not aim for perfection, but to aim for value and good.
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Have you ever done like therapy also, emotional therapy instead of, you know, workout therapy? I have, I have, I have um what's been the biggest takeaway from that for you or biggest lessons i'll be honest therapy for me has didn't work for you not as much as working sure but it works for a lot of people it has it has it's been a long time honestly um since i've been in therapy and i definitely promoted like yes do therapy it's definitely great like i said all of these are just tools that we accumulate and then we use and whatever works best for you for me it's been more self-therapy yeah i read a lot of i I've read a ton of self-help books. I've read, you know, books that you'd read at a collegiate level, you know.
And that's how I self-educate and that's how I self-help and self-actualize and analyze. Maybe it's a good time to say I've also done plant medicine and that has been huge help for me and kind of being my own therapist because that's the best way that I can describe plant medicine is being your own therapist, seeing yourself from the outside and looking at your patterns and looking at everything from a different perspective, kind of removed from that ego self.
Do you have a relationship with God or a spiritual practice? I have a relationship with God, yeah. I don't know that if it's in the context of the religion in a sense, or maybe it is inclusive of all of that.
I just believe in the creator being the creator for all of us. One loving creator that is good and wants what's best for us,

and that is not judging, but that is loving.

What do you think God wants for you moving forward?

To continue doing this work and to really actualize am of of of help and service to others you know because i i do at times struggle with that like i was saying before am i doing my best am i really being of service to to humanity to others so i think really leaning into that that you know, if I actually help just one person, then that is a life fulfilled. If I've changed, course corrected somebody's path even by a small percentage, then that is an accomplishment.
That's beautiful. Yeah.
Where do you think you'd be? Do you think you'd be as happy and healthy if you didn't have a relationship with God or a spiritual practice? I think it's good to have somewhat of a relationship with whatever you believe kind of that higher power to be. I think it's something to lean on.
I think it's something to lean on. And for people, it's different people, it's different.
For everybody is different what that could be or look like and what image you have in your mind, but whatever gives you that comfort that, um, you're here for a reason. Yeah.
Yeah. Did you have a spiritual relationship or when you were in your teens and early 20s and struggling with, you know, the depression and things? I had, my grandma raised me to be religious and say prayers every night and I think I lost that a little bit.
And now I'm back at, you know, saying my prayers every night. You feel more peace now? Yeah, absolutely.
That's beautiful. That's beautiful.
Yeah. Your parents still around? Yeah, they are.
My parents, I have two younger sisters. They're all in New York.
They're all in New York. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're still around. What's the biggest lesson both your mom and your dad taught you? My dad taught me to be strong and to persevere and to, yeah, he never complained.
He never complained. He went from being a doctor back in Albania to being a janitor when he came to the United States, even though we're legally here and everything.

But that's what he had to do. He knew English, but he knew to put his ego aside and just do what needed to be done to support his family.
and from my mom is to like that, that compassionate spirit.

And also, even though it led to some things that weren't so positive in my life,

like that, that striving to be the best also led to where I am today, I believe.

So yeah, I thank her for that.

Wow, that's beautiful.

What's the biggest lesson Kim's taught you? She's a hard worker sometimes. I thought I was a hard worker.
So, yeah, she inspires me in that way to be a hard worker. And beautifully balances that with having a family and having four children and spending quality time time with them so having that balance like that's that's inspirational that's cool that's cool uh you've got an app called the we rise app how many women are in this community right now in this in this app oh my gosh i need to where is it thousands thousands of women yeah thousands of women tens of thousands of

women are all over the world all over the world that are achieving their best strongest selves

and i'm so excited for it what do they get in the app what what's their what yeah what are these

working on well what they're working on what they're in the app what yeah what's it what they

so whatever experience level that you're in so if if you're beginner, intermediate, advanced, if you're working out from home or the gym, there is a program that is for them. And whether they want something to get started, like a 20-minute follow along that I'm with them every step of the way and kind of guide them through, they got that on there.
So I think for every kind of walk of life, there is something in the app and there is a meal planning and recipes and macro tracking. Right now we currently have an expert nutritionist and expert habits.
She actually is one of like the four PhDs in the world that works with habits to just help people establish good habits, get rid of habits that don't serve them anymore. And then on the nutrition side, you know, speaking about like, what are macros? Sure.
And then how do we ensure that we, you know, intake enough protein and all of that? And that's just the beginning. We have huge plans.
That's great that's great yeah well where can they go to sign up for that we arise dot xyz okay awesome i'm sure it's in your bio it's on my bio yeah i'm not wearing the clothing but i also have a clothing line calls and toe on okay um making women slightly a little bit more motivated by wearing some cute workout clothes to work out. That's great.
What can we do to be of best service to you moving forward with this community or people watching or listening right now? Spread the word. Spread the of strength strength spread the word that aesthetics will come as long as you put in the work to aim for health and and longevity yeah yeah and what's the best place to find you on social media what's your instagram for people to follow Sonata da Greca.
Sonata da Greca. Sonata da Greca.
Yeah see you see how much I love self-promoting you know in this whole conversation this is probably like the most kind of slightly uncomfortable I've felt because I don't like self-promoting but yeah without self-promoting I guess what is of service then you don't get people to take advantage of that that's true yeah that's true where do you think you'd be if you didn't start putting content online six years ago if i didn't if you did not i i i don't want to think of like the first jobs that I've done because it was not fun. But I would do something.
I would be in this space. I would be in this space somehow because I'm so passionate about it.
So if I didn't have a presence, such a large presence in social media, I would probably do it in a small fashion, even if it was, you know,

outside of the nine to five, which I was doing actually before my, my, I was teaching yoga

classes and I was training on the side while having my, my nine to five. Um, and then, you

know, I love that aspect so much, which is what led me to, to, to kind of start doing this and putting myself out there, putting my workouts out there. And one thing led to another.
And here we are today. Wow, that's amazing.
So you were doing it on the side. You had a full-time job.
I had a full-time job. But then I was teaching yoga classes.
You weren't teaching strength training. And a little bit of strength training as well, yeah.
It has advanced from that point, that starting point to where it is now. But I was doing that on the side and obviously doing my workouts.
And then I decided, let's just put it out there. Like whatever I'm doing every day, and you could see probably things have shifted from earlier on until now.
But just put it out there every day wow get up in the morning

do my workout film it as i'm doing a workout and and to see where it leads when did you when did you start to notice that like oh this is starting to take off like the content i'm posting daily like oh it's actually getting out there and it's resonating with women and yeah i mean pretty pretty fast it started to happen i mean it didn't shift from like i think i had like 2 000 followers in 2019 when i started if i'm one or two thousand when i first started and um it started to happen gradually and then exponentially really after that i think that first period of like getting to um a few thousand was probably like the hardest because it's it's like working out you know it's consistency and you don't see a ton of results but then you stay with it because you don't you know you you just can't tell the future you can't predict it from just that short period of time so like with anything else consistency consistency consistency yeah uh so now i've got a couple final questions for you but this is powerful thanks for sharing and being so open today i appreciate it of course um this is a question i ask everyone towards the end it's called the three truths so it's a hypothetical scenario and question imagine you get to live as long as you want to live and you get to accomplish every dream you have. But for whatever reason, you have to take all of your content with you when you die.
So we don't have access to the videos you posted, this interview, it's all gone. Anything you create from this moment moving forward, it's gone.
Your app, it's gone for whatever reason, hypothetical. But on the last day of your life, you get to leave behind three lessons to the world.
And this is all we would have to remember your content by. Call it three truths.
What would those be for you? I think the biggest thing for me is to do everything from a place of love. So whatever you're trying to achieve, achieve it and aim for it from a place of love aim to be the fullest version of yourself and not that of somebody else but the fullest version of yourself and the third would be to treat everybody in a way that I don't know if necessarily you want to be treated yourself, but in a way that I believe in the higher self, in the higher, the higher self would, would want you to treat, or God, if you will, will want you to treat the fellow man and woman with just compassion and love and understanding, stepping aside from judgments and what you have been taught to perceive.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's beautiful. Create from love, aim to be the fullest version of you and treat others with your kind of your highest self in mind that's great that's beautiful um i want to acknowledge you sonata for your transformation and your ability to be consistent and it sounds like it's very challenging leaving one country coming to this place and just having to deal with all the pressures of society, of school, of parents, and you needing to

be the parent as a teenager that's a lot of weight emotionally and physically so I want to acknowledge you for overcoming that challenge and overcoming the depression and the sadness and the anxiety and the stress that you faced and for starting to tap into the healthiest version of you and being consistent with that version of you. Letting go of your old comparison ways and stepping into how can I just be my happiest, fullest self.
So I acknowledge you for putting yourself out there also. You know, six years ago, deciding to say, hey, I'm going to put my content out there and start to serve people the best way I can and if it helps one person or millions of people i'm just going to do it consistently so i acknowledge you for for all of it and um i appreciate you for opening up so honestly during this conversation thank you so much i appreciate you saying that yeah of course appreciate you having me here today it was a very enjoyable conversation you.
It's beautiful. One final question, Sonata.
Sure. What's your definition of greatness? I think it's embodying, again, the true fullest version of yourself while being of service to others to the fullest capacity that you are able to.
It's beautiful. Sonata, thank you so much for being here.
I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.
Of course. Thank you so much for listening to this episode.
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