Motivation to change her life

Paraparaumu's Jemini Gray is building on her own life experience to help others as a personal trainer, life coach and mentor. Photo / Cloe Willetts

Eleven years ago and weighing 120kg after the birth of her first child, Paraparaumu's Jemini Gray sat and imagined herself dancing on stage in front of hundreds of people, the pull of adrenaline drawing in the crowd.

Six years later and having undertaken a dramatic life overhaul, she did just that, stepping out onto the field at 2011's Wellington Sevens as lead dance coach.

Now back to her pre baby weight, the mother of two and qualified personal trainer is using her unique life experience to help others looking for change in her role as trainer, life coach and mentor.

"The weight loss started happening for me when I found self-acceptance," said Jemini, 33, who recently launched the new business JZ Nutrition and Training with her fiance Zias Deberr, a nutritionist and personal trainer.

"I was insecure and did a bit of life coaching on myself."

According to Jemini, who was 80kg before the birth of her eldest son Regan, now 15, she started her transformation while undergoing rehabilitation for a knee injury at the gym.

"Throughout my training sessions I'd be thinking about my past life and all the things that'd happened, and I kind of only remembered the negative stuff. I knew that to get ahead, I needed to deal with the mental and emotional aspects of my life, as well as the physical training, because it all links in."

One of the major things that stood out from her past was sexual abuse growing up, which she had bottled up over the years.

"Somehow I took ownership and responsibility that I couldn't change what had happened to me in the past.

"What I could change though was where I was at and where I wanted to be.

"So I rang the man who did it and told him what it had done to me, and from that moment, it stopped holding me back mentally and emotionally.

"Forgiveness was a huge part in letting it go."

From there, progress unravelled for Jemini, who went on to qualify as a personal trainer through Kapiti's City Fitness, where she worked for six years before shifting to Paraparaumu's Snap Fitness three years ago, which she now manages.

"I started thinking about what it was in life I wanted and how I was going to get there.

"I wrote everything down on paper as a timeline of five years and achieved everything on that timeline."

Jemini Gray, front centre, performing as lead dance coach at the 2011 Wellington Sevens. Photo / Cloe Willetts

As well as becoming a qualified Zumba fitness instructor, she achieved another goal of performing fitness segments on New Zealand television.

"When I was pregnant at 25, I was sitting on the couch eating wedges and watching the Good Morning show, and there was a lady teaching boxing.

"I thought if she can do that, I can too."

In the same year as her Wellington Sevens stint, Jemini was accepted for an audition as a kick instructor for the Good Morning show.

She was selected and completed segments every couple of months for two years.

Now, with her latest goal completed and launched in Kapiti and Johnsonville, she is running individual and small group training programmes from Snap's Kapiti Rd premise.

"Like many people, Zias and I had talked about starting the business for a while, but had the fear of actioning it.

"As it is though, through action comes success."

Jemini, whose life experience had shaped her methods as a personal trainer, described her profession as "a lot about coaching people and educating".

"The way I train other people is the way I way train myself.

"I don't see it as a job because I'm so passionate about it."