Meet Emma Ware | Health Coach, Personal Trainer, Nutrition Coach, & RYT-200 Yoga Instructor

We had the good fortune of connecting with Emma Ware and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Emma, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
I was born in LA to my father of Irish/Russian descent and my mother who is Japanese. Due to both my parents work our main base was Tokyo, Japan but we travelled all over the world and by the time I was 18, I had checked off over 40 countries off my list. Both my parents were always into health, working out, and were huge foodies so I always grew up trying new foods and because of my travels and exposer to so many different cultures, I developed a love for different cuisines.

So, with my world travels, love of food, and fitness, I went to college for a Hospitality Management degree. During my college courses, nutrition was a core class that every freshman had to take and that is what sparked my interest on the science of nutrition and after taking several classes, I knew that I wanted to help people better their lives by combining my love for cooking and the science of nutrition.

I was also a committed volleyball player and competed throughout East Asia and a dedicated dancer so fitness and staying active was always part of my life. I remember doing Jane Fonda workout videos with my mom and when we would travel, my mom and I would work out at every hotel that had a gym whikle my dad was in meetings and during the off season, doing intensive volleyball programs at UCLA through my summer breaks. When I arrived at college, I learned about kinesiology, which I had never heard of having spent the majority of my time outside of the U.S. and thought “Oh! There’s more to working out than jumping around in a leotard” and started to really focus on how my muscles work and what they need to work at their optimum level.

When I met my husband at 22, he was still playing professional football and also happened to be a Type 1 Diabetic. So being with a partner who’s entire career was reliant upon their physical fitness and skill, my interest in nutrition got put into hyperdrive. I never had to really think about how “xyz” food would impact the human body but because of his T1D, I now had to think about “how much carbs are in this?” and is he getting enough protein to sustain himself, and is fat had to be eaten in healthy portions because he can’t have as much carbs as others but also isn’t on a Keto diet and didn’t want to affect his cholesterol, etc. It was a lot of juggling and almost like putting together a puzzle to see what would work best for him. So while I was a solo mad scientist in the kitchen, he also helped me really deep dive into my love of lifting and working out.

Being a 90’s baby and having modeled since I was about 3 till the time I was 21, I definitely had some mindset issues around body image and “being skinny” so for a long time, even when I was playing volleyball, I was always a little hesitant to lift weights because I didn’t want to be “bulky”. And even with my growing knowledge of nutrition, there was always that little voice in my head telling me “eat less”. So when I became pregant with our first daughter, a part of me was terrified of “getting big” and it was a definite mental battle. But I realized that in order for me to support the growing life inside of me and nurture the baby the best I could, I needed to put my mental hangups on the back burner and fuel my body with good foods and stay active to support a healthy pregnancy. After we had our daughter, and at this point, eating healthy foods, healthy portions, and working out, for the last 9 months, the recovery process was surprisingly smooth and I felt SO MUCH better than I had before having a baby and that’s when the light truly went off in my head.

If you fuel body right, lift weights and stay active, you’re body can recovery much easier from major changes, even after something like pregnancy, which let’s be honest, is one of the most “flip your body upside down” moments in a womans life! And so with my parents love for health and food, my husbands need for proper nutrition and his support, guidance, and tough love in the gym, after having my daughter, I knew that I wanted to help women around the world find a balanced way to live a healthy life so that they can maximize their potential and feel amazing while doing it!

What should our readers know about your business?
I started training and coaching people back in 2016 and in 2018, launched my own company, EmmaWareFitness, an online health coaching company that caters to busy women who are trying to juggle all the different hats we ear. What’s unique about my company and my programs is that the focus is on each individual’s lifestyle and mindset. Eating healthy and exercising can look different for everyone and there’s no cookie cutter plan that works for everyone. Being forced to eat or do something that is way out of your comfort zone makes is too difficult to stick to any plan which leads to little progress and often times the person feeling worse mentally than they started off,

Balance is the key to life and that is a big part of my programs. Telling someone who loves chocolate that they can’t have any if they want to “achieve their goals” is ridiculous and unfair and will ultimately lead to the person giving in at some point and because they felt deprived of it for so long, when they do eat it, they go nuts. I am a firm believer that you can achieve your goals while eating the foods you love in moderation as long as the portions are correct. Food is fuel but it should also be enjoyed and so when creating a plan for a client, I take into consideration, not just my client’s goals, but their lifestyle, routines, likes and dislikes to ensure the program is as simple and easy to follow as possible.

I also put a big emphasis on mindset and behavior. It’s easy to know WHAT you should do but it can sometimes be much harder to actually put it in to practice. Ultimately, what our brains tell us, our bodies will do, so I make sure all my clients are in the right headspace to break bad habits and replace them with better ones, and I make sure that those new healthy habits actually stick long term. While reaching your immediate goals are always important, if the habits are not solidified, it’s easy to rebound and that’s what I work hard to prevent for my clients.

On the business side of things, I had a lot to learn. My passion is in food and fitness, not marketing or sales, so there was definitely a HUGE learning process when it came to actually getting clients and spreading the word about my business. I am totally guilty of buying into those sales ads on Instagram and had to learn a few hard lessons but with this new year and having just relaunched my business after a lot of upgrades, the one thing I have taken away from all the ups and downs of business is that if you’re passionate about what you do and your work reflects the care you have for your clients, no amount of setbacks can take away from the good you are doing in the world. Whether I have 10 clients or 100, if I can help better just one person’s life so they not only look amazing but feel amazing, with their confidence restored and their quality of life improved, I can go to sleep proud of what I’m doing.

Another challenge that I am still working on, and I think a lot of parents can agree, is how to juggle business and family life. I have 4 daughters, 2 with my husband and 2 bonus daughters and it is HARD to balance mom life and work life. Because I work from home and don’t go into an office, I don’t have a clear-cut separation with work and home life. I try my best to get all my work done for the day before the kids get back from school, but I’ll admit, it doesn’t usually work out that way. I’ll be cooking dinner with my laptop on the counter, yelling at the girls to put the playdough away and to stop doing handstands on the couch, and in this juggle act, I am constantly stressed about if I’m spending enough time with my kids, if they know I love them even when I’m stressed with work and trying to balance everyone’s schedule with school and sports.

BUT! I have learned that as long as you love on your kids, even when they’re in trouble, telling them you love them no matter what, trying to understand them instead of control them, at the end of the day, when all is said and done, they know that everything you’re doing, you do for them. So, this year, my goal is to be more intentional with my time with my family. Even if it’s just 5 minutes, playing school with my 5 yearold (who can’t wait to start kindergarten), teaching my 7 year old how to braid hair, or putting my phone away after putting the kids to bed so that I can watch an episode of Archer with my husband, it’s not about how long you spend together, but how you spend the time you do have together.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
At the risk of sounding totally cliche, my parents would have to be the first “Thank You” on my list because they were the ones who made food fun. My mom always dancing to her Marc Anthony CD in the kitchen while whipping up some magical dish and my dad, the pit master grilling and smoking out something delicious on the barbecue. They also had a rule that I wasn’t allowed to order the same thing off the menu twice which forced me to always try new things. I’ll be honest, I didn’t always love that rule but looking back, I’m so grateful they did that!

My mom was also the one who was so consistent with her fitness, always doing her aerobics videos in the living room, going to the sauna for detox and recovery, and so much mofe. Being an actress and model herself, her physical appearance was a major part of her job and I remember all my friends and their moms telling me “omg your mom is so beautiful, how does she do it?” and her dedication to taking care of her body through nutrition and fitness showed me that consistency is the ultimate secret ingredient to success in anything we do, be it health, business, or personal life. You can’t reap the rewards if the work isn’t put in!

The second person would be my husband who because of his T1D and his job, forced me to take my passion for nutrition and put it to practice and who saw my potential before I even realized I had any. His constant support and words of affirmation helped me work past my own mental hang ups and showed me that beauty comes for healing our bodies so that we can feel amazing. No amount of makeup or high heels can hide a struggling body and without him, I think it would’ve been taken 10x longer for me to get to where I am today.

Lastly, the book “Burn” by Herman Pontzer has had a huge impact on how I look at and understand nutrition and it has changed everything from the way I coach my clients to how I feed my kids! On the cover, there’s a quote from a review by New York Times bestselling authors which says, “If you eat food, Burn is the most important book you’ll ever read” and that could not be truer! I highly recommend anyone, and everyone read this book!

Website: www.emmawarefitness.com

Instagram: emmawarefitness

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/emmawarefitness

Other: tiktok- emmawarefitness

Image Credits
Madeline Njos- @MadelineMichelleStudios Jennica E. Maes – @Amaes_Photography