Nicole Rafaill : Making Healthy Changes with the Fitness Protection Program

Story by Sara Teller
Photos by Ed Abeska

Nicole Rafaill, a Detroit native, opened State of the Art Framing & Gallery (located at 918 W. Nine Mile Rd.) with her partner in 2005. “We love the Ferndale community, and have volunteered for both the Ferndale Chamber of Commerce and the DDA’s Board of Directors,” she says. Nicole, while “happy that I can share my passions with such a great community of people” didn’t exactly plan to become a personal trainer. “I started [to exercise] a few years ago when I was 35-years-old. I was working hard at my retail business and putting my health aside. I went to a party where someone took a picture of me, and brought it to me a few days later. I realized I needed to change.” She was 220 lbs.

At that point, Nicole began running, and dropped down to 195 lbs. “Then I started working with a personal trainer. We lifted weights, heavy weights. And my body responded. Not only did I lose  another 40 lbs, but, with good nutrition and consistent training, I gained lean muscle.”

After reaching her goal, “I was so excited about the changes I was seeing, and I was talking about weight training to everyone. I was so passionate about it that I decided to go back to school and become a personal trainer,” Nicole explains. She enrolled in the National Personal Training Institute (NPTI) in Rochester, MI, where she studied to receive her personal training certification. “NPTI is the only ‘hands-on’ school for personal training. It is an intense program, five hours a day, four days a week, for six months. But the information and the experience you get by actually training other students is invaluable.”

While in school, “Friends and customers were coming into State of the Art, seeing that I had made a physical transformation, and wanted to know what I was doing. When I told them I was weight-lifting and studying to become a personal trainer, they asked me to start training them before I had even finished.” And so, Fitness Protection Program was born. “I wanted to share what I had accomplished, and help others get to their goals.”

“I use a private gym facility – 359 Fit – located at 359 Livernois Rd., Ferndale, by appointment,” Nicole says. “I find people really like the private atmosphere, and don’t feel like they are on display while working out.” Fitness Protection Program serves “anyone who is interested in becoming healthy and creating change,” and Nicole believes it’s never too late to start training. “Anyone can start at any age, any fitness level. As I like to say, we all have to start somewhere.” She says, “It is especially important for people to know that as you get older you need to do weight-bearing exercise to maintain not only your muscles but increase your bone density and strength, so you can keep doing the things you love.”

At Fitness Protection Program, Nicole’s goal is “to take each person through a weight-training program that is a combination of old school tried-and-true weight-lifting techniques mixed with stability training for your core strength and abs. Sessions are an hour long, private and personalized.” She loves watching firsthand the positive changes. “The best part of training people is seeing the change. I don’t mean physically — though that’s what most people are excited about — I mean the change that people go through when they start to believe they can do this. They are strong, and they feel more confident in and out of the gym.”

More information is available on Fitness Protection Program’s Facebook page or (248) 890-9447.