How to build booty: Exercise all three gluteal muscles—maximus, medius, minimus—and work abs to shrink the waist. Concentrate on proportion, not measurements. “The width of hips is dictated by width of the pelvis, specifically the ilium,” says Christine Hronec. “It determines the aesthetic of the body, and there’s nothing to do about that. Skeletal anatomy can’t be changed.”
But muscle and fat can be changed. Hronec explains how to do that in “Booty 101” and other videos that made her a YouTube sensation. While some exercise pros concentrate on squats and dead lifts, Hronec begins with anatomical tutorials. She wants to teach people how their bodies work—and she has the scientific cred to do it.
Hronec may not look like a geek, but she holds a master’s in chemical and biological engineering. By age 26, she was earning six figures as an engineer at DuPont, then as senior vice president of a biotech manufacturing firm. But Hronec’s career success had little to do with her own struggle to lose weight. “When it came to my body, I couldn’t make it happen, and it started to piss me off,” she says in one of her videos. “I’m smart. How come I can’t figure this out?”
She eventually did, and it all came down to nutrition, specifically macronutrients. “You can eat 1,500 calories per day and not lose weight if those calories aren’t packed with the right proteins and carbs,” she says.
This “you are what you eat” approach isn’t new, but it can be difficult to execute. How much of what food do you need to get the desired results? To answer that, Hronec scientifically indexed a wide array of foods, then created customized meal plans and supplements. But it isn’t about shakes, cleanses or false promises. “There are no quick fixes,” Hronec says. “Most of my clients have already tried everything from Atkins to Paleo and the cabbage-soup diet. They come to me frustrated and confused, starving or binging. What works is when people use science to guide their choices and build programs that suit their goals.”
That philosophy powers Gauge Girl Training and Muscle Gauge Nutrition, Hronec’s West Chester-based companies. Gauge Girl provides customized meal plans, training and coaching. Muscle Gauge is a supplement-manufacturing company that Hronec founded in 2009, and it now brings in more than $3 million per year. Meanwhile, Gauge Girl has grown 3,000 percent in the past four years.
Hronec’s first book, The Macros Approach (Victory Belt Publishing, 400 pages), will be released this summer. Soon after, she will unveil her new app, which she says is a game changer. “It will destroy everything else on the market,” Hronec says. “It’s very user friendly and will allow people to customize according to their food intolerances.”
While she’s on her way to becoming the queen of all media, Hronec still posts free YouTube videos. She weaves education into them, hoping to empower and inspire people. And there’s a big demand for Hronec’s information. Take her “Female Fat Loss by Body Type” video, which got over 1 million views. While it’s not breaking news that Janet Jackson and Kim Kardashian West look very different than Gwyneth Paltrow, Hronec deftly explains how their body types—mesomorph, endomorph and ectomorph, respectively—respond uniquely to exercise and food.
For example, mesomorphs should create balanced diets of 40-percent protein and 40-percent carbs, and they should weight-train hard and heavy. Endomorphs should eat much less protein and do high-intensity cardio to kick-start their slow metabolisms. They should focus on lightweight, high rep workouts instead of using heavy weights, which can cause them to gain bulky muscle. Ectomorphs should eat five or six times a day, have carbs with every meal, and rest two to three minutes between lifting sets. “It’s about different genetics and other preset factors that lead to different metabolics,” Hronec says.
Men also use Hronec’s services, but they have their own outlook on fitness. “Men are cut and dry,” she says. “You tell them how to do it, and they do it. They are usually more successful because they aren’t emotionally tied to food the way women are. A lot of women have long, complicated relationships with food. I get it. I understand it’s a personal, often frustrating thing.”
Those are the people whom Hronec wants to help most. They’ve found out the hard way that there is no easy path to fitness. “There are a lot of gurus out there who dieted for a few weeks, then became coaches,” she says. “What’s missing is the scientific credibility and knowledge to be able to explain things to people so they can have lifelong, satisfying relationships with food and their bodies.”
Easier said than done, Hronec admits. But if she can build a great booty, anyone can.
