“How do you want to be when you’re 80?” asks fitness guru Stacy Jago

By Berry Kendall

Sun contributor

The verdant rolling terrain and sparkling blue waters of Leelanau County beckon full-time and seasonal residents alike to lace up their running shoes and hiking boots, clip into their road bikes, dust off their clubs and racquets, and hoist their kayaks in search of exercise and recreation. So why, with all the resplendent natural beauty and enviable outdoor temperatures of this area, would anyone dedicate three hours a week indoors in a gym?

The answer comes as a question posed by fitness expert and personal trainer, Stacy Jago, owner of Sleeping Bear Bay Club in Maple City. “Well…how do you want to be when you’re 80? How about 90?” An avid outdoors woman herself, Jago elaborates, “So we can hike and bike here, we get outside and that’s great. But if you don’t have the strength and mobility, which are two different things, you may not be able to continue those pastimes as long as you’d like.”

Hailing from the tiny town of Newberry in the Upper Peninsula, Jago moved to Traverse City in 2009 via Los Angeles where she’d spent a decade building a successful personal training business. She established a gym in Glen Arbor, later relocating to an expansive space abutting Broomstacks in Maple City. For 15 years, Jago has encouraged Leelanau County residents to commit to their present and future health, fostering the longevity, mobility and strength of countless men and women engaged in a quest to age gracefully on their own terms.

She stresses the importance of shifting one’s focus from angst about aging to embracing long-term health and its possibilities. “We need to look past that and think about longevity. Ask yourself, ‘How long am I going to be able to do everything I love? And how can I make it easier as I go?’ That’s what my focus is, whether teaching classes or in private training.” To this point, in her full body circuit classes she’s added a balance and mobility station sandwiched between the cardio and weight training ones.

Dawn Budzinski of Maple City is a year-round client who’s been transformed by the hours she’s logged in Jago’s circuit classes. She recounts, “I was really nervous when I entered Sleeping Bear Bay Club three years ago. I was more than 50 pounds overweight and wore baggy pants to class. Not workout pants, regular pants. I felt really awkward but everyone in the class was so nice and encouraging. Finally, I got to the day when my new gym friends told me it was time to ditch the baggy pants. With great tribulation, I bought some actual fitted gym pants. Athleisure wear? Anyway, I’m down 55 pounds and have kept it off for several years by attending Stacy’s class three times a week. She has really kept me focused on my health!”

Jago gained another patron when he realized he had a deficit. She says, “I have a client who read an article in The New York Times Magazine about the benefit of standing on one foot for 10 seconds. He knew he couldn’t do that so he called me. Even though I was able to get him to stand on one foot for 10 seconds that first day, he and his wife have been my clients twice a week for over a year. Once we connected the dots, they stayed on because they saw what they were lacking.”

Having been a personal trainer for 24 years, she’s seen the pitfalls of an industry that can compel its followers to hyper focus on vanity. “When I was in Los Angeles, the vanity side of fitness versus the functionality and longevity side was frustrating. As a trainer in southern California, the outlooks of the women who were 40+ made me afraid to get old.” That, along with three family funerals in a row, compelled Jago to return to her roots. “So, I moved to Traverse City. I didn’t even know Glen Arbor existed. And I have to tell you, picking this area was the greatest choice because my fear of aging immediately diminished when I found Glen Arbor.” Asked to elaborate, she explains, “I have 70-year-olds going on 50-mile bike rides and doing circuit training with 30-year-olds. Just amazing attitudes and such strong mental energy. They aren’t fearing aging; they are taking it head on.”

When asked to name one of her most inspiring success stories, Jago doesn’t hesitate. “Peter Van Nort. Hands down.” A resident of Glen Arbor, Van Nort was multi-sport high school and collegiate athlete excelling in football, basketball and track. He played football at the Naval Academy earning a total of nine athletic letters there, more than any other man in his class. Gracious and self-effacing that he is, his wife Karen shares that Peter even played football in the Cotton Bowl. Jago says, “I recently got Peter back as a client. He’s one of the toughest—mentally toughest—humans I’ve ever met. He just turned 87 but started training with me around 2015. He’s amazing. He’d be lifting weights and I’d have a 40-year-old male client come in right after him and say, ‘Oh man, I’d better pick it up a little!’.”

She continues, “So Peter had a hip replacement because he fell. His legs aren’t working like they used to so that’ll be my next success story. I want to get him walking again without his walker. At that age, it’s hard. It’s going to take every ounce of will he has. But he has a ton of will and he is one of the strongest people mentally, so strong mentally. And he’s not afraid of hard work.”

While clearly not someone comfortable talking about his own accomplishments, Van Nort says, “I considered myself to be an athlete all of my life so I’ve always worked on being fit. Stacy has focused me and given me a structure to work within and I have been very dedicated until last summer when I injured my hip. She was working with me two or three times a week and I trained alone another time every week, doing my own workout. Now, as the PT is tapering down, I’m bringing my time with Stacy back up to two times a week. I have a goal which is to get back to where I was a year ago. I’d like to get back to pickleball, bicycle riding and golf.” Van Nort’s wife Karen adds, “Peter’s worked with Stacy for a long time and has so much respect for her. It’s been a long road, but now that he’s with Stacy again we know Peter will start improving rapidly.”

Jago says the rewards of the job come from clients enthusiastically touting their progress. “One of the best compliments I ever had was when I was training an older woman. She came into the gym one day so excited. “Stacy, I’ve got to tell you something! I carried a bag of groceries in each arm up the stairs and I’ve never been able to do that before!” In that moment, Jago realized, “That’s it. That’s it right there.” She stresses the confidence that comes from being able to function in one’s daily life with competence, knowing you don’t always have to ask for help or can engage in activities without being thwarted by limitations. She asks, “Grandparents, can you play with your grandchildren? Can you actually get down on the floor and more importantly, can you get back up? Can you push them on a swing, help them balance on the monkey bars? Because that’s important to them and it’s going to make you feel youthful.”

A three-sport collegiate athlete herself, Jago played basketball, softball and ran cross country at Alpena Community College in the U.P. and at the University of South Carolina where she was offered an athletic scholarship. Eventually feeling the pull of the Midwest, she returned to the U.P. and graduated from Lake Superior State with a degree in Accounting. On a whim, she hitched a ride with a friend who was embarking on a road trip to southern California. She details, “It was there that I realized fitness wasn’t just for athletes. There were no gyms in the U.P. when I was growing up. People walked everywhere and if you were an athlete you did your sport. Sometimes girls were allowed in the weight room but it was mostly for boys. In the U.P. I had this tiny little bench rack at home. And I worked out via fitness magazines, studying what the women lifters were doing. I was a home workout person because that’s what I had and I loved it. But when I got out to California, I was like, ‘Wait a second! This is a career? People actually do this for a living?’.”

Hired by an accounting firm in Los Angeles, Jago combatted her workday boredom by taking breaks to do pushups, squats and tricep dips in her cubicle. She remembers, “Some of the older women I worked with would drop by and say, “Stacy, get out of here! Go do what you love!” Initially afraid to leave a sure thing in a secure field, Jago took the leap to the fitness industry earning multiple certifications in kinesiology, personal training, TRX, spinning, yoga and pilates. Decades later, she credited her accounting background for helping her business survive the pandemic while many of her former colleagues were forced to shutter their gyms. “I’m constantly crunching numbers in my head so that education really saves me money.”

Jago attributes her strong work ethic to her parents. Victoria and Kenneth Jago divorced when she was five and her mother worked more than one job at a time to support her three young kids. At the tender age of six, Stacy’s chores included laundry and dishes and when she was 11, they expanded to full child care of her younger siblings on nights Victoria had to work. “There was a lot on me,” she admits. “My mom and me had a system in our entryway where I left my tackle box. I loved to fish when I was a kid; going to the river was my safe haven. When I got home, I had to look inside my tackle box and if there was a note it meant my mom had to work late. The note would tell me what to cook for dinner or what to do with the children.”

Tragically, Victoria was killed in a car accident at 31 when Stacy was 13. “After my mom passed, we got reacquainted with my dad and I saw his work ethic too. Both of my parents were hard workers and as a result, three of us kids are business owners and the fourth is a Physician’s Assistant. So, it’s always been work. When I was a kid, my life didn’t start until after I finished my chores.”

Jago is imparting those same values to her own young children: Devyn, 8, Grayson, 5 and Rosie, 4, whom she shares with her wife Liz Tondreau who is their biological grandmother. Jago explains, “I raised Rosie from four days old to age two, Grayson from nine months old to three, and Devyn from age three to a little over five. The birth parents went to court and regained shared custody with Tondreau and Jago, then absconded with the children to Oregon in the middle of the night despite an open CPS investigation. Jago says, “We were bonded and they never wanted to leave. So, to have that happen to all of us was quite traumatic.”

Most of her clients in Leelanau County are aware of the tireless legal battle she waged for more than two years to regain full custody of the children. Jago employed in amplified intensity the same qualities of tenacity, loyalty and perseverance with which she treats her clients to rescue her children from a neglectful and abusive environment. One client remarked, “Stacy never gave up, even when other people did, even when it seemed she exhausted almost every legal avenue and had reached the end of the road.” A break in the case occurred and a Leelanau County judge gave Jago and Liz permanent guardianship on August 7, 2023. Ecstatic yet cautious, the couple began rebuilding their children’s sense of security, safety while gently reigniting their sense of joy and adventure.

Asked what got her through the agonizing time when her kids were in Oregon, Jago muses, “Well, it was working out, taking walks on the beach, long rides in my Jeep. I actually traded in the minivan. I didn’t have kids in the van anymore singing, laughing, crying; that happy chaos was gone so I couldn’t drive that van any longer so I went and got my favorite vehicle, which is a Jeep. There are a lot of great trails out here so that and going to see my family in the U.P., the nature of the area did help. And the community here has always been very supportive. From the moment we got the kids the first time around the community asked, ‘What do you need?’ I love this area. It’s been a blessing, really. And the kids are thriving and they’re so happy. We’re still dealing with some trauma issues of course, but for the most part, they’re understanding they’re safe.”

In discussing the remaining goals she has in both her personal and professional life, Jago emphasizes, “I definitely never want to leave the area. Raising three kids as a small business owner, I do get concerned about how expensive the county is. But Glen Lake School is great. I do not want to leave the school. They’ve embraced the children, they understand the story of the children and the needs they have. The school has been wonderful.”  She pauses to reflect a moment. “I want to do what I do for as long as I can. I have a gentleman client who started training with me when he was 95. He’s still training with me at 97! It truly is a mindset. So, in talking about longevity, the finger is pointing right back at me. I’m just trying to keep myself as healthy as I can.”