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Phatty Nattie’s moves to LRHC cancer center [UPDATED]
Published 2:06pm Monday, October 8, 2012 Updated 4:07pm Monday, October 8, 2012By Ryan Howard
Daily Journal
It’s been a week since Phatty Nattie’s opened in its new location, and staff and customers couldn’t be more excited.
“(Exercise) needs to be an easy choice and an accessible option,” said Natalie Knutson, the business’ owner and one of its instructors. “The more accommodating we can be, the easier it can be to make the choice.”
Phatty Nattie’s is now partnering with Lake Region Healthcare, and its new location is in the bottom floor of the Cancer Care and Research Center.
Knutson began thinking about moving her fitness club from its original Court Street location about a year ago. While the original location was a good place to start, she said, classes were getting too big, and her ambitions had outgrown the space.
“The space we were in became insufficient for what we wanted to do,” she said.
During her search, she was contacted by Lake Region Healthcare, which was looking for a fitness opportunity for the community and its employees onsite. The partnership was formed, and Phatty Nattie’s began planning for the move.
Knutson said LRHC is really focusing on fitness as part of an effort to make Fergus Falls a healthier city.
“I feel like that is also one of our goals,” she said.
People who work out at Phatty Nattie’s certainly have a number of options to get fit. The club offers classes as diverse as yoga, resistance training, a spinning class (the only one in the area certified by Mad Dogg Athletics), a cardio sculpting “boot camp,” and “Drums Alive,” a cardio workout involving stability balls and drum sticks.
Knutson added that exercisers have many options to modify their workouts to work for them at their own pace. The classes are also offered at various times throughout the day.
“We offer a lot of classes and a lot of variety,” she said.
The space allows bigger class sizes than before, although instructors will still bring a personal touch to everyone in the class, Knutson noted. The new location also has showers, and the wood floor has a shock absorber system built in to make the surface easier on people’s bodies.
In the future, Phatty Nattie’s hopes to add a Zumba class and more class options. Above all, said Knutson, the instructors are still committed to helping people get healthy at their own pace and in sync with their own lifestyles.
“Even though we’re partnered, things haven’t changed,” she said.
Find out more about Phatty Nattie’s at www.phattynatties.com.
About the name: Knutson said that some people wonder about the “Phatty” part of the business name, so she created an acronym to go with the word – Positive, StrengtH, CourAge True Friends, DeTermination, Believe in Yourself.
