EDITOR’S NOTE: The Year of You begins anew with two participants, Jeanette Balmut and Joshua Messersmith. Each will train with a local gym with dueling styles and philosophies over the next 12 months, and their journeys will play out on the pages of the Manteca Bulletin each week. A story on Messermith will appear in Wednesday’s Bulletin.

Move past the laughter and jokes and the self-effacing demeanor and you’ll find Jeanette Balmut’s center.

There, at her tender core, Balmut keeps some of her darkest secrets and deepest desires. 

For instance, the always-on-the-go mother of three longs to wear a provocative evening dress; twist, twirl and maybe turn a few heads. 

She wants to celebrate her 25th wedding anniversary with her everyday man crush, husband Mike Balmut, and finally take that picture she’s ducked and dodged for so long.

More than anything, though, Balmut wants to stop breathing so heavily when she’s doing something taxing ... like watching TV. 

And she’d like to tie her own shoes. Seriously.

“I literally cannot tie my own shoes,” Balmut said during a candid interview with the Manteca Bulletin. “I’m 46 and there are some hot 46 year olds. I do not feel like that. I feel old and I don’t want to feel old at this age.”

Then consider this the newest chapter in her life story, “How Jeanette got her groove back.” 

Balmut will get a chance to recapture that glow. She’s been selected for the Bulletin’s second season of the Year of You. She will pair with CalFit master trainer Antonio Hernandez for a year-long transformational journey.

This season, the Year of You will pit two local trainers against one another. Hernandez will match his philosophy and style against CORE Athletic Performance’s Robert Iniguez, who will train Joshua Messersmith, a 23-year-old fast-approaching his wedding day.

Balmut is nervous about competing against someone half her age – “I think I’m going to throw up,” she says often – but understands opportunities like this are few and far between.

For the next 12 months, she will endure a training regiment designed by Hernandez, certified by the National Academy of Sports Medicine and fortified in his ways by awards and other acknowledgements.

Their focus will be on functional fitness, with an emphasis on building lean muscle tissue and keeping Balmut in the fat-burning zone.

Hernandez will begin Balmut, a former softball player and Homecoming Queen, with three to four days of light cardio and three days of weight training. Each session will last an hour.

The trick, Hernandez said, is keeping Balmut’s heart rate at 135 beats per minute – the fat-burning zone.

“It’s going to be a hate-love relationship,” he said. “Trust me, that’s how it’s going to be.”

Hernandez doesn’t want Balmut’s focus to be solely on the scale. He has warned her that the numbers may fluctuate and may not always align with her work in the gym and kitchen.

She begins the journey at 260 pounds with a body fat percentage of 47.

“We’re going to lose the weight the way we want to,” Hernandez said, “but also add muscle. So you might lose 50 pounds, but gain 25 pounds in muscle. That’s the only way we’re going to succeed in life. We want to make a lifetime change. I want to help you make that lifetime change. I don’t want this to a competition for a year and then six months down the road forget it.”

Hernandez knows of which he speaks. 

The Lathrop native won a similar competition six years ago while working for Gold’s Gym in Modesto. He’s not only studied the body and its relation to exercise and food, but also the mind. 

For now, Balmut is a willing victim. She welcomes the cardio and iron, the prepared meals and the pressure to follow through.

For years, she’s been trapped in a body she says hasn’t felt like her own. She’s owned a membership to CalFit for a decade but only stepped inside the gym to pay her bill.

Her husband and children, two of which attend major colleges in Southern California, are fit and active. 

Now it’s her turn.

“I’m planning on working out,” she said, pausing for dramatic effect. “A lot.”

Letting go won’t be easy, though.

Balmut is a foodie, through and through. She enjoys the taste, the social appeal and the service.

“I love food and everything about it. I want to go out. I want to hang with people,” she said. “All the activities that are fun to me revolve round food, so I have to redirect that.”

Balmut arrives with built-in goals. Along with celebrating her 25th wedding anniversary, Balmut’s niece is planning to get married later this year. “I don’t want to be the fat auntie,” she said. 

Balmut also hopes to take part in a Lupus run with her oldest daughter, Myklyn, and she has her 30th high school reunion on the horizon.

If those weren’t enough to keep her motivated, there’s always this:

“I don’t know which daughter it was, but she was like ‘Oh god, mom, you’re breathing too loud,’” Balmut said with red cheeks, the brutal honesty cutting a sharp line through the laughter in the room. 

“How embarrassing. I’m watching TV and I’m breathing too loud?”