Jenna Wolfe is a TODAY anchor and reporter, of course -- but she's also a personal trainer and a total fitness fanatic.

Have your healthiest summer yet! Ease into the dreaded "swimsuit season" with healthy tips from TODAY experts. All throughout May, we'll offer smart do-it-yourself ways to look, eat and feel better. So stop stressing about that swimsuit, and read on.

Q: What is the best way to lose belly fat? I eat a high protein diet with fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds as my only carbs, and I've lost a lot of weight doing that, but I also need to add exercise to my daily regimen too. I walk, but that doesn't seem to be doing much. Thanks, Jenna! – Laura Crozier 

A: Hi Laura: Good news, you've done the hard part already and that's the diet. Once you've locked in a healthy, protein-packed, low-carb diet, all you have to worry about is maintaining that with a calorie-blasting workout.

I'd recommend starting a strength training program to go along with your walking. Weight lifting should always be included in a weight loss plan. It will help spike your metabolic rate for hours after you're done. In fact, some studies suggest you actually can burn more calories lifting weights for 30 minutes than hopping on a cardio machine (treadmill, elliptical, stationary bike) for the same amount of time. Try it!

More by Jenna Wolfe:

• What's on my workout playlist
• In a fitness funk? How to make a comeback
• Girls should be encourage to pursue athletics

More from TODAY Health's Summer Shape Up series:

• Common diet busters -- and how to avoid them
• Don't get burned! Know these 3 sunscreen myths
• To speed weight loss, try this yummy protein breakfast

Sure, you’ve seen TODAY’s Jenna Wolfe breaking news stories with Lester Holt on the weekends from Studio 1A, but did you know that she’s also a personal trainer? Passionate about fitness despite her hectic schedule, she often does what's called a "pyramid workout" when she travels for work in order to keep in shape while she is on the road.

The Pyramid Workout does not use any equipment or weights, meaning that she (or you!) can do it at home, in a hotel room, or anywhere else.  You just have to be able to count!  It is a series of ten moves done for a certain number of reps. The first move (jumping jacks) is a hundred reps, then for each subsequent move the reps are decreased by 10, until the final one (kick-drops), is executed for only 10 reps. 

Jenna says that doing this once is the perfect warm-up before you go for a run or, done four times, can be a complete full-body workout for the day.

Her fellow TODAY journalist, Natalie Morales, was up for the challenge of learning Jenna’s workout routine. (Natalie herself is no newbie to workouts -- she’s a marathon runner!) The two go through each of the movements in an easy-to-follow way so that you, too, can learn the workout! 

See the video, above, to hop in the gym with these two sporty TODAY anchors.

Jenna Wolfe's pyramid workout:

1. Jumping jacks, 100 reps

2. Butt kickers, 90 reps

3. High knees, 80 reps

4. Kicks, 70 reps

5. Mountain climber, 60 reps

6. Toy soldiers, 50 reps

7. Should side to side, 40 reps

8. Inner heels, 30 reps

9. Basketball jump shots, 20 reps

10. Kick drops, 10 reps

Read more from our Summer Shape Up series:

• Find out what's on Jenna Wolfe's workout playlist
• Need a little 'fitspiration'? Try these tips from TODAY readers
• To speed weight loss, try this yummy protein breakfast

Courtesy of Jenna Wolfe

On top of her gig as a TODAY anchor and reporter, Jenna Wolfe is also a personal trainer -- not to mention, a regular TODAY Health blogger!

Have your healthiest summer yet! Ease into the dreaded "swimsuit season" with healthy tips from TODAY experts. All throughout May, we'll offer smart do-it-yourself ways to look, eat and feel better. So stop stressing about that swimsuit, and read on.

My favorite workout partner is not my best friend, or my yoga instructor or my spin teacher. My favorite workout partner is music.

Music meets me at the gym everyday (and is never late).  Music gives me energy when I'm lagging. Music motivates me, inspires me, pushes me and stimulates me. A customized, unpredictable workout mix, with a good balance of high energy music, along with steady, sometimes slower-paced rhythms can turn a sluggish 30-minute routine into a 60-minute experience. In fact, a growing body of research lends scientific credence to music's motivational powers. 

I have 12 different workout mixes that I change every month to keep everything fresh. I use certain mixes for strength training, others for cardio, and others still for yoga and meditative exercises. Whatever music you respond to, just make sure it's customized before you get to the gym so as to avoid constantly switching songs and distracting you from your workout.

My favorite workout songs change all the time. This week's picks will undoubtedly be different than next week's, but I'll share mine with you if you share yours with me. 

1) "Wild Ones" by Flo Rida, featuring Sia

2) "Ageless Beauty" by Stars

3) "Tonight is the Night," by Outasight

What are your current favorite workout tunes? Join the conversation and get inspired by other TODAY Health fans on Facebook. 

More stories by Jenna Wolfe: 

• Encourage girls to pursue athletics
• Are you man (or woman) enough for a strongman workout?
• When personal training doubles as therapy

More from TODAY Health's Summer Shape Up series:

• To speed weight loss, try this yummy protein breakfast
• 4 summer skin tips you should know
• Need a little 'fitspiration'? Try these tips from TODAY readers

Corbis stock

Have your healthiest summer yet! Ease into the dreaded "swimsuit season" with healthy tips from TODAY experts. All throughout May, we'll offer smart do-it-yourself ways to look, eat and feel better. So stop stressing about that swimsuit, and read on.

TODAY anchor Jenna Wolfe isn't just a fitness buff who loves to work out (and has the muscles to show for it). She's also a personal trainer in her spare time. And now, she's your trainer — on Facebook, at least. Got a fitness query? Head over to our Facebook page and ask away.

Q: How can you work your shoulders without bulking up? — Connie Mell

A: This is the most common question I get regarding weight lifting. Women are worried about building big, bulky muscles and they shy away from the weights as a result.

The truth is quite the opposite. Lifting weights will both burn calories and speed up your metabolism. Women would have to lift extremely heavy weights to bulk up. What you want to do is lift heavy enough weights to max out at 10-12 repetitions. If your weights are too light, you won't see enough of a difference. The goal is to tone your body, not inflate it.

And always keep in mind that muscle weighs more than fat, so don't completely rely on the scale as you start to tone up that body. -- Jenna Wolfe

More from TODAY Health's Summer Shape Up:

• 4 summer skin tips you should know
• Need a little 'fitspiration'? Try these tips from TODAY.com readers
• Madelyn Fernstrom: Watch for hidden calories with every sip

More by Jenna Wolfe:

• In a fitness funk? How to make a comeback
• Girls should be encouraged to pursue athletics
• Are you man (or woman) enough for a strongman workout?

Courtesy of Jenna Wolfe

Jenna Wolfe grins at the camera as she races in a 2011 Girls on the Run 5K, an event that pairs adult "running buddies" with preteen girls who've spent weeks training to run the 3.1 miles. (Jenna's buddy isn't in this picture -- she's just ahead, crossing the finish line!)

There's a good chance I came up with the concept of Girls on the Run, a non-profit that helps preteens train for a 5K, when I was in fourth grade. I was a wide-eyed, incredibly energetic tomboy whose favorite "subject" in school was Phys Ed. (Don’t laugh.) I truly spent the majority of my brain cells trying to get my girlfriends to run around with me outside. Instead, I played with the boys by morning, skinned up my knees by day, and by night, listened to my mom ask me where her daughter was. 

I didn't really fit in. 

By my preteen years, I was still athletic, but at my school, it was uncool to run around, uncool to break a sweat, uncool to be athletic. I was laughed at by the other girls, stared at weirdly by the boys, and once again -- I felt different from everyone else. I didn't know where I belonged.

I never quite fit in as an athletic young girl growing up, but I’ve always been that way. I played sports in high school, as well as in college. I was a sportscaster on TV for 12 years before coming to TODAY. I’m also a personal trainer on the side. And like many athletic women, I just plowed my blind way through the world, feeling on my own as a young female jock.

So when I was first introduced to Girls on the Run, a youth development program that uses running to motivate, inspire and instill in preteen girls a sense of self-esteem, confidence and a healthy lifestyle, I warmly embraced this amazing group of women. They do such important work. They impart wisdom, guidance and soul-growth onto young girls who crave it growing up, no matter how socially settled they think they are.

I participated in a Girls on the Run 5K event with a group of girls last year. The way it works is that each adult partners up with a young runner. Of course, I came in looking for which adult was going to partner up with me, only to realize I was the adult. But once we got that settled, I met up with my little athlete and we were off. About a quarter mile from the finish line, she cramped up. So I pulled a “Jenna” and hinted that I'd be happy to carry her to the finish line. (I’m so competitive.) She looked me square in the eyes and said, "If I started this on my own, I'm going to finish it on my own.”

With that, she started walking (limping) to the finish line. And, wouldn't you know it, her friends, who could have easily run past her, all walked by her side to the very end. That’s when it clicked for me, and that’s when I committed to helping this organization out however and whenever I could.

I struggled growing up as an athletic girl. I shouldn't have had to.

Jenna continues to participate with Girls on the Run, most recently by speaking at a fundraising event. The 5K events are open to the community, and many are happening this week -- click here to find one near you!

More by Jenna Wolfe: 

• When personal training doubles as therapy
• Are you man (or woman) enough for a strongman workout?

More from TODAY Health:

• Skyscraper runners take workouts to incredible heights
• Why does running make my nose run?
• Marathon runners' cardiac arrest risk quite low, study finds

TODAY recently asked me if I’d be interested in doing a story on strongman fitness. After all, I do have a crush on "strong" and I’m sort of obsessed with fitness. No brainer, right?

But up until that point, the only strongman I knew was from those ridiculously crazy competitions that would air at 3 a.m. on cable with big guys lifting bigger cars, dragging airplanes and turning over tires the size of Texas. My initial reaction was, thanks, but I'm not interested in muscles that outweigh my couch.

But I was curious. So we went to Carozza Fitness up in Stamford, Conn., to join a class.

Courtesy of Jenna Wolfe

My first reaction: Where were all the massive muscled men? All I saw were tractor-trailer tires, a few sledgehammers, large stone balls, and 15 women of all fitness levels eager to start a workout. Nobody looked like they could bench-press the building. Nobody looked like they could squat my car. And nobody had neck muscles that spanned an oceanfront. These were all fit women who had joined this class because they were bored of the fitness status quo. But could they handle this workout?

Does Al Roker know weather?

The class started with a 15-minute plyometric-based warm up: squats, burpies, jumping jacks -- a few fun moves to get the heart pumping and the strongman ego going. I sailed through the warm up fully confident I’d be fine with the workout.

Perhaps “confident” was too strong a word.

It began. One-minute intervals of the following exercises: 100-lb tire flips, sledgehammer swings, walking with a bar on your shoulders twice your body weight, 60-lb stone lifts, monkey bar swings, box jumps and kettle bell swings. You go from one station to the next with no rest until you get through the entire circuit. And then you do it again. (The word “again” quickly becomes your enemy.)

The constant movement makes for a killer cardio workout. The strongman moves mimic chores we do over the course of our day (lifting groceries, putting suitcases onto the plane, pushing boxes, carrying a kid). These women all swear by the class. They stick together and get through it as a team. They have all lost weight and built strength. But they have also fallen in love with working out again. You’re not on an elliptical for 40 minutes reading a magazine, or texting or talking or uphill walking. You are maximizing your efforts, depleting your tank. You walk away from a workout like this knowing you gave nothing shy of 100 percent. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

So how did I do? Let’s just say I came back a few days later (without cameras) to do the workout on my own again. As someone who has tried just about every routine, fitness craze and cardio class out there, this one made me feel the most empowered.

Have you tried a strongman workout? Would you? Let us know -- discuss this story on Facebook. 

No matter which gym it is or what time you go, one or more of the following stock characters will be there, waiting to annoy you: The dude who GRUNTS! every time he lifts a big weight. The person with a dumbbell in one hand, and a cell phone in the other. The teenager whose music is so loud you can hear it through her earbuds. Or the sloppy, stinky runner who sweats all over the treadmill -- and doesn't clean up after himself. 

We asked you to share your biggest gym gripes, and you had more than a few. Even TODAY's resident fitness fanatic Jenna Wolfe isn't immune to gym pet peeves -- although she stresses that these minor annoyances shouldn't keep you from achieving your fitness goals. She gave us her top three gym pet peeves, with added comments from some of our favorite Facebook fans. 

1. Don't leave a mess. As a personal trainer with 10 clients, you might call the gym Wolfe's second home -- which is why she implores her fellow gym rats to keep it clean. "I hate a messy gym," she told TODAY Health in an email. "When weights are left mismatched, or on the floor or scattered about, or when dirty towels are left on benches and equipment, it makes it so unappealing to work out. I have enough things to focus on when I'm there; cleanliness shouldn't be one of them." 

Even if you're meticulous about returning weights and other equipment to their proper homes, remember to mop up any germs, sweat or general ickiness you might have left behind, reminds reader Trish Cordara Crisp, whose biggest gym pet peeve is "people who cough all over the equipment and don't wipe it off and same goes for sweat, yuck!"

Reader Michelle Walsh would like to co-sign these pleas for cleanliness, and reminds us with a smiley face: "Only takes a min :-)" 

2. Don't be gross in the locker room.  For Wolfe, this is another area that needs to be neat. "After a hard workout, there's nothing better than a clean, fresh locker room to shower, dress and unwind," she says. "When it's dirty, when there's water around the shower area, when there's hair in the sink, it literally keeps me from returning to the gym."

And while we love that you love your body, reader Jody Berry Hepp wishes women in the locker room would keep the nudity to a minimum: "I will never get used to all the nudity in the locker room! I never thought I was a prude, but these women walk all around completely naked!"

3. Don't walk around like you own the place. Maybe you spend every free moment in your health club -- but that still doesn't give you a free pass for rude behavior, Wolfe urges. "I love when I see a beautiful spectrum of people in a gym... newbies, veterans and everyone in between," she says. "There's nothing more annoying than someone acting like they're entitled to be there more than anyone else. I grew up in a gym, but it doesn't give me any more of a right to use a machine, to get a better spin bike, or to grab the 15lb weights than anyone else."

Not surprisingly, our readers were especially bugged by the impoliteness of people who blab away on a cell phone while at the gym. It's Melissa Brode's number one annoyance: "Nothing is more annoying than someone talking on their cell phone! The machines make the room louder than normal to begin with, so the people feel the need to scream while they are having a conversation! I don't need to hear your life story/ drama while I am trying to relieve stress!" 

And texting isn't any less annoying, Lisa Fenton Rogers says. "I see an unbelievable amount of people texting on their cell phones while sitting on a piece of equipment that I am waiting to use. I wish they would get a clue. I know it's odd but some of us go to the gym to work out."

We hope no one needs this reminder, but we'll add Leslie Miser's comment here for good measure: "If you feel the need to vomit go to the restroom. I know your supposed to push your self but if your stomach starts feeling queasy take a rest and then get back on. Don't just keep on going till you hurl on the equipment or the floor."

She has a point there. 

Readers, have you encountered any of these bad behaviors recently? How do you keep it from distracting you from your workout? Tell us on our Facebook page. 

Related: 

• Get back to fightin' weight with Cage Fitness
• How to save money on your gym membership
• Jenna Wolfe: When personal training doubles as therapy

Courtesy of Jenna Wolfe

Jenna Wolfe trains one of her 10 clients.

A few years ago, my friend and I were at the gym when she asked me if I'd help get her ready for her wedding, which was six weeks away. After giving her the "I'm sorry, what did you say?!" look, I smiled and listened on. She wanted to lose some weight, tone her arms and just lean up a little. And she wanted to do it with someone she trusted and felt comfortable around. Turns out, that was me.

But could I just apply the same workout approach for her that I'd used on myself? I quickly realized that wouldn't work. Our weight loss and toning goals may have been the same, but our bodies, minds, muscles and approaches were totally different. 

So we sat down and talked. I asked her about her recent success rate at the gym, what she enjoyed, what she didn't, what she wanted to look and feel like for her wedding and how much time and effort she was willing to put in. But what I was really doing was getting her excited for the six-week journey and ensuring her faith in me. Long story short, when the wedding day rolled around, she looked and felt great  But more importantly, it set her on a course of strength training for years to come. 

That's when the training bug set in for me. I loved that relationship. I wanted to do it again.

Seven years later, I'm now training 10 clients: Different ages, different genders, different bodies, different goals, different approaches. The one common theme throughout is that there is no common theme throughout. The same way that therapy is catered to the individual, personal training is as well. 

I subscribe to a rather simple approach: If I can't connect with you, this won't work. This is not just a physical adventure; it's mental as well. Most of my clients are not prepared for the mental aspect of training, but they quickly realize how important it is when fatigue sets in and they need the extra motivation to keep going.

Before each client's first session with me, we sit down and map out goals – and "I want to lose 10 pounds" isn't enough. Tell me why you want to lose the weight, tell me what you've tried in the past, what's worked, what hasn't, what scares you about the gym and what fires you up. I want to know who you are now so I can help you become who you want to be.Training your body is the easy part; training your heart and soul is the challenge. Once I know you, I can then build a personal workout just for you. 

And it's only natural that when you work out with someone, and you get down in the trenches and share sweat, you ultimately bond -- and sometimes, you inadvertently take on the role of therapist. I've helped my clients go through divorces, deal with newborns, breakups, hookups, fights, slights, bad days at work, bad days at home, New Year's resolutions, Thanksgiving overeating, occasional undereating and even a few bouts of PMS. 

The only thing we all own outright is our bodies. Do right by it and it'll do right by you.  Think of this as an adventure, not a quick weekend getaway. While it's not always pretty, in the end, there's nothing more fulfilling. 

Readers, have you ever developed a close relationship with a personal trainer? Tell us about it -- we may use our favorite responses in an upcoming TODAY Health post!

Jenna Wolfe isn't just a TODAY anchor -- she's also a personal trainer and fitness fanatic.