Julie Mendez
Julie Mendez was a recruiter for some time, but her family moves often so she needed a job that she could pick up and take with her. “Because recruiting is so networking-based, when you move to a new town, you have to restart your brand new network,” she explains. She couldn’t keep restarting from scratch every time she moved, and since she was already helping her friends write their resumes and practice for interviews, why not make it a business? Having to restart her own career so many times gave her plenty of practice, too.Continue Reading …

Damien Madison and Kodi Smith

When Damien was just getting to know his now-wife in college, she stumbled across CrossFit and became excited. As a former semi-pro soccer player, she missed the feeling of workouts. CrossFit filled that void. She decided they would go together, and they enjoyed it. It became a pipe dream to someday own their own CrossFit. However, when they discovered that there was no CrossFit on the western side of the county, they began researching in earnest. “We all just decided if we’re going to do it, we’re going to just jump in with two feet and do it,” says Damien. “We took a chance, it started working well.”

Meanwhile, Kodi was also filling a void. When his son was three years old, Kodi began taking him out to the backyard or to a field and playing catch, working on form, and teaching him the fundamentals of sports. “What I quickly realized is that there was a void in our neighborhood with other kids understanding the fundamentals of sports,” Kodi says. To help give back and fill the void, he started a free neighborhood camp where kids could go to the Gainesville elementary school and work on fundamentals. “At that point in time I had no idea that it would grow into this,” he says. “Over the years more kids started to attend the camp, and then more parents started to realize that their athlete is getting something phenomenal from the camp that’s going to last them for a lifetime.”

 

Coming Together 

As Damien was figuring out how to start up his CrossFit, Kodi was still training kids at the school. One day Kodi called Damien up for some help. Damien went and saw what a good time the kids were having and what a good thing they were getting. “When we opened the gym, we started talking about ways to maybe incorporate that into the business,” Damien says. “At the beginning, it was just something extra to give back. But as it started growing, we started realizing that we needed to really start taking this thing seriously. When we took it seriously, that’s when it really took off.”

 

Filling a Void for the Athletes

“Working with kids has always been a passion of mine,” says Kodi. When CrossFit Prominent brought kids aboard in 2013, the top level of the facility was theirs. “The biggest thing now is that they have an outlet.” At a regular gym, kids are a bit restricted. At CrossFit Prominent, they can play their music, go to the study hall to woosah and relax, go to the game room and get things off their chest, then come out and get in their workout. “It’s their home away from home,” Kodi says. “One thing that separates us from everybody else is that mentorship piece. All the athletes have my phone number.” They develop a relationship not only inside the gym, but outside as well. “The reality is, life is life. You have this side of life which is sports-specific, you have everything else from home life to school that’s important as well,” Kodi explains. “We provide that outlet to the athlete to come here, let things off their chest, get that good workout in.” Kids feel more comfortable sometimes talking to a mentor or coach rather than a parent. Everyone makes mistakes, but CrossFit Prominent helps keep kids on a straight path, and they take pride in that.

The gym is about family and relationships, which is a perfect parallel to the four co-owners. The kid side and adult side of Crossfit Prominent meld together so well because it’s authentic and everybody is getting what they need.

 

Classes for the Athletes

CrossFit Prominent offers classes for the athletes Monday through Friday, with Saturdays being an open gym day. On Mondays and Thursdays, the classes focus on speed. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, they focus on strength and agility. Fridays get a little interesting. “On Fridays we like to compete a little bit,” says Kodi. They work on things like the three-cone test, the shuttle, the vertical jump, and the broad jump. They get the athletes ready to take those tests in other situations.

 

On the Horizon

“What’s next for CrossFit Prominent is just to really try to focus on that personal growth or personal plan for every single person,” Damien says. Even if your goal is simply to read a bedtime story to your child without wheezing, he can help you achieve it. “At the end of the day, you want to be able to be there for your kids,” he says. He doesn’t want anyone to struggle to walk, run, or just live their life. He wants you to come work out, have your kid work out, and then talk about how goofy you both looked while struggling with that last rep on your ride home.

Find out more about CrossFit Prominent at their website.

Deborah Jeffery

When Deborah Jeffery was a child, she wanted to be a nurse. However, as her mother was baking cookies one day, she cut herself badly on a broken glass bowl. “As soon as I saw the blood, I got this very nauseous, light-headed feeling,” says Deborah. “I knew nursing was out of the question.” In high school, she took a class that began explaining what different vitamins did for the body. “That’s when I started to get interested and decided that that’s what I would study,” she says.

Deborah became a registered dietitian and had been working on a pediatric metabolic unit in Philadelphia when her family moved to Virginia for her husband’s job. She took some time off to help her two sons acclimate to the move, but contacted the local society of the Dietetic Association. “They had a request from a personal trainer who owned a small training studio, and he was looking for a dietitian to help his clients with weight loss,” says Deborah. The part-time basis sounded good to her. “That’s how my private practice got started.” Fairfax Nutrition was born.

 

Small Steps

People develop eating patterns in their childhoods, and those patterns become habits as they age. Breaking habits is a difficult thing to do, and there is no magic quick fix for it. Deborah recommends making small changes. “My clients who do the best make small changes. They make a small, easy change, make that their new habit, [and] build on that,” she says. “Then they reach their goals.”

A change could be as small as adding a few more fruits and vegetables to your diet. People want to make drastic changes, like going from a fast food-based diet to an all-organic, natural diet, which is great, but just not going to happen overnight. Set realistic expectations, take baby steps, add momentum, and then add in more changes. “Pick that change that’s easy to make, do it repeatedly until it becomes a habit, and then pick the next thing,” she says.

 

Food Myths and Misinformation

Another easy change is deciding not to believe everything you read on the internet about food. “There’s just so much misinformation,” says Deborah. “People have all these bad ideas. They go out on the internet, they go to sites that are selling supplements or blogs that just don’t have good information. That’s a big problem.” She has to spend a lot of time dispelling food myths and bad information for her clients.

Often there’s information that looks like information, but it’s really just an advertisement. “Be careful of the source, and if they’re trying to sell you something, verify that information,” she says.

A current popular piece of misinformation is that people should avoid sugar. “So people will be reluctant to eat fruit, because they know that the carbohydrate in fruit turns into sugar in the body,” Deborah says. “The word that’s missing there is ‘added’ sugar, the refined, processed stuff. That’s what you want to avoid.” When you eat fruit, you’re getting vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytonutrients, and fiber. “You want to eat that.”

 

Getting Habits to Work for You

One large deterrent for people starting a weight loss journey is food preparation. They commute for an hour to work, work all day, commute for an hour home, have to pick up and care for the kids, and don’t want to cook. “They have this conception that if they can’t go home and prepare this lovely meal, then they’re not going to do it,” says Deborah. However, there’s a difference between a golden standard gourmet meal and a meal that’s good enough. If all you have the time and energy for is making turkey sandwiches on good whole grain bread with some raw vegetables or a salad, that’s a decent dinner. “It doesn’t have to be a gourmet meal,” she says.

When she was young, meals went on a cycle. Maybe Monday was spaghetti night and Tuesday was baked chicken night. It seemed boring at the time, but now Deborah sees the wisdom in it — you know what you’re going to prepare, you have the ingredients, the habit and structure is set, and you’re not overthinking it. You can have variety when you eat out, but for home cooked meals, habits can work in your favor and take some of the pain out of food preparation.

 

Mindset Changes 

Clients have to want to change. They have to want to go down a different path. Motivation doesn’t come from your doctor, health, or Deborah. It comes from you. “If you have your second heart attack and the doctor’s saying lose weight and exercise and you’re not doing it, I just couldn’t imagine what I could say to motivate you,” she says.

Once you have changed your mindset to truly want to change, Deborah helps with her information, guidance, and support. “I try to be very encouraging when I work with my clients,” she says. “I feel part of my job is being that support.” There may be setbacks along the way, but that’s why it’s a journey. You can still do it. Recognize the challenge and move forward.

Find out more about Deborah and Fairfax Nutrition on the website.