How Natalie Jill Fitness Was Born - The Journey From Corporate To Fitness To Midlife Conversations

The difference between going from fat to fit in our 30s is way different than going from fat to fit in our 50s. I'm about to tell you my story. It's so funny. I think I got typecasted. You remember that's, that's like a word that we've used for I've got typecasted as this fitness girl because I kind of came out of nowhere in the fitness space. My gosh, 15, 16, 17 years ago. It just happened. And it's interesting because if someone were to Google me and they would see these magazine covers or these best selling books or fitness DVDs when DVDs were a thing, that's not who I always was. I was really just, just this girl like everybody else. In fact, I worked in corporate America and I was a single mom. Not intentionally. I had had my daughter at age 35. I was so happy. I was newly married, had my daughter. I just moved to California not too long before that from the east coast. And my life appeared to be this, this perfect looking life, right? Like I had the, the house, the, the picket fence, the two dogs, the new baby, the marriage, a corporate America job. And everything started to fall apart in my life. I found myself getting a divorce. And this was back in 2007, if any of you remember what was happening in 2007. The housing market had totally crashed and I found myself right in the middle of that, not just going through a divorce, but now learning I'm going to be a single mom. And then also realizing I could no longer afford my house. In fact, I remember going to the gas station and putting my credit card in and I thought, how has my card declined? And I remember calling American Express and saying, why is my card declined? Like never been laid on a payment? And they said, well, you are $1.4 million in debt according to your credit statement. It's like, how is that even possible? The reason it was possible is I had in desperation in not being able to afford my house and being a new single mom, had tried to renegotiate my mortgage. Companies wouldn't work with me. I made a decision to stop paying my mortgage. I remember talking to a friend in that space and he said, if you stop paying your mortgage, Natalie, this is again, years ago. You, you have, I believe it was like seven or eight months that you cannot pay your mortgage before they can even start foreclosure. So I made a decision to do that, not understanding it would affect the rest of my credit. Like, duh. I wasn't thinking about it. I was depressed from being divorced. I was depressed in my postpartum depression. I gained, my gosh, 60 pounds. I'm five foot two, and I gained 60 pounds when I was pregnant. It was rock bottom for me. What changed for me was I caught this glimpse of myself in one of those. The windows with a mirror reflection. And I remember stopping and looking at my. And thinking I didn't recognize myself. I was like, you're 35 years old and what's going on with you? Like, I had bags under my eyes. I was overweight. I was depressed. I was sad. And I remember just having this moment with myself of, what if there's something else? Like, what if you could change your life? Like, what if there's something else? In that moment, I thought, what if I just decide that there's something else? And it sounded hokey in my brain, but I was like, well, I mean, what do I have to lose? So I remember thinking, I've decided to. That I'm going to be happy. And I'm like, okay, what does that mean? Well, I've decided I'm going to be super fit. I've decided I'm going to be super strong. I've decided I'm going to not just be out of debt. I'm going to be abundant. I've decided I'm going to get married again. I just started, like, making these decisions, like, I've decided. And I noticed in my body, it felt good. I noticed this, like, new thought around possibility. Like, wait, there's something. I don't have to be this. I don't have to be depressed. There's something else. That thought of, what if there's something else made me feel empowered. It gave me this thought around happiness. It made me feel lighter in these very real circumstances. I could feel different just by asking, what if there was something else? But I came home, I put my daughter down for a nap, and I turned on the tv, and there was Oprah. Oprah was really big at the time, and she had on Lisa Nichols. And Lisa Nichols ended up being my friend and coach years later, but a time I didn't know her. And they were talking about vision. I know this was not a new concept, but it was the first time I was, like, really hearing it. And they were talking about the idea of living in future possibility. And I thought that was so timely for my thought process right then. And at the time, they were talking about vision boards, and I call them decision boards now. But I thought, okay. And this is back when we all still read Magazines. So I went and got a big stack of magazines while my daughter was down for a nap. And I started pulling out pictures of anything that made me feel happy. And I remember pulling out fit girls and a beach view. And I pulled out this beautiful, like, golf course view. And I put happy couples. And I remember putting a million dollars, like a picture of a million dollars. I'm in a reality right now that this is not my life. But as I'm looking at these pictures, it's evoking these feelings that I have missed. It was like this back and forth with, but wait, I feel good when I focus here, but, oh, but really I'm sad. You know, I noticed this, and I didn't understand at the time that this was God really, you know, preparing me for a way bigger chapter. But I made a another decision that I was gonna put this decision board someplace where I would see it every day, all the time. Every morning, like, I would get up, it's the first thing I would see. And I'd bring it down to when I'm eating breakfast and I'd stare at it. And I used to ask myself this question every single day. If you were the girl living in this board, if this was really your life right now, this was you, what actions would you be taking? Like, what would you be eating? How would you be moving your body? What would you be studying? What would you be thinking? Who would you surround yourself with? It was kind of like playing pretend, but it was working. It was like, okay. And I'd heard that you've all heard that expression act as if it was making sense. I'm like, well, I'm not really this right now, but if I can get myself in the thought process that this is my life and I start making decisions and choices and actions from here, everything's got to change for me. And the coolest thing started to happen. I did this every day. It's the only thing I promised I was going to do every day. But everything started to change. Like, I started noticing my choices were not just turn on the TV and watch whatever. We didn't have social media yet, by the way. It wasn't like a big thing as it is now. But instead of just scrolling or the TV channels, I would go, no. If the girl in this world would go, would be living at the beach, and she'd walk at the beach. So I put my daughter in the car and the stroller and I'd go to the beach. So I would do that. And I started doing these things every day. And everything started to change. Not just my mindset and how I was feeling, but my body started to change. Next thing you know, I'm dropping the weight. Now this wasn't woo woo. It wasn't just I stared at this board and now I'm becoming. I was staring at the board asking what would I do? And I was doing those things. I was literally acting as if in real time. So I started doing those things. My body started to change and people started to notice. And I remember having lunch with a friend, my friend Julie at the time, and she said, hey, have you heard of this Facebook thing? And I'm like, facebook? What's Facebook? She's like, oh, it's cool. Like everyone you see, your high school friends, it's all these, you know, whatever. So I download the app Facebook, I don't know what it is, and I have like 100 high school friends on there now. You know, you get reconnected. And I made a post on there and I said, I am going to share something that whether you guys care or not, I've been depressed. I've been changing what I'm doing and I'm going to start eating different and I'm going to start sharing my food here every day for accountability to myself. And I started sharing my food. Something wild happened. People were interested, they started following along. They started asking questions. They're like, wait, how did you put this meal together and why are you eating that way? And my body started to change. And I remember somebody said, hey, you've been sharing all this great food. Why don't you make a recipe book? I was like, recipe book? How? What is that? Like, oh, you can make an ebook. I had no idea what ebook meant. I remember looking up, what does ebook mean? I said, electronic book. I'm like, huh? Okay. So I took my BlackBerry phone that I had taken all the pictures on and I took all those pictures and I uploaded them to a word doc and I turned it into a 12 stalene recipe book and I put it on Facebook and I said, okay, I listened to you guys. I made a ebook. $12. And people bought it. I couldn't believe it. People were buying my 12 ebook and they loved it. I was getting, you know, two or three sales a day. I'm like, this is co cool. Like, I'm making some money on ebooks. I'm like, this is cool. So now I'm getting fit too. And I'm also like, I'm starting to get abs and like, I'm getting strong. And I start Getting questions about that. Like, well, what are you doing? How did you get abs? Like, how did you do that? So I make a new goal, I make a decision. And here I'm in my 40s now. This is speeding up a little bit time now, but we're getting closer to 40, I believe at this time. And I go, and I'm gonna do a fitness, I'm gonna be a fitness model. And my friends literally laughed at me. They're like, Nobody wants a 40 year old fitness model. Like, what are you talking about? I'm like, no, I'm getting abs. This is cool. Like, I'm, why not? I've decided, I'm learning that I can decide things, that they're going to happen. I'm going to be a fitness model. I ended up on 14 covers in my late 30s to late 40s. Like people told me I would never be able to do that, but I did it. So I got more solidified in if you make a decision and you act as if, like it can happen. So as that's happening, people are like, well, how did you do your food to make yourself look like that? How did you do that? So I sat down one weekend and I had just met my now husband Brooks. He was my boyfriend at the time. And I told him I was going to write an ebook called the seven Day Jumpstart. And he's like, okay, but what's unique about it? I'm like, what's unique about it is it's what I'm doing and it's working. And he's like, well, no one's going to buy an ebook for how you're eating. I'm like, no, they will. They're asking me like, you know, I was sales at Nature. So I'm like, people are asking me, they have a problem, I have a solution. I'm going to make this for them. Decided it was going to be $35, put it on Facebook. $35. But then something super cool started happening. People were getting results on it like it wasn't just me anymore. Now people are doing the seven day jump start and they are losing weight. Five pounds. Seven pounds in week one. Like losing. Not just because we don't just lose fat, we lose excess water and bloat. And there's a lot that goes along with that. People are losing weight with this and they're having success and they start messaging me and they would say, natalie, I did your 70 jump start. This is freaking awesome. I just lost five pounds. I lost. I feel great. My energy's back. And I would say, can I screenshot that and share it with others? It's so motivational and it's a sure. So I'd screenshot Sally, who lost and I put it on Facebook and I'd say, you guys, look, Sally just sent me this and I'd say, who is next? That's all I'd write. Who is next? Well, that one program ended up creating my first million dollars like within a year. It was on an ebook, a 12 page ebook because it was so, so real. It was based on my real transformation. It was based on what I really learned because I became a licensed master sports nutritionist learning and it was now helping other people. That's what started like my whole career and it's now been revised so many times like it's no longer a 12 page E book. Sorry, it's, it's a big extensive thing. It also became a best selling book in stores. So it's still my signature program that has transformed so many people. I've added to it. But those core basic things are still there. The next step in that journey was am known in the fitness space. People are seeing me on magazines or I'm going doing all this other stuff and people start asking me, hey, how do you work out? The first DVD I was ever in was Jillian Michaels. And this was back the Biggest Loser was a big deal. She was a big deal. She had her own DVDs. And I remember auditioning to be one of the backup people in her DVDs. So I was in it and I was just the girl with the abs in the back. But I remember being in her DVD going I could do this, like I could learn DVDs. Now. One of the signature things I was doing a little different is I was only doing body weight and I was doing it at home because I had a, I was a single mom. I was like, I did have a gym, but I was doing mostly body weight at home. Like that was what I was doing. So I didn't know anything about being a fitness trainer. So I went and got my personal training certification. I became a functional fitness trainer. And then I thought, who's the Best one at DVDs? Best one at Fitness DVDs was Tammy Lee Webb. I need to meet Tammy Lee and I'm going to learn from her. It was a decision. As it turned out, she lived down the street from me, like in the same city. It was wild. I reached out to her, I said, I know this is not something you probably do. Like you're the goddess in like, you're the master. Can I pay you? Can I hire you to learn from you? She let me do it. I hired her as my producer. She trained me, she taught me. I worked countless days with her. She taught me everything. And I recorded my first four fitness DVDs on my own with her. Like, she helped me do it. And because I was sharing and giving answers to what people were actually asking me for, it worked. But the crazy thing was I started getting recognized by Greatest and Forbes, the top fitness influencer. I was like, what? I don't. I'm just the girl that is doing the things that people are asking for. It was fun. And then I started like, I just kept playing with this decision thing, like challenging myself more. In fact, when social media started growing and Instagram came about. The reason my Instagram got popular initially is I lived in this condo by the beach in San Diego. And we had this very amazing panoramic view of the ocean. And we had hung up these rings, these Olympic rings from the beams on our balcony. And I was super fit. Like, I was strong, I was fit and I had the six pack. And this wasn't usual for women. Like we didn't see this on women. And every day we would film videos of me upside down on the rings, like doing all this like functional fitness stuff. And I'd always have my yellow lab, the ocean view, and my daughter. It was like, it was like the perfect combination. My social media blew up, so my Instagram started to take off and business just started to soar. It was, it was, it was nuts. That's the initial story of like, of like my business. But I will tell you that a lot of things have changed since that original thing. You know, at the time of me talking about this right now, I'm 53, almost 54. Obviously 54 this summer. A lot has changed. And I'll tell you, as I was approaching 50, things started to change. So where I was really dialed in on like, I've got this. I understand fitness, I understand fat loss, I understand nutrition. Like, women just need to do these things I wasn't prepared for, like perimenopause and menopause. And I didn't understand that the 40 year old things that work are not the same as the 50 year old things that work. And I'm assuming it's not the same as the 60 year old things that work. Like things change. And I didn't understand that in my 40s, but in my 50s I started to really understand that at 51, they really started to shift. So I started gaining weight, and I didn't look like nobody would have looked at me and said, you're overweight. It was a lot more effort. I started having a lot more pain. I started getting injured a lot. Like, a lot of injuries. It was like the disc rupture in my back, then it was a torn bicep, then it was a broken foot. It was like, one thing after the next. Just, like, crazy things. Being in, like, foggy head and not being able to, like, eat my way out of it or work out my way out of it. There was a point where I actually paused my entire fitness and fat loss business. I just stopped. I said I was. I remember telling my husband, I don't want you fitness anymore. He's like, why? People love it. I just don't want to. I think the real reason I didn't want to do it is I didn't feel good about myself anymore. So why do I want to shoot fitness videos if I don't feel good about myself? And then I didn't want to do fat loss anymore either, because I thought, yeah, my stuff works, but it's not working for me right now. You know, it was like. It just started to feel inauthentic. So I actually paused all my programs. There was a good year where I did not sell my programs during the sabbatical of mine. I was like, you know what? I'm going to change my podcast, and I'm going to call it Midlife Conversations, and I'm going to start interviewing everyone and everything about what the frick is happening to our bodies in our 50s. I need to know everything. I want to know about hormones. I want to know about our gut health. I want to know about our thyroid. I want to know about toxic load. I want to know about, like, anything and everything I want to know about. So I changed my podcast. I started interviewing on all these topics, and the same thing happened that happened back with my vision board days. As I'm learning, things started to change because I started learning about hormone replacement. Huh. Maybe I should be on hormone replacement. I start learning about gut health. Huh? Maybe I should look into this. I used to teach that all you need to do for fat loss is get your mind right. You know, you gotta eat better, eat unprocessed food, and you gotta work out harder. That's it. No, I. Now I'm like, is detective work especially in your 50s? Like, there's a lot more to this. There's detective work. Okay, Natalie, you're Learning the stuff. You're having some changes, but what's going on? So I end up getting a mammogram. And on the mammogram it shows that I have a ruptured gel formed silicone implant. So on this mammogram shows this ruptured gel implant. And I messaged my surgeon who put them in and she's like, there's no way those don't rupture. It's like the kind that doesn't rupture. She asked me to fly out to la. She's like, I want to see myself. I fly out to la, I get a breast MRI and an ultrasound and sure enough, it is fully disintegrated, ruptured. So I have a surgery to explant, to take this out, remove the explant and start going through detoxing. And I start learning because I'm a detective, I'm like learning through my podcast everything about being a detective. And I'm thinking, it starts hitting me about toxic load. All these years, we are exposed to toxics all day, all the time. Whether it's amalgam fillings or breast implants, or the skin care you're using, or breathing the air, or being in a moldy house, or just living like we're exposed to toxins all the time, our bodies are set to detox on their own. Like you've got a liver, you've got kidneys already doing detox work. But over the years, just like your hormones decline, just like everything else, things start getting overloaded. So your liver can only take so much, you know, and now you're in your 50s and you have this excessive amount of overload. Something's got to overflow, so we've got to feel it somewhere. So in my case, and in many people's cases, I believe you've got gut things going on, you've got other things happening. And now you have a ruptured implant, or you've got amalgam fillings, or you're getting your nails done, whatever. It's all compounding. So what I start to tie together for myself is, oh my gosh, here I'm adding and trying to do all these things, and I have this big underlying problem, this rupture implant that my body's trying to deal with. Of course I have other problems. And now my blood sugar is high. My body's not doing things the way that it should. I move out of a house that we learn has black mold. I start using my infrared red sauna like just some things are expensive and things I do. Some things were just easy in nature right but the weight just comes off and I literally go back to the size I was in my 40s like nothing changed in my diet nothing changed in my workouts nothing changed in my mindset belief other than I started looking at this toxic load stuff with that new perspective I came back like stronger than ever like wait a minute women need to hear this like it is not just your mindset it is not just work out harder it is not just work out and it's certainly not just go take a shot. I'm all fan of people doing GLPs and stuff for help but it's not about just doing that There's a lot there. So this whole idea of being a health detective was born and that is why literally now I'm so passionate like I've redone seven day jumpstart I've redone total body thrive from this new perspective of health detective.