As a fitness professional, Bre is deeply inspired to empower individuals in creating sustainable lifestyle habits that enhance overall wellness and vitality. Her journey into the world of fitness began with her own personal struggles, where she faced the challenges of being nearly 100 pounds heavier.
It was during this transformative period that she discovered the profound impact of exercise and proper nutrition as the catalyst for positive change in her life. Experiencing the transformative power of fitness firsthand ignited a passion within her to share this knowledge and support others in their own wellness journeys. Witnessing the incredible physical and mental transformations that individuals can achieve through consistent effort and dedication fills Bre with a sense of purpose and fulfillment. Today, as a grandmother, her motivation is to promote a healthy lifestyle extends beyond her personal experiences. It is Bre’s sincere desire for her granddaughter and future generations to only ever know her as a fit and healthy example of how we should live our lives. By embodying the values of fitness, she strives to be a living testament of the benefits that come with embracing a balanced and active lifestyle.
You can reach Bre:
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Transcript
Transcript
Welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast.
They were speaking with Bre Sprague.
Sprague, that's right.
All right, Bre is a fitness coach and she just got some great and fun, exciting news just before we got on to chat together.
So I'll let Bree share that with you.
Go ahead.
Be tell us all about it.
Thank you so much.
It's so exciting.
On May 1st I started on this venture.
I had a friend from the gym saying you should really put your hat in the ring and it's for the Miss Health and fitness.
2023 cover model competition for muscle and fitness, hers magazine and I am so honored to have found out that I made it to the final.
8 and especially as a.
And as somebody who prides herself in being one of the world's fittest grandma.
I am so excited to even have this opportunity to have a larger platform to share health and Wellness and the benefits it can have for us, especially as we age.
So it just literally voting, just started an hour ago and we have six days, so it's going to be an exciting next six days and I have some tremendous support.
I'm really grateful for past clients and friends and new social media following, you know, people who.
See your story.
And they get excited about it.
So I'm.
Really, feeling very, very grateful, full of gratitude.
Well, once we get done recording this, we'll go ahead and I will get your link and.
I'll go vote for you.
Thank you. Well, it's pretty simple. It's vote for bree.org bre.org.
OK.
I can handle it and I'll share.
I'll share with others so that they can help support you too, so.
And there's two ways I.
Better tell people real quick though, there's two ways you.
Can vote for free.
Every 24 hours, but I'm really.
Proud that my community and I have.
Says nearly $18,000 for the Wounded Warrior Project because they have these warrior votes that people can purchase.
Whether it's a dollar or $500, you know it whatever people want to donate. So it's really cool to be able to provide and give back to our veterans who served our country because they build accessible housing for veterans who've been wounded in service.
So it's exciting.
That is exciting and it.
Is really a great cause I.
I'll definitely.
Participate in that part too.
Thank you.
So how did you get?
Tell us about your journey.
You're definitely super thin, I know.
This is podcast so.
I just have to like put.
That out there right now.
But I don't think.
You were always that way.
In fact, I struggled a lot with my.
My weight and in my my late teens, I had quit swimming competitively and I kept eating like a competitive swimmer, which that type of nutrition plan and not exercising did not go well.
Plus, I didn't know a lot about nutrition.
I didn't know a lot at the time about the impact of sugar and processed foods.
I mean, it was the 90s.
And you know, through a series of events that happened in my life, I was a non traditional student.
I decided to drop out of college and run away to Hawaii.
And when I came back to college, I I or when I came back to the states or, well, Hawaii is the states.
I'm sorry.
When I came back.
So we get it.
But I I didn't quite know what I wanted to study and I went to the gym and I fell in love with this program called.
Body for life and body for life was a 90 day fitness transformation and I fell in love with weight training and nutrition and I lost about £80.
And and then about a boom about Bing, I got pregnant.
Sometimes that happens as a result of weight loss, and I decided that it was time for me and my son.
I went the single mother route to have more opportunities open to us and I knew my education was that and when I went back to school at Indiana University.
I studied exercise science and business entrepreneurship and at the time, people said.
To me, well, what are you going to?
Do with that degree.
And my answer at the time was I don't know, but I know that eating the right foods and moving my body makes me feel amazing and I think.
I can help.
A lot of other people do the same thing.
So that was really the start of an all my son and I say he was the world's youngest freshman and he was seven months old when we went back to school full time.
And it's been quite a journey ever since.
That is amazing.
Losing all that weight, being a mom so young and taking it all on by yourself.
And kudos to you for just stepping out and making it happen.
Fast forward to where you are today.
How did that all happen?
Oh well, through life and the career journey as a funny thing.
When I got out of school, I was very blessed to be a personal trainer at a very, very nice Athletic Club.
And this is the early 2000s and we didn't have the influence of social media at the time.
So I was really trading dollars for hours as a personal trainer, which a lot of trainers do.
That means you work a lot of hours for not a lot of reward.
There's very few Jillian Michaels in this world, right?
And I got seduced into pharmaceutical sales.
I think it's because I was personal training about half of the doctors on my call.
Plan in West Michigan because.
I was working at A at a hospital run Athletic Club and after three years in that I actually started struggling with my weight.
I I put on about 70 pounds.
Then, in three years, I'm really good at taking doctors out to dinner.
But the thing for me is is I realized that anytime I'm at this ease in my soul and in my alignment and where I'm supposed to.
My body manifests disease and food addiction was my drug of choice and you know my son, I Fast forward, you know, throughout the late 2000s, my son almost dies. I have this major life crisis during the worst recession we had seen since the Great Depression and.
I decided that it was time for me to leave the traditional corporate path and go back into fitness and I had the good fortune of working.
In corporate Wellness for Subaru, Automotive and at that time I got Super fit because my entire job was teaching group exercise that I taught way more exercise than I would recommend.
Anybody actually do for their health and then I got into bariatric fitness after that and.
And the only thing though.
Was is unfortunately at that time it didn't make a lot of money. I I took a $45,000 base salary pay cut just to get back in the fitness and as a single mom, that was a huge life change, right?
And as much as I loved it, it just wasn't paying the bills like I needed, and I found a little side hustle on LinkedIn in 2010 that I didn't want to do.
It was the dreaded network marketing, which I always joke about because it is a a fantastic industry for so many people.
But I had no idea how.
The industry worked.
But what I did see was an.
Opportunity for me.
To sell a product that I was already taking.
And be able to pay for my child.
There and I had people who trusted me because they were great vitamins and I was able to build a significant business which allowed me to work from home for 10 years and be present in my son's life and still train people and personal train and be a single mom. And it was really a fantastic time. And then COVID happened.
Major life transition again, I've kind of had this talk.
With the universe.
Like do I have to go through this every ten years or have I?
Learned enough lessons.
Because I'm good.
But you know became a.
An empty nester global pandemic.
My business crashed, you know.
I spent 10 years building.
It, and it was gone.
And I mean, we're talking about 20 grand a month gone.
And I decided, well, I'm going to get into tech.
I'm going to software and software is a wonderful.
Industry, but it's not where my passion is.
And I finally at the after this last year, I had three layoffs in the in 10 months because the SAS industry, you know, had this trajectory during COVID.
And then it was like, oh, we're going to start laying everybody.
And I said, OK universe, I hear you.
I've been talking for three years about going back into coaching full time, and that's where my coach Bree came from, and I decided that I was going to go back into doing what really sets my soul on fire.
And that's helping people feel empowered and achieve health of their.
Their desired outcomes based on mindset and nutrition and exercise.
So that's.
The whole story right there.
And those are.
The three key things for getting fit.
If it's not dieting, then you didn't say dieting and any of those three things.
No and I think that's the thing.
Is that you know, I spent a lot of years in the fitness industry.
Because you don't know what you don't know, and you know, I had to do a lot of my own trial.
And error and do a lot of research.
And what I work with people I don't count calories.
I don't.
I don't preach that because we're looking at sustainability and also what is the truth about how does your body utilize the fuel you put in it and how do you have a how do you still enjoy the summer barbecues we have 4th of July coming.
Up, how do you still?
Enjoy all those activities of life but yet be able to live in a way that you don't have.
Diseases of lifestyle manifest as when I was working in bariatrics, you know where patients needed a surgical intervention. You know, people are coming in with metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, hypertension. All of these issues because actually only about 12% of Americans are actually metabolically.
Healthy and that's terrifying.
And I look at it from a a holistic perspective of how do we make these shifts starting with your mindset so that you can truly have total control of your overall health and well.
And it doesn't.
Happen overnight, people when you talk to them about getting fit, it's like first there's the I need to lose X.
Number of pounds.
Well, pounds aren't all the same, you know, pound of fat is different than a pound of.
Muscle that operates differently in your body.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Your body is designed to use that you store toxins and stuff in your fat.
Your brain needs it.
Your brain needs it.
Your is fat.
Your brain is fat.
You know we're not even talking about, you know, the don't.
Eat fat crowd.
Right.
And women are different.
100%.
The whole.
Oh well, just don't eat so much and move more, yeah.
No, it doesn't work for women.
Go ahead, honey.
And you believe.
That my husband's a bodybuilder.
OK, so you get it.
Yeah, I totally get it. And I I listen to him, you know, he doesn't eat breakfast and loses £5.
Like, yeah, I hate you.
Big part of that is when you look at the hormonal profiles of men and women, this is a lot of what I work with, with people, of both men and women.
Men have a 24 hour hormonal cycle.
Women have a 30 day.
Hormonal cycle.
So we are completely.
Different in terms of how we have to approach what we eat when we eat, when we rest all of it, you can't cookie cutter, a program for anyone.
And not every day is the same during the 30 day cycle.
Right.
You know, some days you're just not going.
To have energy.
Get over it.
It's part of being a woman.
Right. And depending on how old you are, I mean especially I'll be 44 in a few weeks and you can build muscle at any age you can.
You know, when I tell people how much I weigh, they're always shocked because again, muscle and fat and looking at overall body fat percentage.
But.
You know, The thing is, is that your hormones?
Or really the key to everything and balancing it and figuring out where you're at in life and what you can do to your advantage and how you can't do the same thing at 44 that you did at 34, it's just.
Not going to work the same.
Yep, Yep.
And it makes all the difference and knowing how to work with your body and the whole mindset thing, we're going to talk about that too, because people get into loops and they and the loops just make the problem worse.
And it they think they have the information, but they really only have about 3 pieces of 100 piece puzzle and they're trying to like.
Fit those 3.
Pieces together and make it work for them, and it's just it's not their fault that they're struggling.
It's just the information hasn't been out there and there's just a handful of people and you're.
One of them.
That are out there actually helping women make a change that's sustainable long term.
Thank you about that.
And I think you hit a key point there and again people don't know what they don't know and unfortunately the system fitness industry included is not set up to help people win because there's so much misinformation out there.
And I think overall nutrition literacy is.
Actually, only about 11% too. When you have those conversations about, well, what is a protein?
What is a carbohydrate?
Things that you know many people think.
Why don't you know this?
Most people can't identify even what is truly real food that they should be putting in their body, right and and.
People don't even know how to cook.
They don't. I mean, I I, you know, was born in 79 and, you know, so many people and in their 40s think that cooking is grabbing a Stouffer's lasagna and putting it.
In the oven.
That is not cooking.
No, that's warming up.
And so much.
Of food preparation doesn't even really require a lot.
Of heat to be applied to it.
Put it that way.
There's, there's a lot you.
Can do with fresh stuff and fresh stuff.
Is way better for your body because.
It's still alive.
And you're trying to.
Nourish your body.
Your body needs living enzymes.
Then you can take supplements if you must, but the really the best way to get it.
Is to eat real food.
100% and especially in these beautiful warm summer months, being able to get food from your local produce providers or local farmers, a lot of people don't understand that when something is picked halfway across the globe, it's not ripe yet. It's not really ready and it, there's a process or there are.
Additional additives put to it so.
That you can eat it.
When it gets to you.
And so the composition of the food really isn't all that great in terms of its integrity.
By the time it gets to you.
So eating local during these months is one of the best things you can do for your own health, and it supports.
Your farmers?
And it doesn't take.
Much to grow stuff on your own.
Like I have lettuce growing in my grass.
There's a certain section of my yard where it's just like honey.
No, you can't mow over here cause there's lettuce and I just go out and I pick through the.
Grass really weeds.
My yard is mostly weeds and many of them are edible.
Well, and I tell people all the.
Time because a lot of people go.
I don't know how to do this and I say we have this thing which I believe are video is.
Going to be cast on called.
YouTube and YouTube will.
Teach you everything you need to know about how to grow something out of a pot.
In your backyard.
Or in your house with a.
Girl life. It's just like.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Even microgreens, microgreens are super easy.
And delicious on salads.
I they're delicious and everything.
I get bird seed, black sunflower, bird seed in the £50 bag.
Uh-huh. And it's.
Not for human consumption.
I have to make sure everybody understands.
You are not to eat these out of the bag.
They are for birds, but if.
You throw them in you first, you soak them for like 24 hours and.
Then you put them.
In a little layer of dirt and you.
Sprinkle a little bit more dirt on top of.
After about seven days, you'll have Sprouts.
And those sprouts are so delicious.
To spend 20 bucks for a little.
Bag from Amazon.
Just go to your local.
Farmers store or whatever bird feed store.
So that's your tip for the day.
I like it.
I like it a lot.
I will have to try that out myself.
That's so ohh.
I think.
You mentioned mindset, right?
Let's dig into that.
I love mindset training.
Yeah, let's talk about that because it.
All comes back.
To what you think about and how you process those thoughts.
100% every time.
You go.
I'm a big believer that pain can be a very powerful change agent.
People have to, myself included, oftentimes get to a point where it is too painful to stay where they're at.
And and in many ways you can avoid that when it comes to your health, if you start doing some shifts before you have diabetes before you have hypertension and.
First and foremost.
There is nothing wrong with liking how you look when you get out of the.
Shower naked, right?
There is nothing wrong with liking with wanting to wear a dress to your reunion that you want to, you know, fit into or wanting to have biceps as a grandmother like I do.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But for myself, there's been a shift that that's been happening over the last several years where I started to look at that marginal decade of my life, which I hope is very, very far in the future.
And I started to look at my 2:00.
Different grandmothers and.
I have one grandmother who died at 61 years old. She died of alcoholism, which is a.
Horrific disease for the heavy smoker.
By the time she died at 61, she went from being this just stunningly gorgeous woman.
To losing her life to.
To you know, disease of, of lifestyle.
Right. And then my other grandmother died at 97 years old and she was your depression era child, grew up on a farm, meat and potatoes, but she never struggled with her.
Right.
She was very healthy up until in her late in her mid 90s.
She started losing some strength in her legs, mostly because she got to the point where she just didn't want to do the exercises anymore.
So I started looking at myself, going well.
How do I want to live in that last decade of my life?
Because I want it to be quality, not quantity.
I I don't mind living until my 90s as long as I have quality of life.
I don't want to spend my 90s wasting away in a nursing home dependent on somebody else to.
Care for me?
While I'm just waiting for my body to die.
Nor do I want to be in my 50s or 60s dealing with advanced stages of disease that I could have prevented.
Should I or could, if I had just made a decision.
That this was not how my story was going to end.
And when you, you know, people think it's about habit, but really it's about.
And it's about committing to that routine, and if it's in your calendar, if it is in your if it's coming out.
Of your bank account, it's.
Important to you?
That's a priority.
And if it's, you know, people say well.
I don't have.
Time, but they.
Have time to scroll through Instagram for 30 minutes and they have time to watch Netflix and binge on that.
They have the time.
They haven't made a priority and when you really kind of tap into what are your values and what do you want and why it's a lot different.
And for me, especially when my granddaughter was born, she's going to be a year next month.
I decided she would never see me as anything else than fit because especially in this world where we're struggling with obesity, she's going to have all sorts of examples of what not to do with negative health ramifications.
I knew I could be a.
Person in her life.
That was a positive example and by benefit I would live a life of health that I want to live.
That is amazing and it just goes to show the power of making a decision.
Just a lot of mindset is just making a decision that this is how I want things to go and.
And it's never too late.
Oh, never, never.
I'm 63 I am.
Who does to you?
You're doing the right things.
But I was your.
When I had my last child.
OK.
And having kids does keep you young because you have to keep going.
You can't just sit back and go.
Ohh, I'm in my 40s now and you know I can just do whatever I want and my kids are all grown and gone and.
I chose to start over, so I had to stay in the game and stay up with everything and I couldn't just let myself go.
You need the energy.
Right.
Exercise and nutrition.
You needed the energy.
And you can't live in the country and have a homestead and do all the things and think you're just going to be lazy and hang.
Out because there's.
Always something to do, and when you're busy.
With your mindset, you know when you've made a decision that you're going to go towards something.
It's it just.
Makes it.
It it makes it so that the things that come along in your life seem to.
Kind of bolster you towards that goal if you clearly articulated what that goal is.
Like for you being fit and a healthy grandma is like that's a, that's an admirable thing.
And as you get older and you're in your 60s and 70s and 80s and 90s, and I know lots of people in their 80s and 90s that are just, you know, they're still young at heart and moving.
And you know in.
In good health.
But universally, those people.
Have some sort of exercise routine that they do.
They're active, they do stuff.
They don't sit in front of the television all day, they have interests and they cook, they eat well and a lot of them garden and do stuff like that.
But even if it's just walking, walking is huge.
Exercise there is.
But your.
And it feels so good.
You just to go.
Out and walk for an hour.
And I think the thing that that you really hit on there and this is one thing I try to stress to people is your identity shapes everything and that wall proximity is real.
You know, generally if you're more fit, you're going to spend more time with more fit people.
If your finances are pretty good, you're going to spend more time with more financially secure people.
So that that, that.
All proximity is pretty real, but it starts with your identity and how you identify and whatever.
When you use the words I am, I'm very careful about how I use the words I am.
Because I am.
Whatever you put after it is what's going to follow.
And when you look at mindset, your mind is going to do whatever you tell.
It to do.
It is and so the words I am are powerful.
If you say, you know, like when I'm in the gym.
I'm I am talking to myself all the time.
I am strong.
I am.
I am powerful.
I am fast.
You know, I I talk to myself that way all the time, because if I use negative words like and, it's so easy, especially women, to look in the mirror and to say the most horrific things to yourself that you would never say to anyone else.
That imprints on your psyche, and so you know, sometimes I tell people you know, and they're actually, I can't take credit for this.
There's a wonderful teacher called Marissa Pierre PER.
I love that woman.
She says tell yourself a better lie.
Tell yourself a lie and she's right.
You know, every single time.
But you know the identity is shaped by the words I am and how you see.
So that's why I made a decision.
I am one of the world's fittest grandmothers.
Period. End of story.
And it's put me into that role because it'd be real easy to say, well, I'm just in my 40s and I'm getting older and this is just what happens.
And that's a lie.
That's a lie.
And so I get to tell myself what I want versus attracting what I don't want.
We are such powerfully creative beings.
And people tend to forget that if they ever knew it.
All the.
And whatever you put out.
Whether it's just in your thoughts even.
You're creating something you're either gonna be creating something that.
You really love and want.
Or you're going to be creating something that you don't really want.
And you do that by being in.
Fear about what could happen instead of being in in the love zone.
Stuff people like to call it where you know you're just attracting the things that you really want to have happen and you're dreaming about, you know, great, great opportunities are great.
Ways of being experiences that you can have as you.
Go through life.
Well, absolutely.
I I firmly believe that you can beat you and have whatever you want and it comes down to like we said, the power of decision, but there's that accountability factor because also not making a decision is a decision in itself.
We have one life that we're living here and we can either decide to let life happen.
To us or for?
And sometimes the things that seem to be happening to you, it might not feel like it at the time.
Like, was it fun when my son almost died and the recession was happening?
No, absolutely not.
But looking back on it now, the critical points in my life that were a catalyst for change.
For me, I could not have experienced any other way but to experience them that way and it led to powerful decisions of me saying this is not.
How my story is going to end.
And that empowering empowerment.
You're right, people.
Don't oftentimes realize how powerful.
We are and it comes down to, are you going to be the victim or the victor in your story?
One of the things that I do more than anything as I invest in myself, I'm not a TV watcher.
I actually don't even own a TV.
Not saying I'm better than anyone who owns a TV.
Watch your TV.
But I read a lot.
I invest in my mind because just like your physical body, if you don't use it, you will lose.
And I want to be sharp the rest of my life, and I learn there's so much, you know, just from taking 15 minutes a day to read that we can learn and that truly shapes how our lives look.
15 minutes a day is.
Hour and 15 minutes, five days a week.
It's, but it's a lot.
You know, five hours over the course.
Of a month.
60 hours over the course of a year.
That multiplication, you're right.
Compound interest.
Yeah, and it the just the little thing, 15 minutes is usually enough.
To get a point.
And when you start reading for longer, I mean, I love to read, I can sit down and get lost in a book and the whole weekend will be gone.
But didn't have.
When I was growing up like at.
All and we.
Still don't have a television in our living?
Oh, you're my kind of girl.
We, my sisters and I used to joke about anything under 200 pages was a commercial.
And we were.
Voracious readers, we had to live near the library because you know, my parents couldn't afford to keep us in books, read so much but.
Yeah, if you just if you're reading stuff for self.
Improvement about 15 minutes is enough for you to get a concept that you can like, ruminate on for the.
Rest of the day.
And then you get another piece that will build on that and so it's easier to implement what you're reading.
I was listening to Alex Hermosa the other day and he's talking about, you know, people read books that never do anything with.
The information.
If you if you only read for 15 minutes.
Those kinds of books you're more likely.
To put them into action and get something productive out of that information.
Well, life is an.
Action sport.
You know, I work a lot with people in the recovery community.
Being in recovery myself.
And for example, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, there are people.
Well, I read the book.
OK.
Well, but did you do what?
The book said.
So, you know, life in itself is an action sport and knowledge without action is really futile and you see that in every area of life you see it a lot in health and Wellness and nutrition.
People will read something and be like, oh, well, that sounds like a good plan, but it's the implementation of the plan that is going to make it work.
And that's really where.
Coaches come in because people can tell you how to do just about anything.
You could.
You could find a book you could go to YouTube.
You can figure it out on.
Your own, but it's the.
Putting it into action where.
Having a coach who knows?
What the steps are, where the pitfalls are?
Where you're going to need.
Somebody did this?
Go this way.
This is the direction you want to be in instead of just charging ahead down the wrong the path that leads to the Cliff end up someplace you don't want to be.
100% and even coaches have coaches. I have my own business coach. I I had when I was competing in a sport called High Rocks, which is a lot like CrossFit.
Even though I'm a personal trainer with a degree, in 20 years of experience, I still hired a sports performance coach to coach me through it.
And going to the.
Expert is is really an important thing and you're.
Going to get.
Better results.
It's an investment too, you know.
Is, are you going to look at well, it costs so much.
Well, it's only a cost if you don't see the value.
Yes. Yeah.
Nothing is ever too expensive.
It's just a matter of if it's what you need or not if it's going.
To solve the.
Problem that you have.
In the shortest amount of time, you're just paying for somebody else's expertise. You're shortening your learning curve and you're going.
To pay that cost, whether.
You're doing it.
By doing it yourself.
Or you're going to.
Pay the cost by hiring somebody to do it.
Right.
And then you're gonna have it done.
The right way sooner.
And I like.
The learning curve, to be sure.
Yeah, me too.
Life’s too short to be like messing around with figuring stuff out on your own.
All the time.
So what's the one?
Thing you would really like our audience to take.
Away from this call today.
That's tough, but I would say probably the one thing is for people to really.
Grasp for that.
They have all the power to live the life that they want within them.
It comes down to deciding and getting clarity of what they want their life to look like, especially around their health and fitness, that.
It's much simpler than they usually make it.
Out to be.
That's beautiful.
And how can people work with you, Brie?
Oh, thanks, Jill. They can go to mycoachbre.com. Bre. Remember that's my coach Bre.
You can find me on LinkedIn.
Breeze sprang.
You can find me on Instagram.
Bre Sprague, my coachbre and I am building out some other things through Facebook that are coming soon.
So I will.
I will keep you abreast of that.
Jill, so this way.
You could let your community know.
That would be awesome.
We have really appreciated you having on this.
You on the show today, Bre.
Thanks for coming.
Hey, it's been an honor.