Meet Ashlyn Showalter of Love Your Body Academy in Venice Beach

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashlyn Showalter.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Ashlyn. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My story starts in with my own transformation. I had just turned 21 and I was in Hawaii with my college roommate, trudging up a dusty hill hike, and I was last in line. The hike seemed SO easy for everyone else, but not for me. I felt like I was dying- I was slightly hungover from drinking the night before, my energy was low, and I had zero cardio endurance. I was NOT having fun. This wasn’t how I was supposed to feel! I was in Hawaii on a beautiful hike, supposedly living my best life. But I felt dead inside. I had no energy, I hated how my body looked, I drank alcohol constantly, and I was disappointed in myself. I couldn’t even be present and enjoy the experience. I decided then and there I was going to change my life. I’d had enough.

21 years young and I was nowhere near the vision I had for myself. I knew deep down I was capable of more, and I WANTED more for my life. So, I decided to go all in on my health. When I got back to Atlanta where I was living at the time, I hired a coach because I had tried a thousand times before and it never worked on my own, so I knew I had to do something different this time.

It started as a way to change my body, which I HATED. But through the process, I changed my whole outlook on life, learned discipline, and learned to love myself. Fitness gave me confidence and strength to pursue my dreams. Fitness made me a brand new person. I don’t even recognize who I was before, in a GOOD way. I got into meditating, reading books, talking with mentors, traveling, learning, and seeking MORE.

Since I had such a radical shift in my life through fitness and health, I thought I HAVE to do this for others. I have so much passion for health because I realize now the saying “health is wealth” is true in so many ways. When you don’t have your health you can’t be present for your LIFE. You can’t truly live. You don’t have the energy to go out and follow your dreams, to CREATE. Health= high vibrations and when you are in high vibrations, good things are always attracted to you. So no matter how much MONEY you have in the bank, if you don’t have your health, it doesn’t mean anything.

So I started my career in fitness and got my personal training certification. I was still bartending at the time, because, let’s be real here, personal trainers don’t make much! After a couple of months of in-person training, I realized, this isn’t as effective as I thought. For myself, and for the client. I was trading my time for money, and I was exhausted. And I knew my clients needed SO much more than just workouts to get to their goals. So I went back to the drawing board to figure out how to best deliver the information, mindset shifts, habits, nutritional guidance, and workouts that I KNEW people needed to actually create a true transformation like I had. I wanted to truly change people’s lives. Meanwhile, I had moved to LA, tried out fitness modeling, did some photoshoots, and was OBSESSED with learning more about health and mindset.

I had no background in business (I was a bartender for six years) but I knew I had this vision and I needed help. So I hired a business coach (because I’d learned by now to cut time in half by asking someone to show you the way) and went all in on creating my online business, now called Love Your Body Academy. I FINALLY quit bartending, and that might have been the best day of my life. I created an online program that I poured my time, energy, and knowledge into, and worked my way into making it my full-time income. I learned that to be a GREAT coach, it’s not just about the strategy. It’s about helping people change their thoughts, beliefs, habits, and their lifestyles (not the easiest thing to do 😉 and THAT is what changes people’s lives.

This past year I went through a healing journey of severe gut issues and hormonal imbalance which has led me on a deeper path into health, and I am excited where it will take me. It has already made me a better, more effective coach. I am living fully in my purpose, I feel aligned and in the flow, I wake up PUMPED to start my day, and I know that this is what I’m meant to do.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has absolutely NOT been an easy road! Since I was a little girl, I have struggled with anxiety, self-doubt, and low self-esteem. Fitness thankfully changed a lot of that, but I still fight those thoughts daily. For a girl who grew up homeschooled and sheltered most of her life, it has been terrifying to put myself out there. I struggled with caring what people thought of me on social media, being vulnerable and fearing people wouldn’t like me and also feeling like an imposter. “Who am I to help other people?” Creating a business from scratch brings up every kind of negative thought you could ever have! They say your business is an extension of yourself, so everything you struggle with internally also gets projected into your business. It’s a lot of internal work to overcome blocks and change your mindset.

I also went from having zero business background to starting my own business all of a sudden, so EVERYTHING was brand new to me. I had to learn how to create better content, to do sales calls, to market, to build an awesome program. and to actually be a good coach. At first, I really struggled with creating a daily structure to get things done, because when you’re your own boss, there are no deadlines or people telling you what to do. You really have to motivate and push yourself every day.

And along those same lines, you are technically alone. You are the one with the vision and you are the one who has to execute. Every day it’s a process of getting out of your comfort zone, doing new things daily, getting resourceful, solving problems, and researching answers yourself. And there’s always the fear of “is this business actually sustainable? What if I fail? What if I run out of money?” Which is why having support of a coach was SO helpful to me. I couldn’t have done it without them.

With all of that being said, I would go through those struggles all over again because doing this has changed me as a person. I’ve matured, I’ve become smarter, more resourceful, and stronger. Getting out of your comfort zone is hard, yes, but it’s the only way to get what you really want.

Please tell us about Love Your Body Academy.
I’m so passionate about WOMEN’S health specifically because women have been misrepresented in the industry. Most nutrition and fitness science is based on research done on healthy males, and most of the leaders in the fitness industry are still men.
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So, some of the concepts we have been using in the fitness industry really AREN’T the best fit for our feminine bodies.⁣

Fat loss is simple. Fat loss while keeping your metabolism high, hormones on point, gut health on point, and MAINTAINING that fat loss ISN’T.⁣
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​Unfortunately, tons of women are running around following the typical fitness industry advice: move more, eat less at the expense of their gut, hormones, thyroid, energy, and sex drive.⁣ Women are running ourselves into the ground to get fit, and they don’t even realize a lot of the health issues they’re experiencing like fatigue, gut issues, thyroid problems, acne are a result of that.
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We aren’t supposed to be exercising like men. And if we ARE, we need to balance that out with more recovery because our bodies don’t work the same. We take on stress differently. We have less testosterone so we build muscle and recover less effectively. ⁣We have more genetic issues like the MTHFR & COMT gene mutations which influence estrogen.
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Without going into the nitty gritty details, my mission is to bring more knowledge, education and RESULTS to women’s health so that more women can THRIVE.

I am proud of my mission to help women understand how their female body works. Help women get fit AF. And help women do it all while feeling good & keeping their hormones stable in the process.⁣

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
That’s a hard question because I am so grateful for all of the lessons I’ve learned in this process. I think I would have used more of my income to keep investing into more coaching because the support is so important when you are up-leveling your life. It is scary and it’s all-new, and having a support system to help you break through those barriers is major key. I would have invested more specifically into mindset coaching because honestly everything comes down to mindset. We are the only ones who can hold us back, and I struggled hard to overcome my mindset along the way. I did it, but it would have been easier with more support.

And if I did it again, I would just trust. Trust in myself and trust my vision and mission. When you focus on those that need your help over all else, it makes everything so easy.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ashlynshowalter.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theashlynshow/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theashlynshow/

Image Credit:
Simon Needham; Kesley Bourgeois

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