Meet Lizzie Ens of Everyday Health & Nutrition

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lizzie Ens.

Lizzie, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My journey to where I am today certainly has not been an easy one and has a lot of hard work included. I grew up Amish on a farm with 18 siblings and learned to work hard since the age of five. I left my family/culture at the age of 19 with only the Amish clothes I was wearing, $20 in my pocket and a few sentimental items. I only had an 8th-grade education, never had a job in the real world and spoke English very poorly. We did not have electricity, indoor plumbing or anything that may have hinted modern world. To say this change is a culture shock is an understatement.

I have always been driven to seek for more and once I am clear with what I want, I go for it. First, I had to get my GED. That was incredibly intimidating and hard since I had never set foot inside a public school, studied history, science or heard about algebra before. While studying for my GED, I discovered I love science about our bodies, food, nutrition, etc. This is when I discovered that one day I want to either be a nutritionist or some form of a nutrition coach. I then fell in love with long-distance running and ran both a half and a full marathon because I wanted to set a goal, challenge myself and prove that I can do it. Through that journey, I began to have an urge for Personal Training. I knew very little about the gym, but it was something I craved to know.

My husband and I took a leap of faith four months after we got married and moved across the country from Ohio to Phoenix, Arizona, with no jobs lined up. We weren’t sure why Phoenix, we just knew this is where God has called us. It was here that God opened the door once again for me to go to Personal Training school. I went to school full time for six months and then got a job at a training studio in central phoenix (now Trifit Wellness) right out of school. Building your clientele can be very difficult when you are in a city where you know very few people and there’s competition in every corner. But I showed my face, put in the hours and seven years later, I still love it and have built a strong client following.

About a year into personal training, I realized there is a huge gap and piece missing for lots of people when it comes to changing their lives and becoming a healthier version of themselves. So once again, I went back to school. Not only because I love learning, but also I needed to learn more to qualify to help my clients be more successful. I studied at Institute for Integrative Nutrition for a year and became a Certified Health Coach.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It certainly has not been a smooth road for me, but I am an optimist/realist and believe it is much healthier to focus on the positive versus the negative. Most, if not all things, are “figure-outable” as Marie Forleo would say. When I first left my family/culture, I did not have a social security number, driver’s license or ever really touched a phone before. This can make it very difficult to get started out on the right foot. With determination and the help of others, it certainly is possible and makes it a bit easier. Let’s not forget there is zero support from the family so you are pretty much left to figure it out on your own unless you have people in your corner that want to help you and see you move forward, succeed and build a completely new life.

That’s just it, it is a completely new life. I believe everyone has obstacles and challenges in their lives. We just need to be smart about how we handle them. There is no avoiding them. Only taking them on headfirst whether we like it or not and just get it done in the best way we know how at that point and time.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
I believe every day is a gift that we get to work on our health and nutrition. I coach women that want to learn how to be healthier physically, mentally, and emotionally and do it without having to extreme diet. I don’t believe in fad diets and will never put my clients on an extreme diet. I believe in meeting the client where they are at and working our way up from there, versus trying to do it all at one time. No one is successful long term by being that extreme. To me nutrition is much more than punching in numbers and eat this not that. It is an emotional journey that a lot of people miss. Going to the gym and training your body is the easy part, however, changing your daily eating and thinking habits can deem to be incredibly overwhelming and let’s not forget all the controversy out there. Us humans love to slap a label on something to make us feel better about what we are doing when in reality the simpler you can be the better. My philosophy is to keep it clean and keep it simple.

By teaching my clients how to integrate new and healthier things into their diet (instead of cutting out), we naturally push out the things that are not necessarily fueling their body properly because there is no room left for it. If you cut something out you always need to replace it with something new to fill that gap. For example: cutting out soda means you replace that with water to fill that gap or instead of eating that ice cream after dinner, you go for a nice relaxing walk. Once again, we have filled the gap. Our main fuel isn’t the food on our plates. It is all the other things around us that make us feel stable and connected like family, friends, job, exercise, finances, spirituality, love, etc., these things are our primary foods. The food on our plate is our secondary food and serves as energy to keep us alive and well.

Currently, I also work as a personal trainer and Corporate Health Coach for the company Trifit Wellness. We believe “Good Health is Good Business” and work with companies to lower their healthcare costs by implementing a wellness program that gets their employees healthier and happier and in turn, we help the company save money on their health insurance premiums. I am incredibly passionate about this as we get to make a much bigger impact in our community by working with large groups and teach them how to get healthier and continue to live a healthy lifestyle longterm.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
As far as big changes are concerned, I am not exactly clear on that at the moment. I have many things I want to do and accomplish. I am currently working on getting certified in a pre/postnatal training certificate. My goal with this is to eventually have a program for moms that includes exercise and nutrition. I am still figuring out the details on how this will look like in the end.

My son is only 14 months old and I want to make sure I always make time for him, so I am not sure how deep I will dive into these things right away. We will see what the future holds. I am always open for growing and taking on new opportunities.

Pricing:

• Health & Nutrition Coaching 1 on 1 $199 a month
• Online Personal Training $125 a month

Contact Info:

• Phone: 6234149637
• Email: enslizzie88@gmail.com
• Instagram: @lizzieens
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/lizzieens
• Other: IN Lizzie Ens

Image Credit:
Brandon Sullivan
William Choles

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