MAKING FITNESS A PRIORITY
By Daniel Dancer
As a Veteran I always asked myself this question. Why isn’t fitness a priority? In the Marine Corps, everything was tied to fitness. Especially being an infantry Marine, this was life. The strongest fastest Devil Dogs would receive high levels of respect. So naturally, upon separation, I decided to continue on with this tradition. My wife and I wanted to build a community of support that combined mental health and fitness. However, looking at the political state of the nation and how quickly a pandemic can spoil motivation, I knew we were in trouble from the start.
ADAPT & OVERCOME!
The financial strain during the pandemic has really been hit and miss. Some people can afford to make fitness a priority, but others struggle with their living situation and work. This has been hard to watch. “I want to be strong and lose weight but I feel like I can’t afford it,” one of my clients explained to me. I truly believe that everyone deserves to be healthy and fit if they desire it. So in order to make things work, we had to be creative and start giving back. Single parents, mental health, Veteran and law enforcement discounts, whatever it took to make it work so we could train clients. This quickly became who we were and are today. We branded ourselves “Camp Freedom Fitness”.
Last year, we became an LLC. Lives have been changed, and we started to grow faster than we could keep up. We launched our clothing line of hoodies and tanks which sell out within weeks of arriving. Our biggest slogan is “Outlast Your Pain”. This was created due to people suffering from depression and suicidal ideations. The idea is that life will get better, but you have to outlast your pain in order to see it happen. As a Veteran, this is my inner slogan.
THE ROOT CAUSE
My drive comes from suffering in silence like so many others. As I mentioned before, we wanted to build a community that combined mental health and fitness. The body will do what the mind tells it to. So if we are struggling with depression and issues that prevent us from mentally wanting to get out of bed, it will be impossible to workout or eat right. As a coach, this is the biggest fight. Everyone is struggling in some way. It’s usually relationships and not feeling loved. This has come from training and working with individuals for over 8 years.
My time at Wounded Warrior and other places has taught me so much about inner struggle. Mothers who don’t feel love from their children. Fathers whose children have been taken away. Divorce, breakups, death, the list goes on. The truth about some of these tragedies is that there’s no immediate solution. The only solution for a problem that can’t be fixed is love.
The most important thing we do is love our clients. This is why they become family. We cook for them, design programs for them, mentor them, and remain available when needed. We check up on them and really just walk with them through Hell if that’s what it takes. Eventually, they climb out of depression or climb out of the situation holding them down and things get better. Just this year we have seen families come back together. Clients who never thought they would find love again find love and get engaged. Weight loss that led to a mother being able to run and pick up her kids again. We have so many amazing stories, and they keep coming.
FORWARD MOTION
I can speak at length about what our future goals are and how we plan to change this industry, but I want to circle back to the main question.
The reason why fitness isn’t a priority is because in most cases you need emotional & physical health. You can be fit and still be depressed. You can also not be fit and be happy. I think for us Veterans, it’s different because we are different. We need more than most people because we have given more than most people. Over stimulated, over worked, hardships, and trying to fit in during a pandemic is pretty difficult for us. So we need love that’s consistent in our lives. We need more mental health help and we need to take care of our bodies. I hope this article helps someone.
LET'S GET STARTED!
Getting started can be daunting but it’s not as bad when you have a coach. The number one issue we struggle with is diet. Working out is good but cutting fat and keeping it off is all about diet. Let me quickly introduce you to intermittent fasting.
Intermittent fasting is my go to for people who are new to dieting. But it also has amazing benefits such as Lower insulin levels, higher HGH levels, and increased amounts of norepinephrine (noradrenaline) which all increase the breakdown of body fat and facilitate its use for energy. In other words you eat less, burn fat, and have more energy.
There are a different types of intermittent fasting schedules. The easiest one is 12 hours you can eat and 12 hours you fast. During the fast coffee and water are allowed but steer away from adding anything to the fluids as it will disrupt the process. During your time to eat it’s ok to eat what you normally eat but stick to the fasting times. The goal is to build consistency.
I love this diet because most people can stick to not eating from around 8pm-8am. You choose the times that work best for you and again enjoy the benefits. Here are some other benefits of intermittent fasting:
Manage hormones
Improved blood sugar control
More energy
Burn visceral fat
Better focus throughout the day
It’s best to talk to your doctor before trying intermittent fasting, especially if you have any underlying health conditions.
This journey wouldn’t be possible without my amazing wife Deanna. She’s the CEO of Camp Freedom Fitness. She cooks for our clients and does all the back end, behind the scenes work. I run the programs and coach the clients. The best part about this journey is that most of it is online. Most of our clients are all over the US. We send them workouts, build their diets, coach them, and train them. Having an online platform means we can work with more people more often. You can always find us on Facebook at @campfreedomfitness. We would love to meet you.