Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Bree Christiansen. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Bree, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Is there a heartwarming story from your career that you look back on?

Not very long ago I had a new client come to me. She was fairly overweight and had the common goal of wanting to lose quite a few pounds to look better and feel more confident, more attractive. She not only didn’t feel good in the skin she was in, but it was affecting her mentally causing depression and anxiety and was having a direct and indirect impact on her professional and social life. And this wasn’t for a lack of effort. She had tried the counting calories and dieting, tried this pill and that quick fix, went to the gym and did workouts multiple times a week. All the “right” things. But nothing sustainably worked, and she started getting worse and worse, thicker and thicker.

She found out about me, and as we dived in, I uncovered that she also had some physical aches and pains that hindered her, especially with her profession, to the point she was even considering possibly surgery or just about anything to get the pain to go away. And furthermore, she also had some growing digestive and hormone health problems, which sadly are soooo common today.

Together, she and I created a sustainable, enjoyable, and comprehensive program that focused on helping her body to be FUNCTIONALLY fit and well. We improved her body’s biomechanics including her mobility and flexibility, which was so impactful that her aches and pains drastically improved (no more talk of surgery or doctors for the pain!), and the workouts we were doing were nourishing rather than damaging or depleting for her body, which gave her efficient and pain-free results.

A “Nutrition Blueprint” was created for her to help her eat according to traditional principles that her body needed, in a highly enjoyable, sustainable way. This did NOT include counting calories or macros but focused on bringing about better balance and function to her cells and systems; it wasn’t a diet but a guidepost so she knew exactly what to eat and what to avoid, including specific brands and items that were delicious AND nourishing.

Incorporating the functional fitness with what I call “fluidity” (aka mobility, flexibility, etc.) and the traditional nutritional principles created an outcome where in approximately four months time she lost 20 pounds by doing it the “right” way, gained considerable strength, significantly reduced and nearly eliminated her pain, drastically improved her digestive and health concerns, and most importantly…. felt better than she ever had in the past. All by helping her body be nourished by the specific details of how she moved her body and the fuel she fed it.

And the most exciting part? This is just the beginning.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hi, I’m Bree, your in-person and online personal trainer + functional nutritionist for strength training, sports performance, weight loss, injury prevention, and improved health!

The day I was born, the delivery doctor told my parents I was a survivor. I guess I had too much excitement for this life even then, as I entered this world TWO MONTHS ahead of schedule, weighing in at a mere 3.8 lbs! Because I came so early (and was an emergency C-section arrival) I’ve had to deal with some unpleasant health issues from day one.

As I got older, these issues became increasingly apparent. Not long after arriving at college, I started ending up at Urgent Care and the E.R. I saw specialist after specialist, doing test after test. Not only was nothing helping, but I was getting worse.

At this same time, I was entering into both the dietetics program at my university, as well as online Naturopathy schooling, passionately hoping to learn how to help myself and others be vibrantly healthy. Come to later find out, many of the things I was being taught to do to be “healthy” – even in some cases within naturopathy – was actually hurting me and causing my health to continually decline.

And because I would workout hard not paying much mind to being fit in a comprehensive, healthy way, just wanting to be skinny and strong, I experienced multiple physical injuries.

I tried nearly every “physical therapy” modality you can think of and nothing was sustainably helping. I became extremely limited in doing any of the activities that made me happy.

All this to say…I know what it feels like to be trying everything you know to do and yet still be in pain, discomfort, and not achieving the results you want and are working toward.

Out of sheer necessity, these combined life challenges have led me down a path of having to discover in a whole new light, sometimes quite unconventionally, principles of what and how to truly be FUNCTIONALLY fit and well.

Combining my formal education with my life experiences, I work with my clients utilizing my F3 System that incorporates functional Fitness, Fluidity, and Fuel. In a bespoke manner, we incorporate elements such as functional strength training, mobility and flexibility, conditioning, and traditional nutrition principles to bring about better function and performance of your cells and systems. In so doing, you get excellent results for your fitness, health and life.

www.theofficialbree.com

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I know what I’m about to say is still somewhat unconventional. But one of the principles that I’ve learned, including in my formal dietetics classes, is that the best way to lose weight and keep it off, is to count calories and macros.

I was in college and was learning these principles. Even though I wasn’t overweight, I cared a lot about my body image, and incorporated this into my lifestyle. I worked out nearly every day of the week, including a lot of heavy cardio. I’d limit my fat intake since it was higher in calories, and tried to eat as little as I could to be skinny and look good, and also because I thought I was doing the right things to be healthy.

But, after not all that long of doing this, I had a body that was starting to break down in ways it never had before. I had aches and injuries that I never had before. I started getting thicker and thicker with my clothes barely fitting. So what did I do? I ran more and went to bed many nights hungry to try to lose weight. Not only did this not work, I got worse and worse.

Fast forward, and over the years I’ve worked with many clients in a similar boat. They’re eating low calorie, they’re counting macros, and they’re exercising. But they’re not, at least sustainably, experiencing the fitness AND health results they so desire.

Instead, I learned to focus on what I call “traditional” nutrition principles, focusing on bringing about better balance and function to your cells and systems by truly nourishing them with what you eat. I focus predominantly on the source of the specific food you’re eating (for my clients this often times means which specific brand to make sure x, y, and z ingredients are avoided), and making sure they’re getting enough of the traditional fats and nutrients in the form nature intended.

In so doing, like I experienced on my own journey, this brought about sustainable weight loss, improved strength gains, and vastly improved health outcomes. And, it’s enjoyable. It’s not restrictive. It makes you feel good. Our bodies aren’t laboratories, and shouldn’t be treated as such.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

People, clients, can always feel when your heart is really in to what you’re doing, for THEM. This isn’t a cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all job to just check a box. Each client isn’t a number, isn’t a job to get done with for the day, but a person coming to you, putting their body, and in multiple ways the quality of their life, in your hands. When they know and feel that your care is genuine, that they truly mean something to you and that you will go above and beyond to help them specifically, it’s a game changer. This is a people business, and when you make them feel like they’re the only thing that matters, that they’re still on your mind and important even outside of your face time together, it goes a long way towards building a very strong reputation.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theofficialbree.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.official.bree/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theofficialbree
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bree-christiansen/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-official-bree-phoenix