We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jordan Zendejas. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jordan below.
Jordan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
The mission behind starting Preps By JZ was always to make healthy eating accessible and convenient for people in my area. When I was a senior in high school I weighed 307lbs at one point, not only was I overweight but I had no idea what to eat or what I would need to do to drop the weight I wanted to lose. Through trial and error over the years I learned how to properly fuel my goals and give my body what it needs to meet them. To me, the mission is simple. Make sure that others in situations similar to mine don’t have to struggle the way I did by taking out all the guesswork of meal-planning, the inconvenience of grocery-shopping, and saving people valuable time in the kitchen!
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?
So I initially got into clean eating through necessity. I was 18 and was getting ready for my first MMA fight. My first fight would have to contested at heavyweight, unfortunately for me the heavyweight weight limit was 265lbs. When I started looking at options for matchups about 3 months out I weighed in at 307lbs. I was just an overweight high school kid who had never lifted a weight in his life. I started at ground ZERO. I would end up doing a bit of research and cleaned up my eating for my training camp and for my first fight I weighed in at 254lbs. I was good to go!
Fast forward a few years later and I’d be competing in Muay Thai, while competing for my last matchup I actually dialed in my diet more than ever and went through a pretty significant body transformation. I had a few teammates and friends notice and ask what I had been eating. Each time I’d jokingly say “It would be easier if I just made it for you myself”. Welp, I had a few of them actually ask me if I’d be interested in making their meals for the week and I thought it would be a great way to help my friends out and make some extra money so I said sure. Well within the month everyone had told a friend or two and even those friends brought some people in that needed meals. Before I knew it I had a full roster of clients and it became a new passion of mine. I’m proud to say that running my prep service has been the thing I’m most proud of in life, so far. I’ve gotten the opportunity to meet and work for some amazing folks. People from all walks of life, all types of professions, all kinds of different outlooks. I’m proud to have made even just a small impact in people’s lives. Whether it’s helping a high school classmate diet down for their wedding over the course of a few months or prepping for a lifelong friend’s parent to help get their health in check, I certainly love what I do and I’m very grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given to serve some of the amazing people in my area!
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
Yes it did, this started out as something I could just do on the side for a little extra money and quickly became my main source of income as it has been for the past 7 years. Over that time, it’s just been a matter of doing my best to keep clients happy with fresh, exciting meals and making sure I’m helping them with reaching their goals. If I can do that I have a lot of confidence that they’ll keep spreading the word and sending people my way.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I can’t really think of a specific story because to me it has really been a journey so far. Ups and downs, highs and lows. Great times and very hard times. I feel like when you work for yourself and your income solely depends on you and your performance it brings a type of pressure. At times I’ve used that pressure to 500-600 meals in a weekend while other times I’ve let myself get overwhelmed by the workload. Luckily in what I do, I get the opportunity to give my best effort every single weekend and there is always a way to improve upon the week prior!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://PrepsByJZ.com
- Instagram: PrepsByJZ
- Facebook: Preps By JZ
