 excited to journey with you as we learn how to take your health back. Today we have a very special friend joining us from Winters, California. Her name is Leslie Lucero. Leslie and I go back a few years in Hawaii as we sat in church every Sunday morning having a great time and just sharing our blessings. We've done a few presentations and events and always had a blast. Let's welcome Leslie from Winters, California, who is the owner and trainer at Edge Fitness Academy in Cali. Now let's get started. Aloha Leslie. Aloha, thank you for having me. I'm so excited. I mean I know you're such a busy, busy lady and I captured you. My spec person Eric and I, we captured you and we're going to take all the energy out of the next 20, 30 minutes and share it with everyone. Let's get started and just share it with us a little bit about yourself before children. Okay, so my background is personal training. I've been a certified personal trainer for the past 11 years. I have also a certification in fascia stretch therapy and I'm currently going back to school for my bachelor's in nutrition. So you know for me this path in my professional career was really just to try to get people moving and then it just started evolving to learn to eat better and progress their lives in different ways other than you know just making money and stressing about all the things and so that's really what I'm here for. I'm not just a personal trainer. I love helping people transform their lives physically and you know from the inside out. Wow. I know that um from the very get go we were just two of us in church and then all of a sudden there was a third person that joined us. I said this is brought over here and then we're looking at your heart. So his name is Frank or AKA Frankie and I know that you guys got married and how long has it been that you you're married? So we've been married for eight years now. So it's it's been a long journey for us both. We did meet in Hawaii. My husband is from Winters, California. So that's why we're here and we have three kids. My oldest is seven. My middle is five and my littlest one is two. So I am pretty busy with just being mom. Wow yes full plate and I know that um I know that you're not going to just be mom because I know whatever you do you are all in. So one activity just give us the one or two activities that you are involved with with your children. Right now I'm actually coaching both my older kids soccer teams. I used to be a very avid soccer player growing up. I played all the way till I was in high school and now I'm coaching them and it's it's been a joy and it's also a little bit of um for me as a mom and and and that coach I have to really balance that because they have to realize that hey I'm mom but I'm coach on the field. So that's been fun and I get to you know get to share with them my knowledge of the sport itself. So that's been awesome. Wow just give us a little bit of insight. How is it being a soccer mom for both teams? How has COVID affected your teams so your children's teams and where and how they play? Right now you know in California the guidelines are that you we have to social distance as best as we can. They aren't mandated to wear masks when they're outside you know outside sports. So that's awesome in my perspective. You know last year we were supposed to have a season because of COVID. We didn't have a season and this is with all sports I think across the board not just in California. I mean you know across the our our states. So it's just really awesome to see the kids just enjoy being outside and being with their friends. It's it's amazing. I mean I can't even tell you as a parent to see the kids like run around and get sweaty again is I don't know it just really made my heart happy because these kids were so they needed it they needed the outlet. So they sure do kids are made to run around you know like you growing up in Hawaii. We're at the beach until we were purple you know. Play sand, play water. Then when we got older we used the McDonald's trays for hand boars when we were in the body. And so I'm so glad that you feel the value of your children being out there even though I'm sure it means a lot more laundry because now they're sweating and smelling a little different. But I don't mind it. That's what we want to hear. We don't mind it. So I know that you've always been an advocate for health and working out. I mean ever since I knew you you were always in the best of shape and and and you know when I was sharing with you the health journey you were right on it and we that's why we got along so well because we had the same goals and the same ideas about how to steward our bodies the way he wanted to. So please share with us your passion about this and how you turn that passion into business mentoring everyone to take their health back. Wow so you know I have to kind of tell you the backstory of the the exercise part. Growing up I was surrounded either I was on a basketball court or I was on a field. Like my stepfather is the high school basketball coach at Pro City High School so I was always surrounded by sports. That was like what we did you know as a family that's what we were surrounded by and I never understood it when I was younger until I got older. But I remember him saying things like you know when you're on a team you learn more than just playing that sport. You learn teamwork. You learn that it's not just about you. You learn how to lose. You learn how to just be professional whether it's like dressing appropriate when you're going to an away game. I used to just think oh you know dad he's just being strict. Oh he's just being so mean but as I got older I appreciated those little life lessons and then I graduated from college from UH Hilo. I had got my bachelor's in psychology and then I came back to Oahu and I was one of those aha moments of like hey what do you do now? I started working at Powerhouse Gym in IAEA and that's where I really started finding my passion. I was doing sales so I was selling memberships to the club you know I wasn't even a trainer yet but I would have to sit down with them and talk about their fitness goals and they would so like sit down with me you know for almost an hour sometimes because they're sharing with me how long it how how much weight they want to lose or what their barriers were and then I had to have trust that the trainer was going to deliver on all the things that I was hoping and writing on this paper. So I started asking what I got to do to become a personal trainer and you know I got the information, became a certified personal trainer. I ended up at UFC Gym which was opening its first club in Honolulu and that was pretty godsend. It was right up my alley. I was training martial arts and I just been an avid like athlete. I was boxing, I was modeling, I just knew that this was where I wanted to be and I was surrounded by intelligent professionals not just like okay do five reps you know it was they were so knowledgeable on the science of the body and why the body should be moving in this way and it just created this fire in me to build on it. So with that I started doing you know personal training at the gym and I was getting very successful there and started building a following and I was helping so many people not just with weight loss not just with like gaining body mass but just like having the confidence to date again or having the ability to reduce their how much medication they were on you know some of them were starting with five different medications and by the end of the six months they were training with me they were down to one. Wow you know so that was like huge for me and then I had my first my first child my son and like every mom you have to figure out the balance you know I wasn't able to hustle 12 hours a day which was like eight to 10 clients a day I had to find a way to maximize my time so that I could still be mom so we did move to California during that transition to winters and that was really scary you know I left home I left my following from home I'm a real local girl that I talked different up here I'm uh I look different up here so um that was a big a big barrier for me to overcome and so I started with like outside boot camps just to you know create some traction for myself for so people could know what I did I started doing personal training out of my garage um and then I opened Edge Fitness about four four years later so I was you know had these young kids I had my second kid I was trying to build the brand and then I built Edge so you know during COVID last year I unfortunately had to close my doors and take a little bit of a break because as we all know our kids all had to be home and they had to do school at home and I had to be there um so I I took that opportunity to be with my kids and I get kind of choked up talking about it because you know when you are very driven and you are a professional sometimes it's really hard to slow down and I learned a really valuable lesson because it was like do you slow down and lose that traction of your business or do you invest in your kids and that's what I chose as a mom and as a professional and so I recently came back and opened up my business again and it's been such a blessing to put the good work back out there um I did have to do a lot of talking with the Lord because you know with that it's a lot of internal um an internal sacrifice that you have to give because when you're working with whether it's personal training or fascia stretch therapy I'm I'm literally giving someone all my energy so that in itself is a lot and then to have three little ones my everything is really difficult so I'm here I'm back I'm excited to um rebuild edge to bring a broader um element to it because you know I was just having one location and I know it's a need for me to reach out for those that are not even in my presence so that's where I'm at now wow so true you can take a breath now but you had such great mentoring and you know I must say kudos to you because um where COVID is such a negative issue you turned it into a very positive thing because you made a great the greatest decision to invest in your children and because of the the situation you made that decision and you know what it's lifelong changing for your your three children as well as your husband your marriage and also your future clients will see that you truly loved your art and your your talent but you were able to walk away from it because something was more important at that time which was your family yes so congratulations listening you passed the test and now you know I I saw you disappear from Facebook and when I saw you I'm like I'm gonna grab her before she goes off Facebook again and um I just wanted to congratulate you and I've been watching everything you do and then just wondering where you were but I kind of knew that that's what you were doing so congratulations I'm so proud of you always thank you always and um I know that uh you have your the edge up and running again and I know we have a slide with you and some buddies in that room so I always know that buddy like 5 30 am class yeah you have their buddies when you do anything in life because it becomes more enjoyable when you do so yeah tell us more about this 5 am class so uh you know um I have a little bit of small group training as we call it it's not a huge class we don't have more than eight women in that particular class um I do have a class 5 30 am every day of the week and then I have a 6 am class um on Saturdays so couple things there for for a lot of people yes having someone there to keep them accountable is always going to be better for them to reach their goals or just to get moving again but a lot of it too is creating that small group to where um everybody has similar goals and has similar body types and lifestyle I mean not a lot of people get up at five in the morning to work out and then before they go to work so these are specific individuals that are looking to maximize their time and and that in itself tells me a lot that they want to learn they want to you know they want to get to their their goals to get a result but we do have a small group and then I also have personal training so that's me working with someone one on one and we have fascia stretch therapy which is the recovery part of um edge and what I try to do for all the clients that you know attend but in that particular shot there they are they've been with me since I think I've been here in winters so it's like been almost six years now and yeah they they are die hard so once I came back on the social media they were like you need I need to go to you you know so it's been really nice to have a warm welcoming back um it also has gave me time to reset so that I'm able to give them more wow I'm really excited yeah so you you've created more than a buddy system you've created a ohana yes yeah through thick and thin but you must be darn good because waking up at five that's a commitment yes commitment to not just want to be healthier and feel better and look better but they gotta want to be there and have fun so you must you know involve all of that within your training program so that's why them to wake up to get on their sweat clothes and get out there and start working out with you in the morning at five yes the science behind that actually so you know most people work out after they work so at the end of their day but what happens to the body is that's when your body really wants to rest right so I always encourage people to try to come earlier because that's your cortisol levels are higher you're able to maximize results earlier in the day versus later in the day and and it also affects your sleep when you are working out later in the day because your core temperature is raised we normally want your core temperature to lower in order for you to sleep better so I know for a lot of people sleep is an issue right you get sleep apnea or you have insomnia so that's that's kind of the science behind it the logic behind it that makes great sense and audience out there hearing that so be careful you're going to be waking up earlier because more people will be wanting to come to your class and maybe earlier you shared with them so be prepared Leslie yes you know there's a question from the viewer audience and I need to ask you how do you know when enough exercise is enough good question so there's two indicators that most people will feel one is extreme fatigue so most people will try to push through it I'm just gonna you know uh what did they say like no pain no gain and I actually say the opposite that if you're feeling pain all the time that indicator that maybe you're pushing it a little bit too much so overtraining is very common where sometimes people train more than there are bodies allowing them to for instance women we tend to push hard even through our menstrual cycle which is actually the time that you should be resting so maybe maybe a light jog instead of lifting weights would be ideal during that time and then also the other thing is injuries so whether it's like chronic shoulder issues knee issues I get this a lot that's why they come and get faster stretch therapy from me is that they get injured and even the most acute ways that's a big indicator that you're doing too much so you need to either rest your body give it better nutrients and have a better recovery plan well either I haven't been stretching out or working out that hard where I have this acute pain or I must be nutritionally fit so so must be I must be nutritionally fit because I'm not without that hard so I know that you train bodies physically so I you know this is a fun part for both of us how important is good nutrition let's see so my my rule of thumb is 80 percent of your result is your nutrition what you put in your mouth um you know I think what's really great to say about nutrition and now that I'm going to school for it it's it's on a cellular level that it changes you so every part of your being your physicality has a lot to do with what you put in it it's information to your cells so if you're putting in a lot of processed foods or junk food fast foods then that's exactly what's going to exude out so but when we say whole foods or eat real food I'm talking about food that's going to be brought in in a couple hours or in a couple days because they were not used that's what happens to real food they rock and so you want to be eating those kinds of foods not when it's rotten but you know when they're when they're they're fresh so putting those types of information in the body will increase your immunity it will give you more energy it will help with bowel movements so removing toxins which is a huge indicator why someone may not be losing weight is because they're not getting though that nutrient density of foods in their in their in their diet yes very important very important and you know I love hearing when young girls like yourself talk about bowel movements it's important yeah it's so important and like but you know before when we were like I was your age all the girls around me like oh what is she talking about you know how women speak all do do right why is she talking about and we Chinese we'd be eating dinner and we'd be talking about that because it is bloody important yes understand the BM and quality of BM and as we get older we really truly appreciate it but as young women especially they don't want to be talking about that but you know it's so important so I'm glad that you brought that up because um oh yeah that's how we remove toxins it's not just by sweating the biggest one we remove our toxins within the body is through our bowls and so I always tell my kids make sure you look at your poops yes you know what healthy poop looks like yes yeah and get them very comfortable with it so they understand and they're aware because most people they don't they don't like oh that's disgusting it's not it's part of you it's part of who you are it's a very real thing that happens on a daily or should happen on a daily basis yeah and so for some unfortunately doesn't but um we'll go on from there so I've been drinking my keel smoothie every day for the last 10 years and I know I caught a picture of you and you have a shake routine um that you do as well for you and your children I believe yes I do so I am a typical mommy of three young kids that at first it's very hard to feed them very fibrous veggies so I like to sneak their nutrients in smoothies and one of our favorite smoothies that we have is a very mixed frozen berry mix half a banana I have a green um it's called organifi which is a green superfood powder once you put water to it and then becomes live food and then I put in some spinach in there throwing some peanut butter because peanut butter is always great to have and then some almond milk so that's kind of our smoothie that we um have oh and protein powder I do put some protein powder in there and this is a plant-based protein that I use I um I do use a hemp-based protein because my son um that's kind of the guy the guy who catapulted my interest really into like I mean when I say that is as a mom you try everything you can right to figure it out and my my son had really bad asthma in when he was a baby and I couldn't understand it I was just like why he's so little and I learned how dairy can affect that because it produces more mucus production and so anywho um and then I learned about hemp protein and I found a really great one that tastes good and it's not just like you know um grassy like and really great on the stomach so for kids in particular and so that's what we throw in there and they think it's the greatest thing when I make the smoothie they don't really feel like a dessert yeah they don't think they're having a smoothie they I mean they really think it's chocolate no but you know the good thing is you're also creating their palate to receive that quality and oh yeah food yes so that's important that you're you're training the palate not just doing the right thing but for future as well yes and now my two older ones are very good at eating like I mean solid um you know green veggies especially so they'll eat spinach they'll eat romaine lettuce cilantro I mean and it's all due to the sneaking in those nutrients and training their palate yeah yeah that's that's so important and if we could do that even with the as young as kids you know like Chinese we we make juk which is we boil down the veggies and rice and we as soon as we can feed them food that's what we're giving them and so they're having all that green stuff on that in their body so they they don't have a problem eating it because that's what they were that's all they knew yeah so that's very important so there's a lot to be said about food and I know we're talking about real food fake food and I know that you're promoting real food as opposed to fake food so just give us some um other examples of what real food is and yeah so you know my whole thing too is I take I take clients on grocery tours because half the battle is like learning what real food is learning how to read labels and better higher quality foods I call them like the higher you know the higher quality grocery list so when you look at meat you know a lot of times people have a bad rap on red meat chicken because they they may have watched like a documentary um but if you know how the animal was raised then it's it gives you a lot of better mindset around it so moving to winters you know we're kind of in the midst of farmland and I had the opportunity when I first moved here to visit these farms I was just amazed I was like wondering why isn't there all these farm stands why is everybody still going to safeway when there's like a farm right there I it just wasn't you know connecting to me and so I took it upon myself to go on all these farm tours and to see like there's farmers still out here that do grass-fed beef you know maybe a wheat finish but the cows are roaming freely the chickens are like roaming freely they're not in cages where they're stepping all over their poop like what you would see on the main media so it's really has to do with like knowing where your food's coming from and how they're being raised especially meat because people get funky about that and then when it comes to veggies like being educated on what's the difference between organic why are you paying a little bit more for organic why is it why is it a better investment to pay a little bit more on organic because that's the feedback right like oh it's so expensive or I can afford it you know and and then at the same time meeting people where they're at so going down the line like organic's best locals great you know commercial vegetables is also frozen is your next option but you know giving and meeting people where they're at it's a transition because sometimes it's like taking caffeine you know cold turkey away from somebody gonna have they're gonna have major withdrawals they're gonna have it yeah and so food can be the same way especially if they use that as a as a comfort thing so um teaching them at that visceral level for me is so I'm so glad that you have that part of your your training that you take them to the grocery store but wow you're a local girl that does good wherever you journey you know why you bring the Loha spirit with you yes and I'm so proud of you for representing Hawaii well but you know we've come we've got to leave it there for now okay you've been watching Taking Your Health Back on Think Tech Hawaii Mahalo to Leslie Lucero local girl does good and represents Hawaii all over the world and wherever you travel with and as you continue with Edge Fitness Academy so thank you for talking and sharing your love and Oloho with us from California Mahalo to all our viewers for watching you're welcome I'm Wendy and we'll be back in two weeks with another edition of Taking Your Health Back Aloha everyone