Today we’d like to introduce you to Jen Allen.
Hi Jen, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My love for nutrition and fitness started when I stumbled into my first CrossFit gym 10 years ago. Up until then I had never lifted weights. I was a long distance runner recovering from a tough marriage and an even tougher divorce. At that time of my life I felt weak, insignificant and small in every sense of the word.
For the first 3 months of CrossFit I hid in the back corner, awkwardly trying to move a barbell and praying no one was watching me. I was uncoordinated and had so little muscle that I could only squat the empty bar on my first day.
Over time I got physically stronger. But, truthfully, what was the most life changing for me wasn’t the physical transformation – it was the confidence and self-esteem I found along the way. I was a shell of a person the day I walked into that gym. Over 10 years later I can truly say I’m a different, more alive, confident and healthy person. It transformed and healed me from the inside out and truly breathed new life into me. I’ve seen firsthand how building physical strength contributes to more mental and emotional resiliency and health. And I feel very passionate about helping other women experience this in their own unique way as well.
Prior to coaching, I spent the bulk of my career working in the Emergency Department – first as a nurse and then as a nurse practitioner. After nearly a decade of working in emergency medicine, I left the ER during Covid and began working in a local health clinic doing nutrition coaching for their weight loss patients. I discovered that among my patients there was a massive knowledge gap around how and what to eat. The majority of them were suffering from food and diet overwhelm, moving from one extreme diet to another, killing themselves with excessive cardio and calorie restriction, losing some weight but inevitably gaining it back.
I noticed that the struggles with weight loss were amplified for my perimenopausal and menopausal clients. Many of them were doing everything women have been told to do to lose weight – “just eat less and exercise more”. On paper they were doing everything “right” but still not seeing results. It struck me that we never really have any formal education about what or how to eat. And unfortunately, the internet is full of garbage information that usually just sends women from one extreme or fad diet to the next without any balance that makes results actually sustainable.
What I also knew very well is that most women aren’t getting ACTUAL weight loss support from their primary care practitioners. And that’s not to blame the providers – the majority haven’t received much more than basic nutrition education as a part of their medical training. I’ve also spent many hours in clinics observing the education that patients receive with regards to weight loss and sadly, the advice is often still the same – “Eat less, move more” or, more recently, the solution they’re offered is a prescription for GLP’s. But the truth is that neither of those is always the right answer for every patient. And I feel strongly that patients deserve better guidance – especially when it comes to understanding how to support their own health and feel content inside their own body.
That’s ultimately what led me to create my coaching business, Rebuilt by Jen. I wanted to create a coaching experience that combined my medical background with my education in nutrition, lifestyle and mindset strategies, and strength training, but also gave women the kind of individualized support and education I felt was missing.
Today, I primarily work with women over 35, helping them lose body fat, build muscle, and develop habits they can actually maintain long term.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Well, the journey to really finding this calling wasn’t smooth. What I can see looking back is that what I’m doing now in my coaching was born out of the darkest time of my life following my divorce. And in retrospect, I’m full of gratitude for that experience because it showed me firsthand how much building strength and making healthy choices to support our body can translate into more confidence, better self esteem and greater resiliency in every other area of our life. I bring that into the way I coach – encouraging women to look at more than just the scale and we build an appreciation of the process itself into their journeys. I think this is why so many of my clients leave my coaching program as a very different version of themselves – they learn to see things differently, they feel more confident in themselves and in their own abilities and they appreciate things about themselves in a new way.
The road to building my business has been full of ups and downs also. I knew when I started my business that I wanted to bring resources and opportunities for sustainable change to women struggling to lose weight. And that’s what I’m really good at. What I’m NOT really good at is all the backend tasks required to start, build and continue to grow a business. I’ve become a student of marketing, technology and sales — none of which I particularly enjoy. But I recognized very early on that if building my coaching business was important to me (and it is), then I would have to push myself outside of my own comfort zones and figure out how to do this.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I own Rebuilt by Jen, an online health and fitness coaching business where I specialize in helping women over 35 lose body fat, build muscle, and rebuild a body they love. But the foundation of all of this is helping them learn how to maintain their results so they no longer feel like they have to spend their entire life dieting.
Many of the women who come to me have spent years trying to lose weight. They’ve tried just about every diet out there, and often come looking for help because the things that worked for them in their 20s and early 30s aren’t working anymore. Many are following the outdated advice to “eat less, move more.” Or they’re coming to me after trying GLP’s and losing a lot of weight but then regaining much, if not all of it. And then some come because they’re on GLP’s and feel terrified about what will happen when they stop taking them.
A big part of what I do is help women understand WHY that’s happening and what they can actually do about it. I teach them the strategy behind successful weight loss that actually lasts long term. As a nurse practitioner, certified nutrition coach, personal trainer, and menopause coaching specialist, I’m able to bring together the medical side of women’s health with the practical application of nutrition and strength training. And because many of my clients are 35+ and in perimenopause or menopause, my medical background and education is an important part of the equation.
One thing I’m really passionate about is education. I don’t want women to have to rely on a coach or follow a meal plan for the rest of their lives. I want them to understand how to feed their bodies, how to apply appropriate dieting strategy to their own unique life, how to train effectively, and how to adjust their approach as their bodies and lives change. So I teach my clients what we’re doing and why we’re doing it so they’ll know how to do it for themselves after our time together comes to an end.
I also think one of the things that sets my coaching apart is that I don’t believe every woman needs the same approach. Some women need to lose body fat, others have spent so many years restricting calories that we actually need to spend time rebuilding their nutrition habits and getting them comfortable eating MORE before we ever focus on weight loss. And for others, the biggest missing piece is strength training. Amazingly, some of the most common advice I find myself giving women is to eat more and workout less. A lot of the journey feels incredibly counterintuitive which is why I think coaching is such an incredible asset for women to bring into their journey. Many women really need a trusted guide walking them through the process because the answers to success aren’t always what we expect them to be.
I think what I’m most proud of is watching the transformation that women undergo as we work together. Of course, I love seeing them reach their weight loss goals. I love celebrating the wins of things like needing to buy new clothes because they’ve lost so much weight the old clothes no longer fit, or getting messages and pictures from them feeling confident in a swimsuit on their family vacation again – those are awesome. But truthfully the part that I love the very most is seeing them change as a person during the process. Almost nothing makes me happier or more proud than seeing them become more confident in themselves, more confident in their own capabilities and strengths, less fearful about how to keep their weight off, more loving, kind and appreciative of their body. I say all the time – weight loss is awesome, but becoming the version of you that’s capable of reaching that goal AND holding onto it – that’s the gold. That’s the part that medications and quick-fix procedures can’t give you. That’s the win that my clients earn for themselves and honestly, it’s the internal growth and transformation that makes the weight loss stick.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
I think my definition of success has changed quite a bit over the years. I’ve always been a very a goal-driven person. I love setting big goals, working toward them, and seeing what I’m capable of accomplishing. This year especially, as I’ve balanced a growing business with a lot of family responsibilities and commitments, I’ve spent a lot more time thinking about what success is to me. And I think what I’m realizing is that true success boils down to whether you’re building a life you actually enjoy living.
For me, that means working in a career that I really love, connecting with others and doing work that genuinely makes a difference in people’s lives, and still having the time and freedom to show up for my husband, children, family and friends. It’s also very important to me to feel proud of the person I’m becoming along the way.
I think about this a lot in my coaching because there are so many parallels between weight loss and just about every other area of life. I tell my clients all the time that losing weight isn’t necessarily a success if you’re miserable getting there, sacrificing everything you enjoy, and can’t maintain it once you reach your goal. I feel this same idea present in so many areas of life, including building a business. You can check every box, reach every milestone, and look incredibly successful from the outside, but if you’re constantly stressed, unhappy, or sacrificing the things that matter most to you in the process, that doesn’t feel like success.
So I guess to sum it up – success to me is being intentional about the way I grow my business and how I spend my time so that I find a work-life balance that doesn’t leave me feeling depleted and like I’m missing out on important things with the people I love the most. And when I think about success as it relates to what I do inside my business, I can tell you that I set an intention for each and every client that I work with that when our coaching time together is complete, that their life is better because I was a part of it. I think if women walk away from the time they’ve spent with me and feel like they’re a better version of themselves because of it, that’s pretty incredible success.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jenallencoaching.mvsite.app
- Instagram: @jen_allen_coaching
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebuiltwithjen
