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Kati’s Fit Kit
Strength and Community: Breakthrough’s Story
In February of 2014, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. You can imagine this was a huge shock, since as a trainer, I prioritize my health and fitness. But unlike type 2 diabetes that can be prevented and controlled with healthy eating and exercise, there is nothing I could have done to prevent myself from getting type 1. For some mysterious reason, my pancreas simply stopped producing insulin.
Of course it was a big adjustment to learn how to take care of myself with my new condition, but most importantly, my diagnosis was a wake up call to take action! It was a reminder that we have no idea what life will throw at us or how long we have to live it. It was a reminder that time waits for no one, and if I had things I wanted to achieve, I needed to put a plan in place and get going!
Caleb and I took a few months to learn as much as we could about type 1 diabetes and make the shifts we needed to make in our life to manage it. As soon as we felt settled, we put the wheels in motion towards a longtime goal we had: to open our own training gym.
We have two powerful reasons for why we opened Breakthrough, and they continue to motivate us everyday to do what we do. Number 1 is that we want to help as many people as we possibly can transform their lives with better health and fitness! Prior to opening Breakthrough we were teaching clients from our home, or commuting to their homes. We love these clients (most of whom are still with us at Breakthrough) but we knew we were limited in how we could grow and how many people we could reach this way. It was hard for people to know about us at our home, and commuting to our clients would take up a lot of hours in the car that we would rather have spent helping people reach their goals.
Reason number 2 is that we know we have something special to offer. Most importantly, we wanted to deliver a different gym experience from what you will find in most other places. Sadly, a lot of gym environments are places that can be intimidating, with overly competitive members and apathetic trainers and staff. We are so fortunate to have at Breakthrough a community of coaches and members committed to each other and excited to see each other succeed!
We also wanted to create a place where we can help not just already strong and fit people get better, but a place where people who “never thought they could do something” learn that they can! Our training philosophy is rooted in the knowledge that prioritizing strength training works for just about any goal. We have also seen and experienced that the confidence that comes from developing physical strength carries over into other aspects of life. In my case, knowing that I am physically strong definitely helped me know that I can handle life as a diabetic and I don’t have to let it get me down. This concept is summed up for us in our mission statement:
Breakthrough Strength & Fitness is a school of strength. Our mission is to help people improve their lives by building strength of body, mind, character and spirit. We educate others in physical practices that improve the quality of movement, build strength and protect the body, while sharpening the mind and cultivating calmness of the spirit. We are dedicated to practicing, developing and sharing strength in all its forms.
Our motto is “Celebrating the strength in us all!”
We are so grateful to all our of members and everyone who has helped make Breakthrough the community it is. We know this is just the beginning, and we can’t wait to see everything we can continue to achieve together!
Strength & Love, Kati
PS – As we approached our one year anniversary a couple of months ago, we asked a few of our members to share their Breakthrough experience in a video. You can check it out here!