Iowa Profile: Fairfax health coach uses faith to achieve fitness goals

If diet and exercise were easy, everyone would do it, says one area health and wellness coach.

But because it's not, Jill Boogerd has decided to use religious faith as a motivator in her exercise and nutrition consulting business.

Boogerd, a 44-year-old Fairfax resident who is based primarily in Cedar Rapids, owns and operates Team Recharge, which uses a faith-based method to help clients achieve their wellness goals through diet and exercise.

'I believe that when we get stuck in our normal day to day, we forget about taking care of ourselves,” she said. 'We need a recharge, and that can mean spiritually, emotionally or anything.”

Boogerd is a longtime fitness coach and nutrition consultant, but began incorporating Christianity into the lessons only in recent years.

She opened Team Recharge in 2017. Before that, she had been an office manager at the Midwest Athletic Club, or MAC, from 1997 to 2015.

Boogerd earned a certification as a faith-based health and fitness coach in 2017 from Revelation Wellness. The Arizona-based not-for-profit was formed in 2010 to educate instructors to become missionaries in the field of health and wellness.

Boogerd consults with clients both virtually and in-person.

She also teaches classes at CrossFit The Challenge in Cedar Rapids, where classes begin with a Bible verse and end with a prayer or meditative time. Boogerd said some of the motivation she uses during classes also can have a religious meaning.

The goal of incorporating religious beliefs into wellness goals is to help her clients channel motivation from another source.

'When you seek God for help and strength, there's a sense of calming. You don't need affirmations from other people, you don't need to look elsewhere for reassurance that you're fine. (Faith) gives you everything you need.”

Boogerd enjoys helping people understand their worth through fitness. She said working out can be empowering, particularly when someone sets out to accomplish a task and successfully does so.

'When you are seeing the progress you're making on your own, you don't feel the need to compare yourself to someone else,” she said.

More information about Boogerd's faith-based health and nutrition coaching can be found on the Team Recharge website.

Comments: (319) 368-8536; michaela.ramm@thegazette.com