Hi, my name is Karen Kelly. It is difficult for me to tell you in a few paragraphs about my life’s work. I have been a fitness professional for 44 years and have felt blessed and fortunate to have had a career where I have influenced lives for the better, used my gifts, met such incredible people, led group exercise, personal trained, and helped people move with less pain and limitation, and stay fit as they have aged. There really aren’t words for how I feel, except I have absolutely loved it from the first time I laced up my Reebok aerobic shoes and stepped to the front of a class ready to lead the participants in an hour of music, sweat, and fun!

You can trust me, which means a great deal in a world that has become more about what something or someone looks like or the next new trend or fancy technology, and not as much about the longevity, substance, integrity, knowledge, and expertise someone or a new trend or technology has. Although I still have so much to learn, I can finally call myself a master fitness and health professional. I am well educated in both exercise and nutrition, hold numerous NCAA fitness certifications, have a life coaching certification, am an ordained interfaith minister, and am a soon-to-be certified healing touch practitioner. I believe in a comprehensive, holistic, realistic, and lifetime approach to fitness that creates balance in all aspects of the body, mind, and spirit. This approach has worked tremendously well for my clients and me over the past four decades.

My work has not been a job; it has been a gift that I am deeply grateful for. I have instructed thousands of fitness classes at fitness facilities all over the United States, personal trained hundreds of people in fitness clubs, in studios I have owned, and now online. I’ve taught classes at two colleges and a university and have been a nutritionist at Canyon Ranch Resort in Tucson, Arizona, and for two county health departments. Looking at my career, from my current vantage point, makes me realize it has been ideal for me. I have been of service, which I have always strived for, and I have been able to learn, teach, help people heal, and take care of my own health. Lastly, my career has given me the ability to dance, move, and create, all of which make my soul sing, and best of all, I’ve been able to share them with others.