My name is Debbie Mikolajchak! I am a former PE teacher and Personal Trainer, a proud mom of 2 boys, Blake and Nick, and a happily married wife to Larry. We have lived in Spring, Texas a suburb north of Houston since marrying.
The struggles and challenges I’ve had with confidence, body image and self-worth during my formative years have made me passionate about what I do. What I’ve been able to overcome in the past is what drives me to show up each day and work with people to know what they are capable of. I know the plague of perfectionism, the disease of negative self-speak, the self-destructive eating behaviors and the shame of anxiety and introversion.. I’ve broken through so much of what I just assumed were innate character flaws, and I feel obligated to help other women feel empowered to break through their own. I truly believe ANYONE can achieve amazing fitness results and a balanced life of happiness and purpose.
My faith and family come first in my life, but I’m passionate about taking care of the earthly body my Creator entrusted me while helping others experience that as well. I’m an ACE-certified personal trainer and weight management specialist and former group instructor. But my career focus is online fitness coaching and business mentorship.
For many years, I taught PE classes and focused on my students health and teaching them skills that would keep them active for a lifetime.
My life changed when I met my coach, a cute blond who introduced me to a nutrient dense superfoods shake and virtual support groups filled with other positive supportive coaches. That ultimately led me to say YES to one decision that would change my life forever. I began my Beachbody coaching journey 4 years ago. For the past 4 years, I have been practicing clean eating, proper portion control, fitness accountability and I am happy to say that I am healthier than I’ve been in years.
After more than 30 years of teaching, and 3.5 years of being a part-time Beachbody coach, I resigned from teaching to coach exclusively. I am still a teacher, but my audience is just different. My platform is now more than just fitness.
I have traveled all over the world as a coach and made some of the best friends in the world through the community that Team Beachbody has given me. I found a fire that I didn’t realize was inside of me, when I became a Coach. I truly fell in love with helping my customers reach their fullest potential and now.
I also help my team of coaches do the exact same thing. I have found myself giving back by mentoring other women to grow a business that helps them live out their purpose and passion. We have built an incredible tribe of women all over the United States and we are working to educate others on how to fuel their bodies with real whole foods and regular exercise.
I truly want to help women ditch the diet mentality and feel their absolute best. Never in a million years would I have expected that this former PE teacher and baseball mom from Spring, Texas would retire her teaching job and work full time in my own health and fitness business . Clearly God had a plan for me, long before I ever saw the vision.
Where it all began….
Let me take you back and paint the picture of my journey to ultimate health, fitness and this business.
I was always big boned and already insecure and self-conscious about my body. My parents were small business owners who never exercised and weren’t into healthy eating. This led to some self-destructive behaviors and also started me on an intentional fitness routine for the first time at age 16. I was able to see some results with overtraining and undereating. Those results were fleeting. I continued to mistreat my body, as I finished my undergraduate degree in Kinesiology and developed PCOS and struggled with hormone imbalance and yo-yo dieting. My weight fluctuations and slow metabolism were frustrating.
Exercise became an outlet that made me feel empowered. Though still struggling with self-esteem, I enjoyed how getting stronger and fitter made me feel INSIDE. I became certified to train and teach group fitness after college and enjoyed that side work while working full-time as a teacher. I also taught PE classes at the local university.
I began to become truly empowered through teaching physical education, fitness classes and sharing that joy with others. As my two boys got older and became active in sports, I stopped personal training and teaching fitness classes.
A few years later, I was trying to do it all and be a Super Mom, Super Teacher, Super Daughter and my life was not my own and I found myself completely out of balance. I was teaching PE full time, attending my teens baseball, basketball and tennis games year round, plus I found myself becoming the primary caregiver to my elderly parents whose health was deteriorating. Mom had Alzheimers and Dad had cancer. I was determined to keep them living in their own home for as long as possible.
If that wasn’t enough, during this time, my brother was diagnosed with leukemia and he had 4 kids and a failing marriage. I was the only match available to be his bone marrow transplant donor. So, I knew I had to step up to be his donor even though I was teaching and taking care of my parents. So, I began the process of the bone marrow transplant harvest. It would take two rounds of harvesting, 3 weeks apart, with extra neupogen shots for my body to produce enough white blood cells to donate. When this bone marrow transplant process was going on at the hospital, my long lost sister began forcing my Dad to sign over his bank accounts to her. So, as soon as I got done with the bone marrow transplant I found it necessary to initiate legal action against my sister. I had to get a legal guardianship, over my Dad, before my parents money was gone and they would not have enough money left to pay for their expensive medical care to allow them to continue to stay in their home.
Then my sister-in-law decided she didn’t want to deal with a husband battling leukemia and left my brother taking 2 of the 4 kids with her. This broke our hearts and left me to help care for my brother when he was able to leave the hospital!
So with all this going on in my life, my health fell to an all time low. My adrenals were shot, my white blood cell count hovered under 2.0 and I caught every illness. I had constant infections and survived on antibiotics and steroids. So, I began my journey to take my health back. The personal trainer/health coach was totally out of balance.
Determined to take my health back, I started going back to the gym everyday, ate all organic fruits and veggies and antibiotic free meats and lots of supplements. I tried everything.
Well that cute blonde coach of mine I met online, introduced me to a nutrient dense, superfoods shake and introduced me to 30 minute a day at home work-outs. I realized these were the same workout programs I did when my kids were babies and I didn’t want to take to the gym. They were the best in home workout programs, but before I never finished a program on my own.
My coach and her team of coaches and friends in her virtual support groups were the most positive uplifting people I had ever met. So, in 60-90 days of drinking that superfoods shake my health improved dramatically! My white blood cell was finally climbing back up towards the normal range. My mindset was improving as I learned about personal development and balance and how to live a truly healthy lifestyle.
I am healthier now than I have ever been. I am never sick. Now that I have learned self-love and how to live a balanced healthy lifestyle, I am never going back. Moms are better moms, wives and daughters.when they are healthy!
