Meet Samaria Cozart, a personal trainer whose mission is to enlighten, inspire and ignite healthy lifestyles.

She aims to provide an active healthy lifestyle by providing individualized fitness and nutritional programs specifically designed for each client and their healthy lifestyle goals.

In an interview recently she talked about her fitness journey, her experience with FitBudd, and more.

How has been your fitness journey? How did you start and how is it going?

"So, I was pretty active growing up as a kid.I played a few sports when I was younger and then when I got off to college I stayed pretty active, I would go to the gym with friends.

I was a student athletic trainer, so that required a lot of running and you know trying to keep up with athletes, so that helped me stay active as well.

And then once I graduated from college I went and got my masters in exercise science. It helped me learn more about the body and about exercises, exercising and just different ways like for different body types and things of that nature.

So that's what really prompted me to get into fitness and helping other people."

From a trainers lens, how was your experience during the pandemic?

"It was pretty difficult at first because I had just initially launched my business at the end of 2019 in November. So initially I started off with in-person clients and was building my clientele.

So then the pandemic hit like March 2020 I was like, oh my gosh, like how am I going to, manage my clients, what am I going to do to be able to accommodate everybody and you know, with knowing that I can't meet them in person.

So, I initially keep my clients as I could online, which was a bit difficult at first because I was trying to learn how to send them the plans because it wasn't the same.

I utilized zoom and started creating fitness challenges online, keeping my clients engaged and it also gave them accountability and was using spreadsheets to create a file to make it more interactive.

So, initially, it was very hard but as time went on I adapted to it."

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How were you managing your clients before FitBudd and how has been your journey with the platform?

"It definitely helped me out because like I said, I was making like a spreadsheet, I eventually learned how to make like a booklet where I can incorporate pictures and I would just send it as a pdf.

But with FitBudd it helps a lot because I could contact them and everything was in one place like I was either emailing, one person or texting another or talking to somebody else on social media.

With the FitBudd app, I'm able to upload videos of myself and access the portal where there are exercises that are already prompted and we just added our portal. That helped out a lot as well. But yes, I've loved having the app. As I said, it makes it much easier.

I can now contact my clients straight on the app then now video call, do online sessions or if I just want to have a consultation with the client, I'm able to do that with the app as well.

And now even the payments are at one place as I was using Paypal at one point wherein you have to track everything on your own from payment received or not to right email id or name with it. But with FitBudd it definitely makes a world of difference, especially in the times that we're in.

And some people are still not comfortable meaning in person then for like the trainers ourselves, we do everything upfront with the app, and then the app does everything we needed to do on the back end, so it's definitely been a great help."

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Who is your fitness inspiration?

"I wouldn't say, I have a particular person that's been like my fitness inspiration like I would more say my inspiration is the clients because my biggest thing is just helping other people and their journey wherever they are in that journey. So that's what motivates me more. Because I understand the magnitude as a trainer, what if I have to show other people, to keep going and to keep pushing, I can't just tell my clients, to do one thing and I'm not doing the same.

I sort of use my clients as my inspiration to keep going because I understand that there are people that are looking, you know, looking up to me or looking at me as a fitness inspiration."

What all social media channels are you leveraging to market your personal brand?

"I would say Instagram is like the heaviest and one of the biggest platforms I would say I use because I feel like I may reach more people and I still do have a business page on Facebook, so I know that's a different, brand or like the category of people that I may be able to reach on Facebook, so I still definitely utilize that.

I try to use my Linkedin when I first launched the app, to just share that milestone and I try to go back and forth and just share milestones with the app as well and occasionally I post things on Twitter.

But like I said, I would say Instagram is like the biggest platform that I utilize, engage with my clients, cause that's where I get more, you know, feedback and get more engagement."

What does 'Igniting Healthy Lifestyles' mean to you?

"So, igniting healthy lifestyles, that's my biggest thing, That's my motivation, that's my mission when it comes to my business. A lifestyle is something that's constant, is not just, short term, and I've read something where it takes like 21 days to break a habit, but 90 days to create a lifestyle. So I try to, even base my plans on, like taking 21 days at a time as the first 21 days is going to be the hardest.

I try to break it down like let's start here, let's calm, like accomplish one goal at a time, no matter how small the goal is, or you know, small the accomplishment may be to them, it's an accomplishment and you're working towards something.

So I really like to just take the clients and just like I said, just totally shift their mindset and their lifestyle. That's just starting with one thing, like changing your eating habits.

And if we're not even seeing weight loss the first 21 days or such, if you've changed your eating habit the next 21 days, it'll be easier because now you're eating healthier, now you're exercising, so then when you combine those two things you look up down the line, it's like, oh wow, I'm a totally different person!"

If you could have a Billboard, what would you write on it and why?

"One of the things that I tell clients is "If you never give up, you never have to start over."

"If you never give up, you never have to start over."

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So if I had a billboard, I think that's what I would just put up there.  And the reason is to understand the importance of never giving up and, you'll have some shortcomings sometimes, but understanding that starting over to me is the hardest part because you're trying to mentally get your head back in there physically get your body back in.

But if you maybe take a break, but don't give up completely, if you never quit, you never have to start over again!

Just keep pushing and again, like with the igniting healthy lifestyles, just changing into the lifestyle being consistent looking for the long term, not just right now.

And, that's a wrap!

A spirit to never give up sums up the entire journey of Samaria Cozart. She has designed her personal brand to ignite healthy lifestyles through personal fitness and nutritional plans that are created specifically for your DNA.

Like Samaria Cozart, many other fitness trainers are now using the power of their own fitness app to expand their fitness business and train people worldwide.

Stay tuned because we'll come up with many more interesting stories from fitness professionals from different parts of the world.

Click on the play button below to watch the entire interview!