Hello, my name is Elizabeth Alvarez and I am the founder of FitnessFocus. Many people ask me how I got into the fitness realm. It all started during my first year in college when I gained the "Freshman 15" because I was making unwise food choices and had stopped dancing ballet after nine years. I felt lethargic and knew I did not want to end up obese and diabetic, which ran in my family. I began to research exercise and nutrition and lost the weight. I became passionate about how food and activity add quality to life and wanted to share this with others. That same year I became certified by the American Council on Exercise as a Group Fitness Instructor and began teaching step aerobics. I also changed my major from Business to Nutrition. I earned a B.S. in Nutrition and Food Science, Dietetics, from San Jose State University. Now, twenty years later, I am a mother of two girls and understand how challenging it can be to incorporate living a healthy lifestyle with family and work responsiblities. I greatly enjoy providing others with the tools they need to be successful. It gives me great pleasure to see not only how peoples' bodies change, but to see how their lives transform from the inside out.
