Creative Life Fitness is partnering with Good Stuff Food Cart and Catering to offer nutritional plans to pair with training packages.
Creative Life Fitness' new location that is in the works and plans to be open in around three months time.
Editor’s Note: The Chronicle is working to assist local businesses suffering from the effects of the COVID-19 virus spread and associated government orders to close or limit commerce. There will be a feature on a local business in each edition of The Chronicle and at chronline.com moving forward. To be considered, email reporter Eric Trent at etrent@chronline.com. Additionally, The Chronicle will continue to offer its coverage of the coronavirus and its effects across the community, state and nation free outside of our paywall at chronline.com.
After seven years in the military and a couple years working in civilian law enforcement, it just made sense that Samantha Thayer would pursue a career related to physical fitness.
Thayer, a Toledo resident, is the owner of Creative Life Fitness, a women’s-only fitness center geared toward helping women lose weight, feel good about their bodies and reach their healthy lifestyle goals.
Thayer is a National Academy of Sports Medicine certified personal trainer and nutrition coach and started Creative Life Fitness, which currently operates out of Fitscape Health Club in Centralia, in August 2019.
“I’ve always been into fitness,” Thayer said. “Fitness has always been a requirement of the job that I had.”
It was after the birth of her second child that Thayer found herself overweight and struggling to do the daily tasks in life, such as simply getting up and down and taking care of her kids. It kickstarted a 16-month journey to get herself back into shape.
She began training with Terry Curry, former owner of Fitscape Health Club in Centralia, who was a champion women’s bodybuilder. Curry began training Thayer to prepare for a bodybuilding competition before Curry died in December 2019. The time spent learning from and training with Curry had a tremendous impact on Thayer’s life and philosophy.
“I just saw the importance of women having the ability to speak with somebody who has been in a position where they were severely overweight and getting back to a healthy lifestyle,” Thayer said. “And helping them reshape their mindsets on what fitness really is.”
Even minimal weight gain can have a negative impact on a person’s self-esteem and self-worth, Thayer said. It doesn’t feel good to gain weight.
“Even the 5 or 10 pounds when your jeans start fitting a little snugger, it really starts to impact your life,” Thayer said.
Thayer’s main focus in her classes and training is helping women regain their health and changing how they view their bodies. The training is what Thayer calls basic lifestyle mobility, which includes corrective exercise, weight training and nutrition guidance. She trains people who are working toward their first half marathon or 5K race. One of her clients is working toward a bodybuilding competition.
Thayer spent the past few months offering online virtual training sessions to work with clients while non-essential businesses were shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. Thayer can now train clients in-person now that Thurston County is in phase two of the state’s four-phase reopening plan.
Classes are currently being offered on-demand and by appointment. Most clients recently have been doing private one-on-one sessions. Thayer offers a free consultation for anyone interested, and then they can talk about a package deal that would fit their needs, hours and time that they want to train. Typical sessions last from 30 to 60 minutes.
“I basically can do classes whenever people are interested in them,” Thayer said.
She’s also flexible and will work wherever a person is comfortable, whether that be in a local park or traveling to a client. She’s versatile and willing to adapt to whatever specific goals a client has.
A single session costs $40 and there are multiple packages to choose from. A beginner’s package is four sessions at $38 each with a fifth session free. A package of eight sessions runs for $37 each, and a package of 12 sessions is $35 each.
Business has still been a little slow recently, however, as people are still hesitant on spending money, especially if that’s on a personal trainer, which is more of a luxury than a necessity at this time, Thayer said. But she’s confident that once everything starts opening completely back up with fewer restrictions that she’ll see an uptick in people that are interested in the training.
“Especially the women that find out there’s a space that they can go and train, and it will just be women-only and in a private setting,” Thayer said.
Thayer is also joining up with Cara Buswell, owner of Good Stuff Food Cart and Catering in Toledo, to develop a joint nutrition program for women. Buswell will prepare healthy meal options for Thayer’s clients, which will be a part of a package deal at Creative Life Fitness. It gives women an opportunity to change not only their physical fitness but also start working on their nutritional goals. It’s a pairing that goes hand-in-hand with developing and sustaining a healthy lifestyle.
“A lot of people focus on calories,” Thayer said. “They say they can consume, for example, 1,300 calories a day and it doesn’t matter what you eat. But if you’re filling your body with 1,300 calories of Twinkies, versus 1,300 calories of protein and good carbohydrates, that makes a tremendous difference on how your body starts to shape.”
Creative Life Fitness currently operates at Fitscape Health Club at 1610 S. Gold St. in Centralia. Thayer is also in the process of getting a private studio up-and-running in Toledo, where she lives. She still needs to obtain the required business permits from Lewis County but is hoping to have it operating within the next three months.
“That will offer one-on-one private sessions in a redone private facility,” Thayer said. “I’m really excited about it.”
More information on classes, prices and updates on the remodel can be found at Creative Life Fitness’ website at www.creativelifefitness.com.
More Information on Creative Life Fitness
Owner: Samantha Thayer
Hours: By appointment
Location: 1610 S. Gold St., Centralia
Phone: 360-827-1675
Website: www.creativelifefitness.com
•••
Reporter Eric Trent can be reached at etrent@chronline.com. Visit chronline.com/business for more coverage of local businesses.
