Alexa Cheekes wants to create the best you

Holistic health coach Alexa Cheekes digs a lot deeper when it comes to working with her clients on their journey to better health and wellness. Starting as a fitness instructor approximately two decades ago, through her own experiences, she recognised there was much more to health than just looking physically fit. She has consistently upgraded her training with the best in the industry worldwide to be able to use it to transform lives. She told WMN about the healthy way to go about a Carnival transformation.

"As human beings, we encompass not only physical but mental, emotional and energetic bodies. Trinidadian culture is a very physical one. At this time of the year, there are many people doing everything in these last few weeks to have this outer appearance, using fat burners, no-carbs and crash diets; even water pills to name a few. What they do not know is that this does a lot more harm than good to the body and becomes detrimental to their health, especially their organs," she cautioned.

"My first part-time job was actually as a receptionist at The Fitness Centre, Starlite branch. From there on, I knew I wanted to do something in the field of fitness." Throughout her early career, she became certified in many disciplines, namely, personal trainer, spin and aerobics instructor. In 2004, she had an emergency hysterectomy after having her daughter and realised that her regular high-intensity training just didn't work for her body anymore. It was then she started to investigate the pilates world where she went on to become a teacher in Pilates mat and the pilates reformer machine, as well as in the area of injuries and special populations training. This became her passion for a while as it was a softer approach to exercise, and it helped her to start to connect the mind and body through training and create more awareness of breath with movement.

"What many people fail to understand is that it depends on your lifestyle to determine what your body truly needs physically, and we need to tune in a little more and listen to our bodies," she advised.

"If you work in a stressful job, for instance, and your body is tired, the last thing that we should be doing is going to exercise, as it adds more stress to the body. Stress is stress. The body does not know how to differentiate between the stress you induce on the job and what you create at the gym on a cellular level, so it's important to know what type of training is right for you."

After teaching Pilates for several years, she recognised that there was an emotional disconnect within her clients who were improving their body but not focusing on their whole being. She decided to expand her knowledge once again and focus on holistic health coaching with the CHEK Institute. This programme opened her eyes on dealing with her clients on a much deeper level and helped her to channel her clients' focus on individualised plans and not the typical cookie-cutter programmes that were out there.

Her move to wellness coaching comes from her desire to improve not only her clients' lives but her life as well.

"As a coach, you need to lead by example; you cannot give your clients advice on something when you are doing something else." This approach forced Cheekes to start to pay attention and focus on her life in all realms of health and wellness.

"You have to walk your walk, especially in this industry. All eyes are on you, and people sometimes see the physical and they don't know what may be going on with you emotionally and how that emotion can affect you on a physical level."

Two years ago, she battled anxiety and knew there had to be a way to heal herself and come off of medication. One of the biggest lessons that she learnt through this process is that it's okay to reach out for help when needed, and if you genuinely want to heal, you can. She connected with one of her classmates through one of her holistic courses, and she hired her coach.

"This helped me understand what I was going through was because there was an imbalance in my body. I thought I was eating well, but I wasn't, not for my body. I thought that because I was eating well, I didn't need to supplement, but was I wrong!" she noted.

"The foods that we are getting do not have the nutrients as before because of the poor soil and the number of pesticides being sprayed. Our bodies have to work that much harder to remove the toxins within ourselves." So once again, digging deeper, she is pursuing a career path of bio-energetic practitioner with the Quantum Institute with the same coach who had helped her to transform her life in the last two years. Bio-energetics allow practitioners to look at the root causes of what may be causing issues in the body, using an instrument to test the bio-meridian points of the body.

For Cheekes, her approach to health is simple. The body must be looked at as a whole to achieve optimal health and balance. What may work for one person nutritionally may not work for another.

"The key is to listen to your body. All disease stems from the gut. Marketing has a huge impact on what we do in society, but we must learn how to trust our intuition. There are so many different diets and so much advice out there of what we should and should not eat. The key is to let our intuition guide us."

Her simple and uncomplicated advice?

"Start with the three pillars of health. Are you drinking enough quality water daily? Are you sleeping enough to give your body rest? Are you pooping every day?" Where nutrition is concerned, her advice is to recognise that we are all different. Something may be deemed healthy but not necessary for you. She said simple tips to decrease inflammation in the body include "eliminating dairy, soy, grains, corn, and wheat. Try to eat whole, unprocessed food and grass-fed meat if you can. Drink lots of quality water, cut down on your sugars. Do not eliminate fruit and vegetables; our cells need them.

"Know what supplements your body needs daily too," she advised. Balance, she noted, is essential.

"I go by the 80/20 rule, so I still eat out. And if you see me out I may be enjoying a nice meal at a restaurant that bends the rules a bit – that's all part of life – but again in balance.

"When I wake up, I meditate for a few minutes each day and start my day with gratitude before I move on to do what I love – my work. And remember this, being healthy is the purest form of self-love."

Join Cheekes and six other fitness trainers in fitness for their Unity Bootcamp every Sunday at Peake’s grounds in Cocorite, at 7 am for the next three Sundays leading up to Carnival.