My Journey to Wellness
By Carl Powell

Fitness Expert, Carl Powell 

I have had a magnificent journey. My life has been comprised of many steps that have taken me down a road of constant evolution. This is the story of my evolution and the lessons I have learned along the way.
At 16 years old I weighed a little over 200 pounds and simply got tired of being the fat kid. I had no idea of how to lose weight intelligently so I did the only thing I knew would work. I starved myself and started running wrapped in plastic, garbage bags. Not smart, but luckily my young body could handle that and I lost 80 pounds.

At age 18, I was still starving myself and found another way to keep those pounds off –diet pills. One day I was on a bus in San Francisco and I met Molly Fox. She told me that she taught aerobics and invited me to her class. After one aerobics class, I was hooked!

Within a year I started my fitness career working as an aerobic instructor. I simply enjoyed moving and motivating others. I felt that I had found my gift.  My first big break in fitness was getting a job as a back round dancer on the syndicated exercise program The Morning Stretch.

In 1984, I got a job managing the aerobics program for four Gold’s Gyms in the Bay Area. For the first time in my life, I was skinny. That is when I started lifting weight religiously and gained 40 pounds in muscle. I spent my every free moment working out and taking every supplement known to man.

The first time I realized I was out of balance was in 1989 when I was working as the Exercise Specialist at St. Mary’s Hospital in San Francisco. As I helped overweight people set up fitness programs and realize their fitness goals (and hopefully their dreams). As I began teaching them about moderation, I came to the realization that I was not practicing what I preached.

In 1990, with six exercise videos under my belt, I began traveling the world teaching my brand of dance aerobics. I started teaching hundreds of fitness buffs and instructors at a time at fitness conventions all over the world. I did this for the next 10 years and enjoyed every magnificent moment.
In 1998, while traveling through Germany, I went to see an exhibition called “Anatomy Art”.  It was an awe-inspiring journey inside the human body and evoked my very first “Aha” moment.   Up to that point, I had been looking only at training the body from the outside.  Suddenly I realized the complexity of what was happening inside!  And it was at this point I decided to take a more whole approach to fitness and began to study and concentrate on Mind/Body fitness techniques.
In 2000, I moved to the island of Maui in Hawaii and began to intensely study Pilates, Yoga and Hawaiian healing techniques.  It was here and then that I discovered the ‘missing link’ – the connection between my work in the disciplines of Pilates and Yoga and healing.

In 2003, I came home to visit my mother and found her depressed and with very little energy. I decided to move back for a few months to help her and spend some time with my family.   Those few months at home became a permanent move when, at the suggestion of family members, I opened a wellness studio there. I had been teaching fitness classes 25 years and had spent 10 of them traveling and training worldwide and felt it was time that I settle down and make my own dream come true.

I opened a wellness studio unlike any other, built on the idea of creating a wellness community.  I called my dream The Magnificent Body because I believe that we are all born with magnificent bodies.  It is how we manage and treat them that divide us.  The Magnificent Body is not just a place to go and get a good Yoga or Pilates class. It is a place where you can leave your problems at the door.  A place that feels and looks like a Hawaiian holiday. The entire decor is tropical and the air is full of Aloha.

Each day we are provided with opportunities that can allow us to transform into our best or our higher selves. The virtues by which we live have a major influence on our ultimate outcome. I have found that there are three steps we must take to assist in this transformation.

1. Appreciate -Take time to count your Blessings daily.

2. Facilitate - Become active in your own growth and healing processes.

3. Meditate - Pause, Breathe and Reflect.