Kelly Von Schleis, the CEO and founder of Luxefit, chatted about her latest endeavors with her new digital health app.
Luxefit is a luxury body transformation app that provides a “health and fitness retreat in your pocket” to help encourage fit and healthy lifestyles for women ages 25 to 55.
Von Schleis is an ACE certified personal trainer and health coach in Los Angeles. She also writes regularly for Oxygen, Strong Fitness, and Status Fitness Magazines, where she provides women with her perspectives on health and fitness, as well as healthy cooking based on the recipes she uses in her own house.
Transformation program
Von Schleis noted that she is launching the first Luxefit Transformation Program in early May, which is a “21 Day Health Retreat from your Pocket” that was created to help people reach your health and body goals while also focusing on daily mindfulness.
This 21-day program is designed by a team of expert health and life coaches, elite fitness trainers, yoga instructors, skin care and beauty experts, meditation coaches and healers, as well as certified gut health experts and clinical nutritionists.
Von Schleis is also hosting monthly buzzworthy Luxefit wellness events in collaboration with designer lifestyle and fitness apparel brands.
Thus far, Luxefit has been entirely self-funded, which Von Schleis says she is currently in the process of seeking investor support for 2023, which will help the business, expand resources, launch new merchandise, improve production quality, and deploy luxurious, live wellness events to support the community.
Traditional healthcare IT consulting to digital health
For over 10 years, Von Schleis pursued a career traveling as an IT healthcare consultant for hospitals, customizing software that helped save millions of additional lives per year.
After doing a deep self-discovery following a very difficult and stressful period in her life, she felt a strong calling to uncover what it felt like to finally look and feel her best.
Finding her passion as an elite celebrity personal trainer, Von Schleis experienced firsthand how clients required more structured support than personalized workouts in order to reach their health and fitness goals, which complements her experience actively teaching Pilates, HIIT, and cardio boxing.
“Society often associates being thin with being ‘healthy’, but this isn’t necessarily the case,” she said. “Overall health and happiness, in addition to a sexy body, requires an overall fit lifestyle, and I want to help as many women and men as possible to look and feel their ultimate best.”
She stated that in creating the underlying infrastructure for the mobile app, she felt that there’s an abundance of apps on the market for fitness, meal planning, meditation, intermittent fasting, and sleep – however, “there is a huge lack of mobile apps that provide a structured program that considers overall mind and body wellness.”
While Von Schleis still works a full-time job in healthcare IT as a Lead IT Programmer and Project Manager, she has continued to build her brand, wearing the hat of the creative and business owner.
“Filming content for the app also includes luxurious nature scenery for workouts and meditations, while incorporating engaging high quality footage,” Von Schleis said.
“The quality of the videos will blow you away,” she admitted. “The brand’s vision is aesthetically pleasing, leaving you feeling aware of your senses, invigorated, and blissful.”
Two years of isolated, self-discovery
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted consumers in ways that are still being untangled and navigated when it comes to understanding mental health, fitness, and of course, our ability to “re-introduce” ourselves to society through cultural norms of everyday interaction.
According to Von Schleis, the pandemic “specifically changed our perception around food and nutrition.”
“We now have unprecedented access to research-based information to better understand the connection between nutrition and wellness, which has led to greater personalization of diets,” she said with charisma.
Nevertheless, our health sector continues to face the challenge of an overwhelming demand by consumers for “health to come to them,” rather than taking the time to find new avenues in addressing their personal health and fitness goals.
Speaking to Millennials and Gen-Z
Having grown up in a digital age, most millennials and Gen-Z, according to the Luxefit creator, are “missing out on the benefits the traditional health sector offers.”
“While Gen-Z may be the most health conscious, taking on a more holistic view of health, they also have the highest rates of mental health issues,” she explained. “There is a strong correlation with valuing themselves via social media, living on their phones, and always being in a rush to succeed. They are missing out on the personal connections and communication and emotional skills that the Gen X and Boomers developed.”
She revealed that she follows a low glycemic diet free of refined sugars and starchy carbohydrates, something she says there is little to no information that is easily accessible to people on these types of diets as it concerns the extreme differences between healthy fats (such as monounsaturated, polyunsaturated fats, and omega-3 fatty acids like avocado and coconut oil).
“Less than one percent of your diet should come from trans fats and nearly everyone who does a ketogenic diet is consuming significantly higher percentages of trans fat,” she advised.
Recipes for Success
Von Schleis shared some recipes of her own, which she has designed for both her and her Luxefit community.
“I’m very passionate about my healthy, guilt-free recipes,” she exclaimed. “I love recipe ingredient swaps that allow me to eat my favorite foods and still feel satisfied and never deprived – while watching my waistline.”
She offered the following suggestions: “For recipes that call for ‘heavy cream’ or ‘half and half’ – use coconut cream or evaporated skim milk.”
“If you’re craving that carb-heavy pasta, turn to ‘low glycemic pasta’ options including chickpea, red or green lentil, black bean, quinoa, and/or almond flour spaghetti. Other options include Hearts of Palm linguine, edamame spaghetti, cauliflower pasta, kelp noodles, spiralized vegetables, or shirataki noodles,” she said.
“For rice lovers, get rid of ‘white rice’ and use brown rice, black rice ‘also known as forbidden rice’, or cauliflower rice,” she said.
“For salad aficionados, choose dressings that are made with coconut or avocado oil,” she added.
To learn more about Kelly Von Schleis, follow her on Instagram.
