You’re So Fly: Dana Galbraith

You’ve built such a personalized approach to health and fitness coaching. What inspired you to start Fenici Fitness, and what’s been the most rewarding part of helping clients transform their lifestyles?

It all really began in college when I was struggling to feel confident again, manage my weight, and figure out what was “wrong with me.” I had tried so many different plans and programs without anything sticking, and I couldn’t figure out what to believe — everyone seemed to have contradicting opinions. People in the space were so harsh and rigid: this is the only thing that works; you just need more discipline, work harder. I’ve always been fascinated by the human body and its complexities, so I decided to change my major to exercise science and go all in on figuring it out.

Once I experienced the incredible impact that gaining confidence over my body, health, and lifestyle had on every facet of my life, I knew I had to help other women do the same. After graduating, I was living in Orlando and started working at a high-end health club, where I quickly saw a huge gap between the service I wanted to provide and what I was actually able to do in a gym setting. I had limited contact with clients outside of our 30-60 minute sessions, and during that time, I couldn’t meaningfully address the areas that make the largest impact on overall health: nutrition, lifestyle management, sleep, stress, gut health, hormones, and more. That’s what inspired me to branch out on my own and find a way to deliver services that would actually change someone’s life, rather than serve as a band-aid for the 8-12 weeks they’d come in for personal training.

Once I made that leap, women started coming to me with far more complex issues that a simple workout or nutrition program wouldn’t solve. We needed to address decades of ingrained patterns and behaviors, autoimmune conditions, perimenopause and menopause, chronic hormone imbalances, you name it. These women were so often overlooked and forgotten by the health and wellness space, left to fend for themselves in a sea of misinformation, and that broke my heart. Every woman deserves to feel good in her own skin, through every transition of life. That’s when I fully transitioned into women’s health coaching with an emphasis on gut health, hormones, functional nutrition, and what I like to call the “complex cases.”

The most rewarding part of this work is giving women their spark back, helping them feel like themselves again. I think most of us have experienced a season of life where we’ve let ourselves go, and the chronic discomfort of not feeling at home in your own skin sucks. Not feeling good in your clothes, avoiding photos, moving through life trying to hide yourself, that’s no way to live. So when a client tells you she hasn’t looked at a photo of herself and actually liked what she saw in over ten years… you simply can’t replace that feeling. Watching clients carry forward the lifestyle we built together and continue to change their lives is the most incredible honor I’m lucky enough to call my career.

Many people struggle with consistency when it comes to health and fitness. What advice would you give to someone trying to create sustainable habits that actually fit into their real life?

Oh my gosh, just about everyone! Consistency is arguably the hardest part of the journey, finding what works for you and your lifestyle and then maintaining it over a long enough time horizon to truly see results. The best advice I can give is to set the bar low. Build your habits around your worst, busiest day or week and use that as your baseline. Setting the bar too high (or too far from where you currently are) is the fastest path to disappointment and staying right where you don’t want to be.

If you’re sleeping in until 8:00am right now, there’s a massive gap between that and waking up at 5:30am to work out five days a week. The brain hates change and hates challenge, so it will do just about anything to protect itself from both. It’ll come up with a million excuses — why you shouldn’t work out after work, why you can’t wake up early, why you should just “start tomorrow.” Rather than committing to an hour-long workout five times a week, tell yourself you’ll go to the gym for just ten minutes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. What you’ll find is that more often than not, you end up staying longer than those ten minutes. But on the really hard days when you truly don’t have it in you (or the time), you still did what you said you were going to do, and that is what builds the confidence and belief that you’re capable of lasting change.

And I know most people won’t actually try it — but if you’re inconsistent and reading this thinking “yeah, okay, like that’s going to work”… you’re probably exactly the person who needs it most.

With certifications ranging from corrective exercise to functional nutrition and women’s fitness, how do you tailor coaching to fit each individual’s lifestyle and goals rather than using a one-size-fits-all plan?

It starts with a comprehensive intro call where I gather a deep understanding of a client’s history, goals, preferences, and lifestyle. From there, where applicable, I’ll recommend a starting set of labs and perform baseline movement assessments to identify any muscular imbalances, and we build from there! When I say everything is custom to the individual, I truly mean it.
For example, two clients can come to me with the same goal (say, losing weight and feeling better in their bodies) and their programs look completely different. One might need to prioritize gut health and stress management before we even think about ramping up exercise intensity, while the other is ready to dive into more intense strength training but needs her nutrition and sleep dialed in around her hormones. Same goal, totally different roads to get there.

I have core pillars I focus on with every client, but how long we spend on each one depends entirely on their starting point and progression. Workout frequency and duration are based on lifestyle and goals; nutrition is tailored to personal preferences, goals, and lab results. If we need to put a greater emphasis on gut health, hormone balance, corrective exercise, or mobility, we do. Sustainability is the foundation of everything I do, and a one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t align with that philosophy.

I wish there were a clear-cut program that worked for everyone (it would certainly make my job more straightforward!), but the reality is, there isn’t. My goal with every client is to graduate them. I want someone to stick around because they genuinely want to, not because they feel lost without me. I have no interest in getting someone a result for six months only to have it not stick and watch them backslide back to square one.

You’ve been part of the Flywheel community since December. What has your experience been like working from Flywheel, and how has being in a coworking environment impacted your business or daily routine?

It’s been amazing! I’d been fully remote and working on my own for a while, so it’s been such a relief to have a place to come that isn’t my home office. I have three dogs, and even with a dedicated office space, the distractions are constant. Flywheel has been a game-changer for my focus and productivity. Beyond that, it’s been wonderful to connect with other people who are building businesses and brands. Working from home full-time can feel pretty isolating, and being part of this community has genuinely made me feel less alone in the process.

It’s also helped me establish a real boundary between work and home life. When your office is ten steps from your living room, it’s hard to ever truly unwind — the work is always right there, waiting… lurking behind a closed door. Having a dedicated space to come to has given me so much more mental clarity and the ability to actually switch off at the end of the day!