GAUYAFIT is a VALUES-driven company making waves for positive change from the individual on out to ever expanding community circles.

My Vision, Mission, and Brand (GAUYAFIT) are all focused on helping Active Agers (60-85 y.o.a.) live fit-, full- and free lives with endless possibilities and positivity throughout their entire life. My mottos are:

"less stress + MORE JOY for the health of it."
"Fitness = Freedom"
"You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf."
At this pivotal point, WE must learn to be adaptable, resilient and more stress-resistant. WE have choices that we can make that will help us become more adaptable, stress-resistant, resilient, healthier and happier. We can always learn to do things differently. All it takes is having an open mind and a Growth Mindset.

I have helped people via creating individualized, holistic, lifestyle fitness plans based on their unique needs, goals, desires, and vision for their lives for the past 30 years working in person (one-on-one and with groups/offline). I am 100% passionate about what I do. My goal is to scale my business in order to help 1,000s of people via taking my offerings online (going virtual and digitizing my content and programs).

Graduating from high school, I wanted to become a doctor.  In hindsight, I think that I wanted to prevent people from dying like my mom.  I enrolled as a Pre-med. student at Bucknell University with high hopes.  I thought that if I applied the same discipline and work ethic that I had throughout high school, I would succeed, but I was wrong.  At the end of my first semester, I was on Academic Probation with a 2.0 GPA.  I was told that I must be one of the “experimental candidates”/ “a weed” (i.e., someone they accepted into the program and most likely would fail).  One of my fellow Pre-med. students actually said this to me.  My family was expressly disappointed in me. “What’s wrong with you?” For the first time in my life, I felt like a failure and the strategies that had always worked for me in the past were not working.  

In December 1981, I decided that my “Jan Plan” would be to go on Outward Bound in the Mahoosuc Mountains of Maine for a 10-day cross country skiing and snowshoeing expedition.  This 10-day experience challenged me physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to a degree that I had never been challenged before.  The temperature never got about 0 degrees and with the windchill factor, it was -10 to -30 degrees.  Several of the men in our group were helicoptered out due to frostbite. Everyday, we got up at sunrise and navigated our way through the mountains for 6 to 8  hours a day.  It was brutal and there were times when I just wanted to give up and go home, but I didn’t.  I made it through and my Outward Bound experience became a transformative Inward Bound experience.

I returned to Bucknell with a ”I’ll show you” attitude.  I switched my major to Biology and Psychology (Psychobiology was not an option) and decided that I would do what I could to keep people healthy and prevent disease.  I graduated in 1985 with a 3.5 GPA as one of two students to graduate from Bucknell with a triple major (Biology~Psychology~German).

Back in the mid-80s, I knew that exercise, nutrition, and stress reduction were keys to longevity and increased ‘health span’.  I went on to Teachers’ College at Columbia University and got a master’s degree in Nutrition Education with a concentration in Applied Physiology.

One of my ‘gifts’ has always been my insatiable curiosity and desire to be a life-long student; always learning, growing, and evolving both personally and professionally at the cutting edge of Mind/Body Medicine and Holistic Fitness.

In the late 80s, I became a student of Buddhism and yoga following the deaths of my first love and brother (both died in their early 20s) completely unexpectedly.  Once again, I was hit with ‘life waves’ that I was ill-equipped to surf.  My Catholic faith did not work for me.

At age 30, I was introduced to the concept, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf” while doing my first MBSR-training for health professionals with Jon Kabat Zinn and Saki Santorelli at The Omega Institute.  This concept deeply resonated and influenced the evolution of my business and brand.

In 2018, The GAUYAFIT S.U.R.F.E.R.S. Method  was born out of 30+ years of life experience and continued education. I am currently on a mission to help Active Agers become confident, resilient, adaptable, stress-resistant, and holistically fit “Life Surfers” living with freedom, joy, and vitality into their 60s, 70s, 80s, and beyond.