IFPA Certified Personal Trainer Takes It to the Next Level

IFPA Fitness Professional, Greg Raleigh has taken his health and fitness knowledge, education, insight and desire to help others, to the next level. Once he was certified, he dedicated himself to continue his education in the field and learn as much as he could through advanced courses. He has taken his oath as a fitness professional seriously and went above and beyond holding a clip board and counting repetitions for his clients. Greg had a goal not only to help others achieve results from their fitness programs, but to help them achieve a healthier quality of life. Day after day of working with adults as a personal trainer, he realized he had to make a difference and that his goal had to be different. He would have to start working with children before they reached adult obesity. From this desire grew a passion to get involved at a youth level and he formed F3 Food for Fuel. His goal was to be the best and to do the best job he could for everyone he could. Greg states, “your body is all that you have and if you take care of it, it will take care of you.” If you will make it a habit to always do your best, work your hardest and give it your all, the rewards will follow, and what better rewards to see than through the lives of our youth?”

Greg, after many years of hard work through Food for Fuel has implemented the International Fitness Diplomats program and has received national acceptance. The IFD program has been created by F3 (Food for Fuel), a non-profit group that is a division of Raleigh Communications. Raleigh Communications is a marketing and event planning organization that has seven years experience at organizing sport/clinic events. The organization advises corporations on how to develop educational programs and represents professional athletes. The organization has current ties to high schools in TX, CA, NC and Washington DC. 

The International Fitness Diplomats is a program that uses professional athletes from different sports to advise young children between ages of 10-17 on making proper nutritional choices. This is an effort to eliminate childhood obesity and the importance of staying in school. Currently there are 20 athletes from track, basketball, tennis, soccer, boxing, baseball, and football involved in the program. They visit young children during their off-season in selected cities such as Oakland, Akron, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Detroit. With the assistance of nutrition experts and coaches, they discuss, describe and demonstrate how proper nutrition and skill development can work together for living a healthy life. The program is forming partnerships with groups and universities that possess the organizational skills, thereby creating a cadre of future professional athletes willing to properly motivate school age children.

International Fitness Diplomats are trained, certified, fitness professionals; professional athletes and celebrities who teach basic nutrition and physical activity. The programs will begin in March 2005. The health and fitness professionals and athletes will visit local schools and youth centers for approximately one hour over a two-day period. Each event will be video taped and developed into a learning tool for future reference. Students will have fitness assessments administered by certified personal trainers such as body fat composition, measurements, weight and height, and blood pressure. Updates will be made and recorded at intervals of three, six, and twelve months. This valuable information will be used for student motivation, statistics and implementations of other programs. The research regarding the improvements in the students will be designed by groups such as the Registered Dietician Association and National Institute for Health.

One of the factors of the success of this program is attributed to the professional athletes. Professional athletes are the number one group of individuals that are used to sell a multitude of products and services from clothes to cleaning products. Professional athletes are high profile role models to many youth. We have successfully used athletes to change the eating habits of teenagers.

IFD continues to add athletes to the existing award-winning lineup of professionals involved in this program. The professional athletes that are connected with this program are ones that have some personal connection; either they or a relative has dealt with the results of poor eating habits or they have a desire to make a change in a young person’s life. There is overwhelming support of the initiative. Given basic amenities, the athletes are willing to volunteer to be a part of the program. These athletes, as well as our corporate sponsors, have created reward programs for the students and schools that offer the best results.

This program gets to the root of the problem where there is a void in the current school curriculums. Due to current fiscal crises throughout the public education system, most curriculums offer no physical or nutritional education. The current nutrition information offered to students is not presented in a manner to which they can either benefit or understand. Matched up with a visual of physical excellence due to proper nutrition and training, it illustrates the success of healthy eating from a general as well as a sporting perspective. The program will bring together a multitude of public and private organizations and health and fitness professionals to maximize the presence of professional athletes.

Testimonials

Dear Public Officials,

My name is Steven Grant and I am a student at the Catholic University of America where I am pursuing a master’s degree. I have known Greg Raleigh for the past two years. I first met him when he came to the athletic department here at the university to speak about nutrition and exercise. I do not know how I came to be at the athletic center that day, but I am very glad that I was there. Greg Raleigh’s speech made me understand the science behind nutrition and why it is as important to eat right as it is to exercise. Greg Raleigh spoke in words that I could easily understand. After his speech I chose to speak with Mr. Raleigh one on one to ask him a few questions about nutrition and diabetes.

In spring 1998 I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and I was having a hard time dealing with the mental and physical struggles of diabetes. Greg understood exactly the turmoil I was going through as diabetes has plagued his family for many years. About a year ago I started working regularly with Greg Raleigh to finally take control of my life and my health. Since then I have lost 30 pounds and I feel a great deal better about my situation. Greg not only helped me to control my diabetes and nutrition, but with his help I have also begun a weight training regiment that with time will bring me that much closer to the man I that I should be, closely monitored by Greg. Greg Raleigh has been a very positive influence on my life and I owe a great deal of my physical success to Mr. Raleigh.

Sincerely,

Steven D. Grant

Dear Public Officials,

My name is Kevin Jacobsen and throughout the past three years I’ve used the nutritional advice Greg Raleigh has given me to change my body from a 230 pound body to a 170 pound body. When I was 14 I wanted to play sports but I knew that I was vastly out of shape and any effort to be an athlete would be useless if my eating habits weren’t drastically changed. Only athletes at school are taught about nutrition by coaches and those students who can’t play sports are left to figure out nutrition on their own. This system clearly makes no sense because those students capable of playing a sport already have a way of improving their body’s conditioning and those who need the most help are left without any help. At this time my dad took me to Greg because he had known Greg through the University Club and knew that he could help me become more physically fit. I worked out with Greg for much of the summer before sophomore year and throughout sophomore and junior year. With Greg’s advice in nutrition and working out I noticed changes in my body. Before I met Greg I never really went by the three meals a day routine and eating fruits or vegetables. I ate at just about any time I felt like it and never ate anything healthy. By taking out all the sodas and starches and unnecessary calories in my diet and replacing that with water and Gatorade and eating vegetables and fruits, the way I went through everyday changed. I had more energy, which didn’t just help me become a better athlete, but helped me in other parts of everyday life. I was able to play JV football and Varsity football sophomore through senior year and Varsity rugby junior and senior year at Gonzaga High School because of the way Greg taught me to condition my body and eat the right foods. I intend to play rugby in college as well, which I never dreamed possible without Greg’s help. Schools don’t teach their students how to eat right unless they are under the supervision of a coach, so if there were a program to help students improve their eating habits and lose weight it would help an enormous amount of children. More and more people are becoming overweight and obese in America and the problem starts in schools with young people eating whatever they want without really knowing the consequences. With a more educated understanding of how to eat the right foods and when it’s ok to indulge in more high-calorie foods, many students would be better off and young people as a whole would be healthier. I’ve lost 60 pounds with the simple knowledge of what foods will help your body perform and knowing which will slow you down. Without the time I spent with Greg and the things he taught me about nutrition and working out, my body would still be 230 pounds or even larger.

Thank you