Sarah Koudouzian, a fitness instructor who’s trained celebrities and TV personalities, will host a fitness and wellness seminar Saturday with the South Texas Health System Bariatrics and Weight Loss Surgery Center.
Dubbed “Transform Your Life,” the free event will consist of a live cooking demonstration and a fitness routine from 10 to 11:30 a.m. in the conference room of the South Texas Health System Heart Clinic in McAllen.
In addition to the fitness routine and cooking demo, the event will also feature a mini health expo where attendees may receive free health checkups, screenings and information on programs and services available at South Texas Health System.
A second session will be held from 1 to 2:30 p.m. both in person and via Zoom.
Space for the in-person event is limited. Participants must register online at STHSActive.com by Friday to receive clearance.
Those selected to take part in the in-person sessions will be notified by email before Saturday’s event.
A fitness instructor known for training Latin artists like Prince Royce, Chiquis, former Miss Universe Dayanara Torres and the Rio Grande Valley’s own Emeraude Toubia, Koudouzian said her mission with this event is to give people the tools and tips they need to sustain a healthy lifestyle.
While she does train paying celebrities, Koudouzian decided to offer free seminars to the public because she is no stranger to the challenges of getting on track of fitness goals.
Koudouzian, who is the CEO of BootyFit Workout and the USA Today best-selling cookbook author of “Chiquis Keto,” said her fitness journey had a bumpy beginning.
The Los Angeles trainer said she knows the struggle of finding motivation because she was once an athlete, before suffering a career-ending injury.
Her lack of mobility pulled Koudouzian into a depression and caused her to acquire unhealthy eating habits.
Without her coach’s guidance she struggled to pull herself out of her depression and back into practicing self-care.
It is because of this experience that Koudouzian is an advocate for lifestyle changes and attempts to touch as many people as she can with her methods.
Despite the limitations presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, Koudouzian found ways to reach her audience in quarantine via Instagram.
“A lot of people are looking within,” she said. “Especially at the first stages of quarantine when everybody was looking really inside themselves to see what kind of changes they wanted to make for themselves and knowing that the healthier people were handling COVID better.”
Koudouzian is taking the pandemic as an opportunity to preach her philosophy of health and wellness and remind her followers of what fitness truly means.
“Fitness doesn’t mean conforming to a certain size or look, that’s not my method,” she said. “It’s not about that, it’s about really making a long lasting transformation for yourself.”
