Congrats again to the winner of the FBG Anti-Diet book giveaway!

Jennipher Walters, Fit Bottomed Girls CEO and co-founder/author  was kind enough to do a little Q & A with me recently.

Jess: Jenn, I’m super-excited to share your book with my readers—love the positive vibe. So often we hear about the benefits of making “little changes,” and I love that you guys give so many examples of what a little change can be! Right in the intro of the book, you mention that healthy living is about adding more fabulous stuff to your life. Love that. What’s one of the most basic fabulous things we might not think about adding?

Jenn: Down time! So often we’re rushing to fit everything in (our workouts, to-do lists, etc.) that we forget that we actually need time to just be. And a lot of us even feel guilty when we take time for ourselves! That’s why in the book we preach the importance of relaxing and unwinding. Stress reduction is just as important as fitness and nutrition when it comes to health. And it doesn’t have to take a long time! Just five minutes of quiet or reading your favorite magazine or listening to your favorite relaxing tunes a few times a day can make a huge difference. Give yourself a break!

Jess: What have been some of your favorite parts about writing and publishing this book?

Jenn: The whole thing was an awesome and slightly terrifying experience, to be honest. Writing a book is a bit of a daunting task, and I’m SO happy I could do it with my friend and business partner/FBG co-founder Erin Whitehead. We definitely work well together and write really well together. So some of my favorite times were us brainstorming some of the 10-Minute Fixes in the book and even just tweaking each other’s writing to make it a little more fun or a little more usable. It was also just really, really cool to have a chance to take EVERYTHING we’ve learned personally, professionally and via our readers on FitBottomedGirls.com and put it into a complete guide. Having it as a reference is pretty darn amazing. And kind of surreal.

Jess: What’s surprised you about the process?

Jenn: The editing! We actually wrote the book really, really quickly due to deadlines with our publisher (which ended up being awesome because we just got really focused on it and let it pour from our fit bottomed hearts), but the edits seemed to go on and on and on!!!

Jess: What are a few of your favorite 10-minute fixes in the book?

Jenn: I have so many, but I absolutely adore the first in the book to break up with your scale. And I’ve done fix where you take a full five minutes to eat a piece of chocolate a ton of times—most recently at a book signing in Kanas City. It’s always an eye-opener for people. Lately, I’ve been doing the Deck of Cards workout (which uses a shuffled deck of cards to determine your workout!) ton at home, too!

Jess: I absolutely love your chapters on managing stress. What’s one of your go-to stress-busters?

Jenn: Thanks! I personally love yoga and meditation and try to do at least 5-15 minutes of one of them each day. And when I don’t have time to fit that in, I do the 10-Minute Fix in the book called Shower Yourself With Relaxation, which turns your shower time into a mini-meditation that feels awesome!

Jess: Any advice to aspiring writers out there?

Jenn: Write a lot. Write from your heart. Don’t try to be anyone else but you.

Jess: Do you eat while writing? Any favorite snacks or meals?

Jenn: I do my best to try not to! When I do, I’m usually trying to procrastinate or I’m having a little bit of writer’s block. So instead of eating, I’ll take a break and watch some TV or read a book or walk my dog. (Unless, I’m hungry, in which case I step away from the computer and go eat!). A few of my fave foods lately are fish tacos, zoodles (zucchini noodles), green smoothies and peanut butter protein balls. I love cooking healthy stuff!

Jennipher Walters is the CEO and co-founder of Fit Bottomed Girls. Hailed as a favorite website by Bob Harper, Jillian Michaels and Time magazine, FitBottomedGirls.com is a one-stop shop for fitness fun and motivation that Jenn and her friend and business partner Erin Whitehead started in 2008 after realizing that women needed a more fun approach when it comes to being healthy. From workout DVD reviews to blog posts to playlists, Fit Bottomed Girls has been helping millions of women of all shapes and sizes find the fun in a healthy lifestyle and realize that it’s not about dieting or deprivation. Since the site’s launch, Fit Bottomed Girls has also added FitBottomedMamas.com and FitBottomedEats.com, bringing a similar sassy approach to parenting and cooking. 

Jenn is a certified personal trainer, health coach and group exercise instructor, with a journalism degree from the University of Missouri and an MA in health journalism from the University of Minnesota. Her writing has been published in numerous online publications including The Huffington Post, Shape and SparkPeople. The Fit Bottomed Girls Anti-Diet is the first FBG-branded book … with hopefully many more to come!