Meet Ashley Shields | Functional health practitioner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ashley Shields and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ashley, what role has risk played in your life or career?
My philosophy is if you don’t take a risk how do you know if it could be helpful or you could be successful? When it came to me quitting my job and going full-time being a functional health coach, I had to take the risk to see if I can make it work. I wouldn’t know unless I did it. It’s like I tell my clients when they’re afraid to invest into my program, you don’t know until you do it. We always learn from failures so see it as a lesson- of course, if it’s worst case scenario, that’s a way to make it positive. Life is about taking risks

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Long story short, the reason for my functional journey of becoming a certified health practitioner and having my business, Total Body By Ashley was due to my own story I was dealing with a lot of different health issues that doctors couldn’t help me with and I refused to take that as an answer so I started doing my own research and digging and that’s when functional medicine was discovered for me and absolutely changed my life.

The biggest thing that sets us apart from many individuals that may do the same thing that I do is we really listen to our clients, we work on getting to the root issue we look at the body as a whole. We also offer functional testing and I also have a functional medical clinic that I am a part of so I can pretty much offer the client a whole package. We also mold this to their lifestyle so they can be successful all around. It’s a very individualized program and process that we offer. What we give to our clients is hope that they can get their life back and feel normal once and for all.

I would say the challenging part would be getting people to trust and believe you that you can help them because they may have got burned in the past from other coaches or doctors they invested in so that’s really challenging to justify yourself that you’re not them. Or you don’t have an ABC DFG behind your name meaning a doctor degree. I am so passionate about what I do. I almost take offense to that which I wish I didn’t do because if people only knew how much I care about helping them and that I’m gonna do everything I can to get them normal again I feel it be a different story.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Well, I live in a small town not much to do but definitely take them all to the good coffee shops. That’s one thing that I enjoy doing , Raystown Lake is a very popular area for boating and trail walking. Then we have shopping, which is about an hour away. There’s also a Hershey’s amusement park an hour and a half away.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My husband was my biggest supporter , although in the beginning, he did have his doubts but he never stopped me from pursuing it and he’s the one that told me go ahead and quit my full-time job. He knew how important it was to me. I also had a Business Coach at that time which inspired me to also make the leap.

Website: https://totalbodybyashley.com/

Instagram: @ashleyjshieldsfit

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ashley.shields.9

Other: TikTok @ashleyjshields

Image Credits
Laura Patrick and Marty Gottlieb