MEET YOUR TEAM: SARAH & MAURICIO LEAL

Sarah was drawn to anything physical since a young age. She participated in multiple sports, dance and martial arts as a kid and teenager. Her fascination with science and health combined in her early 20’s, culminating in a degree as a Family Nurse Practitioner looking to jump into medicine and help people fight the rising tide of chronic disease in our communities.

As with any journey, there have been many lessons. After getting out of college sport, she found herself lost without a team. Steadily gaining weight while trying to find joy in running, wandering around a large corporate gym, she felt disconnected and lost. Luckily a program run at her job introduced her to the concept of CrossFit, which blended strength training with high intensity training and, well, a bunch of other things. The stimulation of learning many new movements, discovering new strengths and sharing it all in a community that works hard together was life changing. It was having the fitness family/competition you get from team sport, with the specific focus on personal goals: she was in love.

Once she started working in primary care, she began to see the real challenges of the medical system. Short office visits, focused on medicine management, left little time to counsel patients about diet, exercise and preventative health care. Realizing that working within the system was disappointing for her and her patients, she began to look for other ways to help people realize a healthy, happy life. 

Zen Strength and Conditioning is the opportunity for her to marry her profession and her love of movement together to create a holistic approach to health and lifestyle. By utilizing her knowledge and experience she is able to help you find your way, discover your own path to optimizing your health and enjoying the process. 

Like many kids, I had a dream of becoming an astronaut. The spirit of adventure, exploring the unknown, and scientific discovery fascinated me. They still fascinate me. Towards that path, I climbed the engineering ladder. But as I completed my M.S. and began working in the field, I had to reconcile the still long range goal and lifestyle towards becoming an astronaut with my otherwise love for living healthfully, being around and helping people, and appreciating the slower paces of life via music, nature, and my dog.

I jumped ship. After some soul searching, I spent the next 14 years developing my skills as a coach and leader of a CrossFit gym in Richmond, CA. In many ways it was a relief: I had finally found my calling. With the startup spirit I threw myself into the CEO role, and worked with abandon to grow this thing with the dedication of an engineer plus the love my mother gave me. As far as business goes, I was rewarded for it. Helping people with their health is immensely rewarding.

At some point it was time for a health checkup, and I found out I had Prediabetes. Classically, I minimized it. There was just so much work to do. The funny thing about stress: it’s like a fish being in water. The fish doesn’t know it’s in water. The idea that the water it’s in might be contaminated, too hot, too cold, turbulent, acidic, or just plain unhealthy seems confusing to the fish. After all these years, I still had little idea how to deal with my stress other than to suppress it, and to exercise. Boy, how I exercised.

Fast forward to early 2020. Global pandemic. Things that seemed like they would never change, changed anyway. Although it was clear, it wasn’t easy: my wife and I sold our interest in that gym business. I instinctively care for people. That community is still special to me.

We started anew with a vision that included our personal and family health as integral to the work we do, not to be deferred to some elusive future that might give us permission to care for ourselves.

We made a thoughtful plan, and moved forward wholeheartedly. My sleep improved, my stress went down. Time to care for myself went up. At my next annual checkup, my hemoglobin A1C was back in the healthy range. It was both surprising and made perfect sense.

This vision, my lived experience, and thousands of hours coaching movement and health are what I still have a passion for sharing. I want to help people who give a lot of themselves to others, and are living in their own pocket of stress. And if by any means they find out that lifestyle is not sustainable, with our help they can have the option to open a new door, wholeheartedly walk through it, and discover something better. Something that cares for them too.