Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in health and wellness but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Ashley Lucas, Founder of PHD Weight Loss, located in Asheville, NC, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

My company is PHD Weight Loss, and we serve those who are ready to create a positive impact in their lives. Our mission is to empower people to step up, better their lives, and become self-sufficient. We take the overwhelming and daunting task of dropping weight and make it as simple and easy as possible.

After 15 years of education in nutrition and metabolism, I earned my Ph.D. in sports nutrition and chronic disease and became a licensed, registered dietitian. In 2015, I opened our first brick-and-mortar PHD Weight Loss office. Five locations later, with an expansive nationwide, at-home program, we have helped thousands of people achieve weight loss for life and peak wellness across the nation. We have clients in nearly every state and even serve people who are ready for change internationally. PHD Weight Loss is different because we challenge the standard ways of thinking regarding weight loss and nutrition. We are not a low-calorie dietary protocol and do not use medications, hormones, injections, or supplements.

Our scientific method focuses not only on the metabolic consequences of fat gain but also on the behavioral and psychological aspects, which allows for true behavior change accompanied by the efficient fat loss while enhancing skeletal muscle mass percentage. The PHD dietary approach feels good. You will have no withdrawal symptoms. Hunger and cravings will quickly diminish or become nonexistent when you follow the protocol precisely. You will likely experience enhanced mental clarity, focus, and better sleep within the first week! We do this through 4 simple steps:

  1. We create your customized meal plan: During your initial visit, we will create a customized meal plan for you. This plan guides you on what, when, and how much to eat as you experience safe, fast, and sustainable weight loss. PHD provides 85% of your food at no additional cost, should you choose to use it. Or we will guide you as you use 100% of your own foods. We provide dining-out guides, takeout guides, grocery shopping lists, and everything you need to be successful! We make the process of dropping weight as easy as possible.
  2. You receive weekly 1:1 coaching: You will participate in one-on-one coaching, support, and accountability sessions with our PHD team nutritionists, dietitians, and expert coaches. During these sessions, we review your weekly meal plan and continue to tweak your diet so that you experience continued success, provide nutrition education unconventional from conventional dietary wisdom), and focus on habit/behavior change to create long-term results.
  3. PHD provides a holistic approach with behavioral support: As mentioned previously, 80% of any life change comes from the mind. We tackle the mental, and emotional habits and behaviors associated with letting go of the excess weight. As we discussed in Step #4, we understand that dropping weight for good is an addiction recovery process for many people.
  4. You have FREE maintenance for life support: Letting go of your excess fat weight is one thing, but maintaining it long-term requires consistent and continuous support. We understand this; thus, once you achieve your optimal weight by dropping the unnecessary fat, you are eligible for our free-for-life maintenance program's best part of PHD. We never abandon our clients. You will always be a part of our family. We are your long-term resource and support.

Tell us about yourself

My mom put me in ballet classes when I was three years old. I had absolutely NO natural talent. Historically, the teachers would put kids with "talent" in the front row. My home? Consistently, back row, left corner, for over a decade. No matter how hard I tried, my teachers ignored me due to my lack of skill. However, I didn't let this pattern get me down; instead, it lit a fire within me that no one could put out. I didn't listen to naysayers or anything else, including my own body, and just kept training. I gave it my all, and because my body physically didn't comply, I simply pushed it to do what was required. As a result, I danced through one injury after another.

The pain was a constant hum in the background of my dancing career, but some injuries were more memorable than others. In high school, I danced with a significant stress fracture in my back driving over speed bumps was intolerable. The doctor instructed me to wear a thick, hard-molded back brace that went from my tailbone up the length of my spine for three months. When I slouched even slightly, it poked out like a turtle shell at my shoulder blades. Since I knew better than the doctor and couldn't stop dancing for one day, let alone three months, I decided to wear it to school and bed, taking it off only during daily rehearsals and showers. Not surprisingly, a year later, I was still sporting it due to slow healing. To this day, chronic low back pain reminds me of my ignorant non-compliance. Also, as I'm sure you can imagine, I was not very popular in high school, except for the fact that I provided my classmates with a good place to play knock-knock jokes.

Only because of my stubbornness to not let others tell me what I could or couldn't do and an unwavering, some might say obsessive, level of persistence I had a fairly successful ballet career. I performed with professional companies across the country. I danced in about 600 Nutcrackers and made it through them with a genuine smile on my face, about half of them with at least one stress fracture in one foot or both.

I was also a master of chronic dieting, which likely resulted in many of my aforementioned injuries. I ate no meat, feared dietary fat, and counted fat grams and calories like an expert bookkeeper. I was told I was fat countless times; one of my Russian ballet teachers in high school told me, "Your mother must have wide hips too—you'll have babies very easily!" Looking back, she was right, thank goodness, because I've now had three, and gosh, they are so much fun! The end of my dancing career started with an apprenticeship with a professional ballet company. I was honored to be selected out of 400 women for this full-time job as a ballerina. I danced 8 hours a day, about 6 days a week – and my wages? $125/week. Halfway into the season, I was invited to perform in New York.

I arrived in the big city, feeling like I had finally made it; my dream was becoming a reality. However, the next day instead of finding myself in the spotlight, I found myself in the hospital. I thought I was having a heart attack. I had numbness in my face and arm, the worst headache I've ever experienced, dizziness, and blurred vision. After being rushed to the hospital, a battery of tests, and missing all of the "once in a lifetime" performances, the neurologist said I had a panic attack and was simply underfed and over-exercised. My body simply couldn't take the stress anymore; it was done. For months following this event, we thought multiple sclerosis was a possibility, but ultimately I found out it was just decades of undereating and pushing my body beyond its limit. This diagnosis came at me like a tidal wave. Right when I hit my peak, I was pushed back down fast. I felt defeated. I was incredibly embarrassed and, in my eyes, a complete failure. I had to be flown home alone and scared for my health and future.

This might not seem like a big deal, but at the time, my career as a dancer was everything to me. It was the culmination of 20+ years of struggle and sacrifice. After that, I decided to step away from ballet, this passionate pursuit of perfection, before many would say I had even "made it." I had to reevaluate my life if it was worth killing myself over something my body simply couldn't handle. However, my understanding of the impact that nutrition (or lack thereof) had on my performance ignited my desire to learn more about the effects of chronic dieting and overexercising, along with the reasons behind how and why we eat.

I went on to earn my Ph.D. in sports nutrition and chronic disease and studied exactly this subject. I wanted to understand what was happening inside the body of all of us "dieters" and what was required nutritionally and behaviorally to create a sustainable change. After completing my Ph.D. while teaching at The Ohio State University, I continued my studies to become a Registered Dietitian. I wanted to be a true expert in the field of nutrition and weight management, but there was a problem the information I was taught still didn't make sense to me. It was the same old mantra: "calories in, calories out, practice more willpower, eat everything in moderation, increase discipline." I knew that I had the calories in, calories out thing down coupled with all the discipline in the world, yet I still struggled. I also understood from personal experience and my doctoral research that this conventional dietary approach wreaks havoc on the metabolism and in no way supports healthy behaviors. For most of my dancing career, despite following these principles with great diligence, I wasn't at the weight required for that sport. If I were, I would be injured and sick. With my research to support me, I tipped everything I learned about nutrition upside down and ultimately created a novel method for successfully losing weight and maintaining it. I made it my lifestyle and am leaner and healthier now (while eating much more, counting NOTHING, and exercising much less) than I ever was during my dancing career. My husband, a retired ballet dancer, avid cyclist, and physician, with a family history of morbid obesity, immediately dropped 40 pounds and, to this day, is in the best shape of his life.

I began implementing this protocol with athletes: elite cyclists, national winning climbers, Olympic heavy weightlifters, racing cross country skiers, ultra-endurance runners, kayakers, and national martial artists, you name it. I also coached ex-football and basketball players who were collegiate athletes in their day yet put on significant weight after no longer engaging in their sport. I was able to optimize their performance and help them drop fat, all while supporting their metabolism. Strikingly, I found that my method, which had an amazing impact on athletes, had an even more profound impact on those individuals struggling with their weight. And the rest is history—the PHD Weight Loss approach was born. Since then, we've helped thousands of people restore their health, reverse diabetes, break sugar addiction, and age regress by a decade. Whether it through our brick-and-mortar PHD locations or our sophisticated nationwide "at-home" program that serves clients just as successfully from the comfort of their own homes, I've been filled with the greatest passion and purpose in making the overcomplicated and daunting task of dropping weight, simple, effective and enjoyable! Through PHD, we have created an avenue for you to achieve, embrace, experience, and live in PEAK state. People ask me if I miss dancing, and although it was so hard to leave, the answer is no. From my experience, I gained everything that mattered: the understanding, both personally and scientifically, of the impact of chronic dieting, its aftermath, and how to heal from it. The commitment, determination, and persistence it takes to create success out of failure now infiltrate every aspect of PHD. Starting PHD Weight Loss was the best thing I've ever done, and now I get to use my life experiences to help and serve other people directly. I must say that, selfishly, I love the stories that I get to hear every day: when clients tell me that they've finally dropped weight after 30 years of repetitive failure, that they no longer need medications, that they avoided dialysis, that we've saved their life, how their relationship with their kids and spouse has improved, or about the new job they've landed with their newfound confidence. These stories put the ultimate purpose in my step, and a level of gratitude in my heart that I never thought would be possible.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

My biggest accomplishment is the PHD team. I began PHD by myself in 2015, and 7 years later, we are a team of almost 60 people. Can you believe it? I can't! We are a team of empowered, confident, and passionate people, all with a burning desire to help people lead better lives. Leading a big team of people is difficult and has taught me so much about myself and has forced me to continue to level up personally. I am so grateful to be able to provide a fulfilling and passion-filled career, a "job" that is about personal and professional development, all while helping and serving others in a huge transformative way.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

To maintain confidence and push through the difficult times. To not let fear drive your decisions and maintain unwavering faith, confidence, and belief in yourself and your services/product that allows you to continue to push forward even during "winter" and ultimately, create a massive impact.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. If you risk nothing, you risk everything. Get unreasonable! Be confident in yourself, and your services, and go for it.
  2. Continue to add massive value to what you do. Never be satisfied and never stop growing yourself, your services, or your team.
  3. Be 110% committed to what you do. Be obsessed with your commitment. Put in the hard work and keep pushing. Be so fully committed that when things go wrong, you continue to work as if they're going right again. With commitment, focus and consistency, the hard work will, at some point, create an impact. And the impact, I believe, is why we entrepreneurs do what we do.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

Make sure you have passion for what you do because you are in it for the marathon as a business owner. Success and impact don't happen overnight, and passion allows you to do what you do day in and day out.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://myphdweightloss.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrAshleyLucas/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr_ashleylucas/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/phd_weightloss
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3NRKyBW

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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