FXBG Neighbors Podcast
Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast
FXBG Neighbors Podcast
EP #78 From Marine Corps Lessons To Mindset-Led Nutrition For Busy Women
A Marine’s grit meets science-backed wellness in a candid, practical conversation with Charlie Evans, founder of Faithfully Fit and Frugal. We dig into the moment she realized nine-mile runs and 100-calorie snacks weren’t a plan, just a fast track to burnout. That wake-up call led to strength training, smarter nutrition, and a mindset-first approach that now helps busy women over 40 feel strong, energized, and confident without restrictive rules.
We walk through F3’s signature nutrition program, built for real life: four progressive modules that start with mindset, then teach you how to build meals that fuel you, simplify planning, and stabilize hunger. You’ll hear how chef-designed recipes come with QR codes for instant logging, weekly shopping lists that cut decision fatigue, and allergen notes that make family meals safer and easier. We talk realistic eating, including desserts, and why consistency beats perfection. Along the way, Charlie breaks down common myths—like “more cardio plus less food equals faster results”—and explains how strength training supports metabolism, hormones, and long-term fat loss.
Beyond individual coaching, Charlie shares how F3 partners with local organizations to create custom wellness solutions that actually fit work-life demands. From culture-friendly recipes to bite-size education, these programs help teams boost energy, focus, and morale. We close with a powerful mindset lesson for health and entrepreneurship: let fear be fuel. Ship the work, start small, and let wins stack. Want more? Explore free recipes, weekly blog posts, and practical guides on the F3 site and Pinterest. If this conversation sparked an idea or a next step, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review—what’s one habit you’re upgrading this week?
Charlie Evans
Faithfully Fit and Frugal
Welcome to the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to another episode of the FXBG Neighbors Podcast, where we share the stories of our favorite local brands. I'm excited to introduce you to my guest today. We have Charlie Evans joining us with Faithfully Fit and Frugal. Charlie, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Dori, for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:Oh, well, I am excited to learn more about you and learn more about your business. So let's start there. Share with us a little bit about Faithfully Fit and Frugal.
Speaker 2:So Faithfully Fit and Frugal, F3 for Short, because I realize that is a mouthful when you say it, right? So F3 for Short, we are an online fitness, nutrition, and wellness company where we cater to busy women over 40. Having said that, all of our products are available and they can be used by pretty much anyone over 18. They're not made for children. They are made for adults. They are not hormone-based. So they are men can use them if they so wish as well. But they're designed to work with your busy schedule and not against it.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Well, I have personally experienced your uh recipes and they are fabulous. So I absolutely love everything that you're doing. And so I would love to learn more about your journey and your background. Tell us how you got into this.
Speaker 2:So this is this is a funny story. Um, it wasn't funny at the time, of course, but I'm I am a retired marine girl officer. And my first year transitioning from enlisted to officer, I became pregnant with my second child, my daughter. And I gained a lot of weight. And it was not baby weight. I couldn't blame it on her, but I made all the wrong decisions you could possibly make. And I think what happened is I took for granted my experience in my previous pregnancy with my son, where by the time he was born, the doctors were trying to get me to gain five pounds. Well, with her, I'll say by month five, we we had to have the let's talk about your weight talk that no one wants to have. Um, and what I didn't take into account was once the baby's born, at that time by my regular standards, I had six months to lose all of that weight. And nothing that I was doing was working. And I was very embarrassed. Um, I felt actually I felt a little ashamed being a new wrinkle officer to ask for help. There was plenty of help. All I had to do was ask, but I didn't do that. And then one day, one of my Marines came to the office and she had a fitness magazine in her hand, and there was a beautiful woman on the cover who did not look like a man because at the time I thought, well, if I lift weights, I'm gonna look like a man. That is such a myth, but you don't know what you don't know. So I asked her if I could read the magazine, and she said yes, and I read it cover to cover that day on my lunch break, and I was hooked because that magazine was Fitness RX, they they have since discontinued publication, but it gave you the science behind fitness and nutrition and how you can use it to make your body healthier, and I was hooked from that day, so I stopped running nine miles a day Monday through Friday and living off of a hundred calorie snacks, which nothing was working, of course. Um, and I picked up some weights, and those last 15 pounds came off, and I just I I I loved the concept and I've been hooked ever since.
Speaker 1:Amazing, amazing. I'm glad you shared that because I imagine there's a lot of women that can relate to that. It's a it's a very confusing process and it's very difficult to understand. And so uh you understood the science behind it, the why behind it, and how it all works, and that's um uh a big light bulb moment that I imagine a lot of women uh maybe have had or need, and you're there to help.
Speaker 2:Well, because we think what that it's a numbers game, calories in versus calories out. It's actually more than that. But when we believe that and we just hold true to that nine miles a day, Monday through Friday, 1200 calories or less a day, that should have worked, right? But it didn't, and it wasn't it was more it was more than a plateau, it was a your body's in starvation mode, nothing's going to work because our bodies are they're smart machines, they adapt. Oh my gosh, she's starving me. I'm gonna this girl's crazy. I'm gonna hold on to everything because she's not feeding me, but I didn't understand that at the time, so yeah.
Speaker 1:What would you say are your standout programs?
Speaker 2:Um, I'm glad you asked that. Um, we are we have a signature nutrition program. So to date, that's been our standout program across all of our you know other offerings. Where this program, you buy it once, it provides a lifetime subscription, and it gives you everything that you ever need for healthy nutrition. Um, it's four modules. You can think of them as weeks. So, you know, week one, week two, week three, module one, module two, module three, module four. And it's designed where you can learn at your own pace or you can jump right in. Each module has uh it comes with a bonus, a free bonus that complements that module. And the first module, which I've been told is pretty much one of the standout features, it's mindset. And because at F3, we believe that mindset really is key. Mindset drives everything. So even when it comes to healthy nutrition, we have to start with our mindset first, and then we can we can dive into everything else. Um, each module builds upon the other module to make it pretty much, it's gonna be if it is the only program that you'll ever need for healthy nutrition. And it comes with a lifetime of those chef design recipes that you've tried yourself. Um, breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, because at F3 we believe in realistic eating of a restrictive eating. So of course it's gonna have desserts. Um, it's gonna have uh they all come with smoothies. Um, there's high protein, you know, five ingredients or less. You pretty much get to pick. And all of our chef design recipes, whether it's in the F3 signature program or our monthly nutrition subscription, they have um QR code. So you have to sit there and type everything in. Because again, designed to work with your busy schedule to cut down time where we possibly could. And also within the program, you get sample meal plans for each recipe pack. You get a weekly shopping list, you get food allergen listings per recipe. Because in my house, we have two children with severe um food allergens. So I know what it's like to have the you want to eat something, but you want to know what's in it because you want to know if it's something you can't eat or if it's something something or someone in your household can eat. So, what we've done at F3 is we made a all-encompassing nutrition program that takes as much guesswork off of your plate as we possibly could. And it's been in two international women's fitness magazines since November 2004. Both magazines highlighted the mindset module as a great way to start. Um, and it's just it's designed to be realistic for you. It's designed to be, again, you learn at your own pace. Um you can jump right in, or you can go in the order that it's designed to be in.
Speaker 1:So tell me, what is something that you wish the listeners knew about Faithfully Fit and Frugal?
Speaker 2:Um, well, one of the things I wish they knew is that we have the ability to cater or customize, if you will, uh a wellness program that's individualized to your organization, to, you know, whether you're a community partner or you're, you know, you have a corporate partner, or you know, you just have your own company and you care about the wellness of your staff. F3, we have we have the capability and we've actually just started rolling out um customized wellness or nutrition or fitness programs. Um, you can check out one of them on our website where we designed a customized nutrition program for one of the one another Fredericksburg business here.
Speaker 1:So that's amazing. That's really cool. I love that. I love that.
Speaker 2:I'm I'm pretty excited about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I mean, so you're you're not just catering to um individuals, but you're catering to organizations as well. Right. Uh in terms of business, that's a whole nother level for you of scaling. And so clearly you've worked really hard building this and you've had a ton of success and uh and accolades and you've been in the magazines. And so if someone came to you and they were thinking about starting their own business, what advice would you give them?
Speaker 2:I would tell them to let fear be a driving force instead of an obstacle. Um so I've I've applied that myself. I applied it reading the magazine, right? I was fearful, I was embarrassed, I didn't want to ask anyone for help. Um saw the magazine, that was God right there. Saw the magazine, read it, I was hooked. Um, starting my business. I wrote F3's first training guide, and then I sat on it for almost six years for no other reason other than I was afraid. So I came to a point where I had to release it afraid. I let those things become a stopping point to some degree before I allowed it to propel me forward. So for you know, burdening or burgeoning entrepreneurs or someone who's on the fence, don't let fear be your wall. Don't let it be your stopping point. Do it afraid, let it be your driving point, let it be that guide, let it propel you forward because you have two options. You're gonna do it or you're not gonna do it. The fear is always gonna be there. And but fear can be good because if you're not afraid of your dreams, you probably aren't dreaming big enough. You your your dream should scare you to some degree, it should, it should seem daunting, it should be like, oh man, that's a tall order. Then meet the tall order. If you feel mediocre about your own dream, nobody else, everybody else is going to feel mediocre about it too. So I say let fear be your driving force, let it propel you forward, don't let it just stop you there.
Speaker 1:I love that so much. If you're if it doesn't scare you, you're not dreaming big enough.
Speaker 2:If it doesn't scare you, you're not dreaming big enough. Everything um F3's done, starting alone, right? Six years, it's a long time. Starting alone, every time you know we've pivoted, whether it's the signature nutrition program, you know, lifestyle guides, or now reaching out to the community for community collaborations or partnerships and customized wellness programs. I'm saying it matter-factly, but no, it was uh it's a brainstorm. It's like, ooh, ooh, that's a little, that's a tall order. Okay, let's do this. Let's do this. It's a tall order, let's meet the order.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great advice. Thank you. I love that. So if the listeners want to learn more from you, want to connect with you, want to work with you, how can they find you?
Speaker 2:Um, they can find me on the F3 website, faithfullyfitandfrugal.com. Um, I'm also on LinkedIn under under my government name, under Charlie Evans. Um, and we're on Pinterest, where we're rolling out our Pinterest board. And um that's under Faithfully Fit and Frugal as well. And yeah, we have our we have free recipes out there you want to try if you're on the, you know, if you're on the fence. Um, we have a blog that we started in spring of this year. So every week we're either rolling out, you know, free more free recipes, different recipes. You can go to Pinterest for you know recipes, you can go to um the blog, the F3 blog for other recipes. Um, and just blog posts, you know, where it's optimizing sleep that went out two weeks ago, or the top things I learned when it's when it was time for me when I wanted to lose weight, you know, what to do, what not to do. We've pretty much uh if you had a question about it, it's probably that question is probably answered out there on the F3 blog.
Speaker 1:So amazing, amazing. Thank you, Charlie, for joining me on the podcast. Thank you for all that you do and all that you provide for your customers. And uh go visit Faithfully Fit and Frugal and try one of those free recipes.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you, and thank you for having me. You're welcome.
Speaker:Thank you for listening to the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to FXBG Neighbors Podcast.com.