EP #141 Food And Real Habits For Busy Lives

You can have the best intentions in the world and still watch your wellness routine collapse the minute work gets hectic or family needs spike. That’s why I loved sitting down with Charlie Evans of Faithfully Fit and Frugal, an online fitness, nutrition, and wellness company built around one idea: healthy habits should work with your life, not against it. If you’re a busy woman over 40, a parent planning meals for a whole household, or simply tired of conflicting advice, this conversation is packed with practical clarity. 

Charlie shares her own path from retired Marine officer and DOD financial manager to wellness entrepreneur, including the pressure of postpartum weight standards and the myth that “more cardio fixes everything.” We talk about what actually changed the game for her: learning the science behind nutrition and strength training, fueling enough to support results, and keeping systems simple so they last. 

We also get into the details of Faithfully Fit and Frugal’s nutrition programs, from monthly meal plan subscriptions for meat-eaters and plant-based eaters to a signature nutrition program you buy once and keep for life with ongoing updates. Charlie explains how macro-friendly recipes, food allergen listings, shopping lists, sample meal plans, and yes, desserts, can make family meal planning more realistic and budget-friendly. Then she introduces the F3 Wellness Collection, a lifetime resource created to address the “whole person” with family tools, holiday support, and wellness challenges with live support. 

If you enjoy local Fredericksburg business stories and want wellness advice that feels doable, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more neighbors can find the show.

Charlie Evans

Faithfully Fit and Frugal 

faithfullyfitandfrugal.com

charevans238@gmail.com

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

This is the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Dori Stewart.

Speaker 2 0:12

Welcome back to another episode of the FXBG Neighbors Podcast, where we share the stories of our favorite local brands. I have a special guest today. This is her second time being a guest on the FXBG Neighbors Podcast. We have Charlie Evans joining us, and she is with Faithfully Fit and Frugal. Charlie, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 0:35

Yes, welcome. Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure.

What Faithfully Fit And Frugal Does

Speaker 2 0:39

Well, I'm excited for this because uh it's been a few months since we last got together, and I know there's some exciting things going on. But for those who don't know you, um I'd love if we could start off by sharing a little bit about what is Faithfully Fit and Frugal.

Speaker 0:57

So Faithfully Fit and Frugal, uh, we are an online fitness, nutrition, and wellness company where we usually cater to busy women over 40. But since our products aren't hormone-based, really anyone over 18 can use it, meaning men can use them as well. And men do use them because uh a lot of the women that subscribe to some of our services, they they add their families in there. So that's where that frugal aspect comes into play. Everything we do, all of our products, all of our all of our services are created with intention to work with your busy lifestyle and not against it, because we want to make lasting change. We want you to have healthy habits, but we want them to last, right? So when you're overwhelmed, when you're overly busy, what do we dump first? We dump that newer thing, which sometimes ends up being the new wellness habit that you just started. But with F3, if we do it in a way where we eliminate that overwhelm and we make it not only realistic, but we make it more simple, you're gonna stick with it and you're gonna end up having a healthier life.

Speaker 2 2:14

I love that. I love that you've put a lot of thought into keeping it simple so that we can stick with it. I love that so much. So I want to learn more about you. So tell us about your background, tell us how you got to starting this business.

Speaker 2:31

Um, so I am a retired marine officer. Um, I am a DOD financial manager by trade. I did that for over 26 years and I loved it. I think a part of me is gonna always miss it, but wellness, that's my passion. So I got into fitness initially in 2011. I was a brand new one officer from 2010, and I got pregnant with my second child. I did everything wrong you think that you could think of when you're pregnant. Uh, you know, the doctors were talking to me, oh, we gotta talk about your weight from four months all the way until I delivered. I was not thinking long-term, however, I was not thinking the 60 plus pounds that I gained. You have at least at that time, I'm not sure what the protocol is now, but you had six months to lose that weight to be back within standards. So now it's crunch time. I'm feeling the pressure. And I had a plethora of just peers and a community that I could have asked for help. I did not ask anyone because I was so embarrassed. No one embarrassed me, just internally. I felt embarrassed. So I didn't ask anyone. Now I'm doing everything that you would think makes sense eating less, moving more. I worked my way up to running nine nine miles a day Monday through Friday. I am not a runner, that is not my thing. But I was doing it, but I was not losing any weight. So in walks one of the sergeants one day, and she had a women's fitness magazine in her hand. And there was this beautiful woman on the cover who did not look like a man. Because in my mind, oh, if I lift weights, I'm gonna look like a man. That's a myth, but it's one of those you don't know when you don't know. And I found myself, I kept staring at it. So I asked her if I could read it, and she let me read it. And I read it that day, cover to cover, and I was hooked. That magazine went out of business years before COVID. It was called Fitness RX for my Jim Bros and people that love that bit like you probably remember that magazine. That magazine gave you the science behind fitness, nutrition, and wellness. And it used to give you, you know, even follow-on reading if you so wanted to look further into it. And I'm a big old nerd at heart, you know, anyone that knows me knows I'm a big nerd at heart. Um, so I love that because I'm the but I'm the but why person. But why? You answer that question, but why to the answer? So I love just being able to have all of this information, and I was hooked moving forward, like that day I was hooked. And the next day I went and got my little first pair of weights, my little purple five pounds, still have because my nine-year-old uses them, and the rest is history, yeah. Amazing, amazing.

Speaker 2 5:32

I know so many people can can relate to that.

Speaker 5:35

I did lose the weight too. I did lose the weight in time without further stressing myself out, and I started eating more because I was literally I was starving myself thinking that was helping, not understanding that that was actually hurting.

Nutrition Programs Built For Families

Speaker 2 5:51

Yeah, yeah. And so now you're helping women who are, you know, experiencing some of the things that you are experiencing. So tell me, tell me about your programs. I'd love to learn what you're doing to help others.

The New F3 Wellness Collection

Speaker 6:05

Yes, so uh as I said, as I said before, F3 We work with your busy life. Um, so we have several different monthly nutrition subscriptions. Um, I know you've been subscribed to one. Um, we have the regular monthly nutrition subscription, that's for my meat eaters. We have a sister program for my plant-based eaters. Those come with um 15 recipes a month. They're all chef curated, but they're also chef curated with your fitness, weight loss, muscle building goes in mind. They're also all family and budget friendly. They come with macro breakdowns again, because some people have goals. They also come with food allergen listings because I have two children with food allergies, so I know what it's like to you don't want to worry about those things. Um, they also come with a weekly shopping list, they come with a sample meal plan, and they also um they come with dessert. So I like to say it's real food for real people. They're not, they're not salads, they are, we're talking lasagna and grilled steak and you know, pasta, like real pasta and breads and cakes and brownies and things like that. They're just in created differently, they're created with your wellness goals in mind. So those are two, and then we have our signature nutrition program. That's actually the most popular program to date that we have. It's been in two women's international fitness magazines in the last year and a half. That one is not a monthly subscription, it is a lifetime subscription, meaning you buy into it once, it's yours for life, and I update it multiple times a year. So as I learn new things or as new nutrition products come available, or they're created really by F3, they get dropped into the signature nutrition program at no cost to the lifetime subscribers. So that program grows with you. And again, it's everything's made with intention to work with your busy lifestyle. Everything's family friendly. So some of the servings, yes, they may be two, but you're looking at four to six servings because no one wants to shop for you and your family, no one wants to cook two meals for you and your family. We do a lot of times in my house, but that's because the boys have different food allergies. So we're kind of boxed in, but we're more the exception, not the rule, if that makes sense. Um, we also have a new product, Dori, since the last time you and I talked.

Speaker 2 8:52

Ah, do you too?

Speaker 8:54

And it took about a year and a half to make, but I have the community, our our community here in Fredericburg and Stafford, you know, uh Planning District 16 to thank for that. So with me just meeting new people and just always going to you know different events. Um, I was at your event that you had on Sunday, it was amazing. Uh, we meet new people, but one thing that I started to realize, I started to hear in almost the same conversation the same issue. And that issue was nothing addresses the whole person. And what I mean by that is like the F3 signature nutrition program, the monthly nutrition subscription, and the plant-based one, those are all nutrition focused. So, what F3 decided to do was well, this is a need. There's too many people that are saying the same thing. So let's meet that need. That's our that's our duty as a local business, right? Where we can fill the gap, we fill the gap. So now F3 has what's called the F3 Wellness Collection, and that addresses the total person, their everyday wellness. It addresses nutrition, yes, but it's completely separate from everything else, meaning there's no duplication of resources in there. So it also has holiday support. The F3 Signature Nutrition Program has holiday support, but this is different holiday support.

Speaker 2 10:30

Okay.

Speaker 10:30

So it also has a family component. How can you get your family to eat healthy, be healthy with you? And I'm talking like not just your spouse, but your children. So there's there's children's guides in there to make you know eating and baking and things like that fun. We have F3 wellness challenges that we do will do throughout the year. All of the challenges come with email support and live calls. Um, so it's something different, but I'm really excited because I feel like that's something that I just heard for a year and a half, just repeatedly, nobody wants to toggle together products. And I I experienced that myself at the onset of my own journey, which is why I created the signature nutrition program, because you know, there's just there's always conflicting information online. You don't know which true, you don't have time to peel back the onion because again, we're all busy. So F3, we did all that research for you. We took all the guesswork out of it for you. We're meeting that need for you, and it is mirrored off of our most popular program. So that is yet another lifetime subscription. You buy once, it's yours for life, it will continue to grow, and you only pay the one time. So I'm really excited about that.

Why Local Collaboration Matters

Speaker 2 11:54

Congratulations on that. And and huge kudos to you for keeping your radar up and listening to what you're hearing and taking action on that and creating something that's filling a need. You know, you already had all these programs, but then to lean into that and and spend that year over a year creating the program, congratulations. That's really exciting.

Speaker 12:18

Thank you. Thank you for that. Um I feel like we have such an amazing community and we all really just do our part where we can. So for F3, it was really a no-brainer, right? It was a, this is this is this is coming up so often. It's it's almost impossible to ignore. So it's our duty to again step in where we can and help just make our make make our community just what it is. And I love our community, Dori. You know that we have just from the people to you know the residents, but also the business owners, we really do want to see one another succeed. And that's just one of the many, many things that I love about planning district 16. So it was a no-brainer for F3.

Speaker 2 13:11

I agree. There is something magical about our business community, and it it really is so we show up for each other, yes, yes, and we're happy to do it. I know it's so supportive. And I I I have been watching you and have been so impressed by the collaborations that you have been creating with other businesses, and when we can do that, you know, it's a win-win for for us all as well as the community and our customers. And so I really applaud you for leaning into that.

Speaker 13:48

Well, thank you so much. Yes, it's our community makes it easy, I feel like. Um everyone is very intentional of just keeping keeping their ears open, just keeping that. Hey, hey, have you met Dori? Um, I think we all do that, Dori. You you've well now you know, but we all do that. Everyone's hey, do you know Dori? Okay, well, she's doing this, or um, let me let me reach out and let me kind of connect you too. But you know, not just you, we do that for one another. And it's it really is it's not just networking, it's connection with intention. Everyone is just so intentional about connecting one another just to another piece of the community where either they can support you or you can support them, or just add to your toolbox where now you keep your eyes open or your ears open, and later on you can find someone else to. And that's I I'm like my love language is giving. I'm a giver. I love to give gifts, right? And I give good gifts, Dori, too. So I love where if I'm just having a conversation, I'm having coffee, or you know, I'm I'm just out and about, and I meet someone, and maybe I we can't connect, you know, professionally, but they say, Oh, I'm looking for this. I go, Oh my god, I know this person, and oh, have you heard of this person? And that really fills my cup because for me, I was able to pour into someone else just for that thing, but to see their face and to know that I was able to help to some degree, that really just fills my cup, and it makes it easier when your cup is full, right? To pour into someone else, it just it really makes it easier.

Speaker 2 15:43

So I love that you said that it's it's magical when we can do that for each other and everybody wins.

Speaker 15:50

And yes, yeah, yes, I love that, and it just continues on and on and on. Yes, you know, I love that.

Speaker 2 16:00

What is something that you wish the listeners knew about Faithfully Fit and Frugal?

Speaker 16:06

Um I wish the listeners knew that for me that I also do public speaking events and that I'm open all for keynote speaking. So that's more word of mouth. Um, you know, it's not on the website, uh, it is on my LinkedIn, but um I really enjoy it. I actually did, I just did one yesterday, yesterday evening, but I really enjoy that because I'll take a product or you know, a guide from F3, and it's different when it's presented in a different manner, because now I can further dig in. Now people are asking questions in real time, and I get to learn from the audience in real time because you know what it's like. You know, like if someone asks you about podcasting and you they got the wheels turning right away, and it's like, oh, that's a good question. Let's talk about this, let's pause here and talk about this. So that's one of the things that I really enjoy about public speaking because every single public speaking engagement, it it get it stretches me a little bit more, and I get to hone my craft and I get to learn from that specific audience because there's always the one question that it's not your it's it's outside the box, but it gives me just one more different perspective, and now I can add it to my toolbox and bring it up, you know, in future speaking engagements of hey, oh, by the way, someone asked me this question, so I want to talk about this. Have you ever thought about this? So I wish people knew that about F3 that you know, yeah.

Speaker 2 17:53

I'm really glad that you that you mentioned that. And if there's someone listening who is looking for uh a speaker, what are some of the topics that um that you enjoy speaking on?

Speaker 18:07

Um, so really wellness for mind and body. So we're talking nutrition, you know, stress man, stretch stress management, mindful eating, mindfulness, um, productivity, just overall wellness in mind and body. Amazing. Yeah, amazing.

Speaker 2 18:27

And if the listeners want to learn more about you or Faithfully Fit and Frugal, how can they find you?

Speaker 18:34

So you can find me uh at through the F3 website at faithfullyfit and frugal.com. Um, you can also find me on Facebook at f3 let's work, all you know, all lowercase, all together. And you can find me on LinkedIn and just put in uh Charmain with the C No E Evans.

Speaker 2 18:56

Amazing. Charlie, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today and sharing Faithully Fit and Frugal with us.

Speaker 19:05

Thank you.

Speaker 1 19:07

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.