Sparking Joy, Good Health & Body Confidence
Chantel Oakley works to bring out the best in others
When Chantel Oakley looks at her life and how her experiences put her on the road to becoming a fitness guru, she smiles and says, “God doesn’t waste anything.”
There was a time in her life when her mental state was so dark, she literally had to pick herself off the floor.
“I look back on that season and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy,” Chantel says. “I can see now I was in a pretty deep depression. I wasn't aware enough to acknowledge it then. I struggled with a lot of anxiety, which I kind of have my whole life.” Today, she knows, there was a reason for it all.
“I am actually so thankful because I can offer some encouragement and hope to others,” she says.
The start of that dark season began when she was just 8 years old. Being an ’80s kid, she says, “The diet culture was so intense, so unhealthy and so bad.” She points to the waif-like women who led the fitness industry at the time. “Man, we are just sponges, we pick up on everything.” She says it led to what she calls a disordered relationship with food. “I decided that I didn’t like the way I looked. I wasn’t going to eat all my food and I was going to exercise a lot. It became this really obsessive thing.”
She struggled with that obsession all the way into her 30s.
“It’s so deeply embedded and psychological,” Chantel says. “It’s really hard to break out of that.”
Today, as the owner of Chantel Oakley Fitness, she’s on a mission to help women of all ages feel confident in their own skin.
“I bet I could count on one hand the number of women I've worked with who do not struggle with poor body image,” she says.
Exercise can be as effective as medication for mild to moderate depression, with a potential 20-30 percent lower risk of depression for those who are physically active. Source: National Institutes of Health
Fitness wasn’t Chantel’s original plan. She went to Rocky Mountain College to play basketball and got her degree in elementary education. But, after graduation, life put her on a different path. She was married by the age of 20 and had her first son by 24.
“Teaching never ended up fitting into the equation,” she says about a career in elementary education. “My dad was really great about showing me how to put myself out there and find opportunities.” Opportunity presented itself when she asked to teach fitness classes at the YMCA.
“They hired me and trained me, and they felt like I had enough of a personality and people skills that I would be a good fit,” Chantel says. “I fell in love with it.”
By the time she hit her 30s, she had three sons and was moving full steam ahead.
“I was teaching 11 classes a week,” everything from kickboxing and bootcamp to strength training. “I was president of the PTA at our school and was highly involved in our church,” Chantel says. On the outside, it looked like she had it all together. On the inside, however, “I was getting sick probably every six to eight weeks, needing to get on antibiotics. I had a level of fatigue, and it wasn’t getting better.”
She knew enough about health to know that with her lifestyle, none of this should have been an issue.
“The tipping point for me was I had gotten up one morning to get my kids ready for school and I passed out in the bathroom,” Chantel says.
When her family doctor failed to find anything wrong, she turned to a naturopath. “She told me, ‘You check off every single symptom of adrenal fatigue,’” Chantel says. It took her 18 months to heal from the burnout.
During that time, she read the book “Adrenal Fatigue: The 21st Century Stress Syndrome,” by James Wilson. She soaked up all the book’s advice, from creating a better sleep routine to lowering her intake of sugar and processed foods.
“I got brutally honest about the things that I was allowing into my life,” she says.
She knows there are many women today who struggle in the same way and have no idea what to do about it.
“It’s rampant,” Chantel says. “You think about the number of things that we, as women, carry on our shoulders? We have a lot on our shoulders.”
By the time Chantel had her fourth son, she had learned a very powerful lesson.
“Great strength and resiliency can come from pain and hardship,” she says. “I suffered three miscarriages in my 20s, which was really hard and painful. This bout of adrenal fatigue was hard and painful. And then, my fourth son, when he was about 2 months old, we came within hours of losing him.” At the time, her son was critically ill and doctors didn’t immediately know why. “As a newborn, he had lost four pounds in three days.”
She remembers lying curled up on the hospital’s chapel floor as a friend consoled her. Soon after, her family put out a call to have friends come to the hospital to pray over their son.
“It was really hard and traumatic and dark and yet there were some beautiful things that came out of it,” she says. The moment marked a turning point in her son’s healing. Doctors realized he suffered from a rare protein disorder called F-PIES or food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome. It’s a food allergy from cow’s milk, soy, rice and oats. In this case, it was Chantel’s breast milk that was making her son critically ill.
“There is always purpose behind hardship and loss,” she says. “It doesn’t mean that we need to be toxically positive, but we can still draw hope when things seem dark and dire.”
She kept reflecting on the phrase, “God doesn’t waste anything,” and realized that instead of ignoring those moments in life that might have been painful, she could use them to strengthen others.
“I thought, I’m drawn to fitness, so I know this is going to be my platform and foundation for how I am going to help people find healing in their life,” she says. Today, at 44, she’s built an entire program on the concept.
“There are two schools of thought,” she says. “There is the mind-body theory which says what your mind thinks, your body will follow. I think there is some truth to that.” But Chantel believes even more strongly that the body can affect the mind. “If you just start moving your body, your mind will follow,” she says. “I think that’s true and I have seen it over and over.”
She shares the story of one man in his early 20s who started coming regularly to her classes at the Y.
“He struggled with depression and he was on medication,” she says. “He kept showing up and was quite the personality. He really got into it and he started to lose some weight and gain some confidence. He made some really good friendships at the gym.” Eventually, she says, “He was able get off his anti-depressants and did a complete 180 in his life.”
Chantel watched as another woman in her late 50s, who was pre-diabetic, reversed her numbers to the point that medication was no longer necessary.
“She lost some weight and went down a few percentages in body fat,” she says. “She’s feeling really strong and really confident. It’s changed her life, and I got to be a part of it.”
And then, there’s 41-year-old Shannon George, a fourth-grade teacher at Meadowlark Elementary who, Chantel says, poured everything she had into her students and her family.
If you ask Shannon, she was what many would consider a picture of health. She had competed in Spartan Races and completed a few half marathons but kept suffering injury after injury. When she sought out Chantel’s help as a wellness coach, she was in the middle of physical therapy.
“I asked her, ‘What would it look like for you to receive a little more grace?’” Chantel says. Turns out, Shannon was over-training and not letting her body rest.
Chantel changed up Shannon’s workouts and gave her nutrition advice, along with some help with meal planning.
“I lost over 15 pounds and I’ve been able to keep it off,” Shannon says. “I was able, through training with her, to actually quit physical therapy. She’s such a positive person, so encouraging. And her laugh, it’s contagious.” Shannon has been injury free for over a year and she competed in two half marathons last summer.
“She stopped being so hard on herself, which is probably the thing I am most proud of,” Chantel says.
Over the years, Chantel has shared that positivity with young athletes at the NBC Basketball Camps, leading their fitness program and collaborating with Nike Sports to do it.
As a former collegiate athlete, she has a soft spot for young female athletes.
“Statistically, female athletes eat about 50 percent less in calories than what their body needs to perform,” she says. “And so, I am pretty passionate about encouraging girls to think of food as fuel for their bodies.” She tells them to go easy on themselves. “The amount of pressure they experience is just so intense and I don’t see it lessening.”
Last summer, she ran a 12-week program called “Girl, You are Strong,” which targeted 10- to 12-year-old girls and focused on combatting negative body image, eating healthy without guilt or shame, managing stress and keeping an eye on mental health cues. The goal was to affect young women during their formative years.
“I think it established a core memory within them,” Chantel says, “that their worth is not attached to their performance.”
Back in 2022, when Chantel’s business was gaining steam, her brother who lives in Los Angeles called her and told her she should think about making a trip out that following January for the LA Fit Expo.
“It’s the West Coast’s largest fitness exhibition,” Chantel says. “They will have 65,000 people in a weekend going in and out. The show gives you an idea of what’s going on big picture within in the fitness industry.”
So, she went.
“Do you remember Billy Blanks Tae-Bo? I was obsessed with his videos in high school,” Chantel says. “I walk into the Expo. My brother sees him and says, ‘Chantel, you should go over and introduce yourself.’” She did, and after chatting for a while, Billy asked her, “Would you ever want to do this?” Chantel laughs as she says, “I have learned if someone asks me if I want an opportunity, I just say yes.”
Billy ended up introducing her to Angela Davies, the woman who books every aspect of the Expo.
“Chantel messaged me after the event and said I'd really like to get more involved,” Angela says. The two kept in touch and by the time the Expo rolled around that following year, Angela found herself without an emcee for one of their stages. She called Chantel. “I said, ‘You know, you would be an amazing host.’ The host has to think on the fly and create energy.”
“I'd never emceed before,” Chantel says. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I can do it!’ I started watching a bunch of videos before I flew down that January. I introduced celebrity trainers to come on stage. I got to run panel discussions. I got to work with Billy Blanks a few times.”
Aside from products and new fitness trends, the show features fitness influencers and celebrity trainers — trainers like Brad Bose, who worked with Robert Downey Jr. for his role as Iron Man, and Cory Calliet, who was Michael B Jordan’s personal trainer for all three “Creed” movies.
Since then, Angela has called on Chantel in other ways. When Angela needed a series of videos produced for a new type of fitness called Yoga Fit — a workout that meshes yoga with strength training — who did she ask? Chantel.
“I got certified and ended up doing instructional videos for the company’s yoga instructor network,” Chantel says, noting that the platform serves more than a quarter million instructors worldwide.
“When you dig deeper, she understands how the human body works and she’s got this ability to be the front person of a brand,” Angela says.
Chantel also sought out master training for the company Two8 Bandz, which produces resistance training bands. After she finishes training, she says there’s a chance she’ll be traveling to put on training sessions all over the country. She’d also be a featured trainer on their app as well.
Is she shocked that she turned one serendipitous trip to L.A. into a whole new career path? Is she surprised that she’s found purpose in her pain and is using it to help others? She simply smiles and says it’s all about “doing life scared.”
“It’s just a matter of putting yourself out there,” she says. “You have the conversation and risk the potential rejection. You learn how to not take it personally and then you dust yourself off.”
She learned to “do it scared” after going to a faith-based summit where she listened to a speaker who did one thing that made her scared every day for 100 days. The talk changed her.
“Her whole point was, rather than ask yourself what’s the worst thing that can happen, ask yourself, what’s the best thing that could happen,” Chantel says. “So, I started doing that. What’s the best that could happen? Go talk to Billy Blanks. What’s the best thing that can happen? Say yes, I’ll emcee this stage. It’s way more fun this way.”
Back at home, she keeps a busy schedule training clients. She also started the technology consulting firm SanoVita to help businesses in the fitness and wellness industry be a little more tech savvy in their day-to-day operations. She’s currently helping the YMCA in Billings put the finishing touches on a brand-new app to streamline all their programs and challenges.
At the end of the day, however, her biggest joy comes from walking alongside people wanting to live healthier lives and using her own experiences to enrich others.
“We’ve got one life to live, so let’s make the most of it,” she says. “We are capable of so much more than we give ourselves credit for. I like finding opportunities to help people see that in themselves.”
TO LEARN MORE about Chantel and how she helps others through fitness, visit chanteloakley.com.
