This blog post aims to shine the light on an amazing, accomplished woman who is dedicated to helping others.
She is my sister Queen and your reigning Mrs. United States, Brea Sharron Estep.
Brea is an integrative health practitioner, personal trainer, group fitness instructor, business coach, and author of the Amazon bestseller “Holistic Health Clean Eating Cookbook.” With over a decade of experience in the health and fitness industry, she uses her health struggles and education to teach and coach others who feel like they have tried every diet, every workout, and/or every doctor to find the underlying root cause so that they can finally restore their health and get their body back in shape.
Link to purchase her cookbook:
Brea was born and raised in Greensboro, NC, where she graduated from the University of North Carolina with a bachelor’s degree in business and became the owner of the Foundation Fitness studio for eight and a half years. Brea recently moved to Morehead City, NC, with her husband Tim and two pups to enjoy living their best life at the beach. She is proud to represent her home state as Mrs. North Carolina United States and now Mrs. United States 2021-2022, promoting her platform: her non-profit Youth Fitness Link, which shares her life’s mission statement, “Build healthy positive relationships on the inside and out to combat adolescent obesity and teach healthy lifestyle changes.”
I asked Brea, “What are some of the things you have going on currently in your work and personal life, along with your advocacy and Queen life?”
"What isn’t going on! I’m so unbelievably beyond blessed! It’s been crazy but fun traveling as Mrs. United States! I’m really focused on supporting my sister Queens nationally as well as our state queens from 2021 and 2022 in any and every way that I can! Pageantry has truly changed my life, and I think it’s so important to encourage women and help them improve themselves as well as reach out to help in their communities! Speaking of communities, I just finished up a virtual 5K for my non-profit Youth Fitness Link to help send kids to fitness summer camps!"
To learn more about and donate to Brea's nonprofit, go to www.youthfitnesslink.com
She added, "I’m also so very blessed with my work as an integrative health practitioner, and it is keeping me super busy. Currently, I’m working on level two of the course I’ve developed, and I am a business coach and barre instructor! I will say that one of my most time-consuming “gigs” is being a #dogmom to our almost one-year-old German Shepherd rescue and my 14-year-old Sheltie. Granted these two live quite the “ruff” life, but, whew, the puppy stage and old-age stage are quite a handful!"I asked Brea, What are some of the things you have going on currently in your work, personal life, along with her advocacy and Queen life?
"What isn’t going on! I’m so unbelievably beyond blessed!! It’s been crazy but crazy fun traveling as Mrs. United States! I’m really focused on supporting my sister Queens nationally as well as our state queens from 2021 and 2022 in any in every way that I can! Pageantry has truly changed my life and I think it’s so important to keep women encouraged and bettering themselves as well as reaching out to help in their communities!! Speaking of communities, I just finished up a virtual 5K for my nonprofit Youth Fitness Link to help send kids to Fitness summer camps!"
To learn more and to donate to Brea's nonprofit go to www.youthfitnesslink.com
"I’m also so very blessed with my work as an Integrative Health Practitioner is keeping me super busy and I’m working on level 2 of the course I’ve developed, along with being a business coach and barre instructor! I will say one of my most time consuming “gigs” is being a #dogmom to our almost one German Shepherd rescue and my 14.5 year old Sheltie. Granted these two live quite the “ruff” life but whew the puppy stage and old stage is quite a handful!"
To the question on how she balances it all, Brea answered honestly, "Balance? What’s that? Just kidding! I actually can’t preach enough on how important balance is! Long story short, not having balance drastically impacted my health years ago, and this led me into integrative health, so I’m now grateful for the journey God brought me on to help others. Personally, faith is very important for me, and I have to “get grounded with God” in the morning! I also have to make sure that I fuel my body with a healthy, balanced diet, take my supplements, be active every day, and make eight hours of sleep non-negotiable! I also have to make sure to stop and take time to relax. Regarding diet, this includes one or two off-plan meals per week. Moreover, making sure I take at least a day every week to just “chill out” is super important! Living at the beach and being able to walk on the beach whenever I want has been truly life-changing!
“I’ve always believed in taking care of myself and my health, but I never believed I was good enough or ‘special enough’ to do anything out of the ordinary. After my dad was diagnosed with brain cancer, I left a well-paying job to become a personal trainer and pursue a career that I enjoyed and enabled me to help others. From there on, my journey comprised many baby steps along the way: deciding to test my limits in fitness shows, owning my own personal training studio, finishing my degree after numerous setbacks, dealing with dead ends in my own health issues, deciding to become an integrative health practitioner, doing my first Mrs. Pageant, experiencing my life ‘falling apart’, packing up and starting over, and venturing out with my all-online integrative health practice… Finally, my journey led me to actually realize that I’ve actually not done so bad, so I decided that it was finally time to invest in myself and dedicate 100% of my efforts to pageantry. Hence, I hired my coach Janice McQueen who constantly encouraged me to dream bigger and dig deeper!”
Moreover, Brea shared that when she allowed herself to shine, she learned how important it is to invest in yourself and how much happier, more productive, and just overall better you are when you are filling up your cup to pour out to all of those around you! She also emphasized that it was okay to do all these things. "What I would tell other women about allowing themselves to pursue their dreams is that they should not overthink it. Just live one day at a time. You are worth it and investing in yourself is one of the best things you can do for those who depend on you!”
Brea, I am honored to be your sister Queen and share your story. To all the readers out there, I hope that as each of you read this blog—which shares only pieces of her journey—you feel inspired to go after your dreams. What are you waiting for? It is your time to step into your power and shine!
Brea Sharron Estep
Integrative Health Practitioner
Mrs. United States 2021-2022