Last Updated on January 7, 2021
Jenny Fisher began her blog career by sharing quick at-home workout videos which turned into a large following of men and women looking for sustainable, balanced and practical wellness advice for their lives! Jenny has become a health influencer for the fulfilled, moderate-living seeker. Based in Charleston, South Carolina, Jenny is regularly asked to represent brands and non-profits through social media, podcasts and television appearances. You can follow Jenny on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to learn more.
Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you became a fitness influencer and how your fitness brand has evolved over the years?
Yeah. I kind of stumbled into it. It was not something that I set out to do, but I started sharing on Instagram and I was sharing for my own personal friends. It was one of those things where I had a lot of personal friends ask me advice because they knew I had that interest and I had that knowledge. So, I took the Instagram and started posting just quick workouts and all of a sudden I had 500 followers in like three months. I’m like, “Oh, this is cool. I can keep doing this.” So, it really was an organic growth for me. And then I want to say about a year and a couple of months later I had 10,000 followers and a lot of that was, again, organic. People just sharing. And it started out where I was only sharing 15-minute workouts. That was my message. That’s what I was doing.
So all my pictures were reminders that “Hey, I’m going to be sharing this later. Make sure you look out for it.” And then I started getting this group of people that looked at me for inspiration. How does she keep her life together when she has all these other obligations? And so I started just nationally going that way and going, “Well, if people are interested in my life, let me show them more of that.” So, it became workouts and how to get through life and do all this stuff. So, now I’m at almost 17,000 followers and not quite two years into it and it’s fun.
Do you have any brand collaborations that are memorable to you?
Yeah. I did one last year and this is when I had a little bit more than 10,000 followers. Michelob ULTRA was doing a summer fitness … what did they call it? Summer tour.
And so they were reaching out to local influencers in different cities and they reached out to me and I’m like, “That’s pretty cool. Yes, I would love to do it” because it totally went with my brand, which is life and moderation. Have fun but still respect your body, respect your health. So, it went hand in hand with what I was putting out there and I did that and they had me do two permanent posts, a couple of stories, and then host an event along with it. So, it was a lot of fun.
As a fitness influencer, what are some common misconceptions people have about what you do or how to approach fitness in general?
I’m about two weeks into a 12-week challenge that I’m doing. It’s a free challenge for my followers and a lot of it is because of the misconceptions that were coming forward to me. A lot of people were all about restrictive diets and I won’t name them specifically, but they’re ones that tell you, “You can’t eat this if you want to lose weight. You have to do this. You have to do this.” And my whole message is “No, you should be able to live your life with your own type of lifestyle, your own taste buds, and things that drive you and you can still lose weight. You just need to dial it in a little bit.” So, this whole 12-week challenge is about taking each week and dialing in just a little bit more to fit your lifestyle. So, I would say that the one misconception that I keep running into is you have to restrict yourself and you have to punish yourself when really it’s just all about sustainability and what makes you happy and thriving.
What does it day in the life of Jenny Fisher look like in terms of influencer responsibilities, fitness routine, meal prep, and so on? I mean, you have a whole life outside of it. So, what’s the daily schedule look like?
So, I actually have a full-time sales job that I cover the whole state of South Carolina. So, I drive a lot. And I have this and I’ve got two kids and a wonderful husband. So, I wake up at about 6:30 in the morning. I help my husband get my six-year-old ready for kindergarten and get to the bus. And I actually read scripture every morning and kind of sit in prayer meditation for about 15 to 20 minutes. And then I get myself and my three year old ready, take him to daycare, drop him off. And then I’m usually driving anywhere between 30 minutes to two hours to my first sales call. But as far as the influencer thing goes, I make a sales call and then I might do a quick post or something like that. Where I film and get all of my content for my page is a lot of times I will take a lunch break, I’ll go change into some workout clothes, go film for about an hour during my lunch break, about three or four workouts.
And then I just have those ready to edit and post. If I’m not filming that day, then I might take my lunch break and edit something, but I’ll do maybe a post a day, every other day, something like that. But then after work, I’m picking up my kids and my husband is very understanding about my workouts. So, I like to workout in the evening. So, typically I’ll work out and then go pick up my three and my six-year-old from school, go home. And I really enjoy the art of cooking. That’s kind of my getaway. So, as soon as I get home, my husband plays with the kids. I cook for about 30 minutes to an hour. We all eat together. Baths, bedtime, and my husband and I typically almost always enjoy a glass of wine together. So, that’s about it. And then bedtime.
A constant theme in your social profiles, like you said, is moderation and balance. A lot of fitness programs focus on restrictions or extreme measures. How did you arrive at moderation and balance when it comes to your ethos?
Yeah, that’s a great question. I have a minor in nutrition from North Carolina State University and my husband has a major in nutrition. So, one of the things that our professors always used to say was a lot of this nutrition information you’re getting is marketed either by the government or just big business. And that’s where it comes from is how are we going to make a dollar helping people reach their fitness goals? And because I knew that already, I took a much more logical approach to how is this going to fit in my life? I know it’s not flashy and all that stuff, but I’ve never picked up a diet book that said “Day one. Don’t do anything. Just learn more about yourself.” I’ve never read one that did that. It was like “Day one. This is what you need to eat. This is what you need to cut out. This is your goal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”
So, after I had kids, it really made me stop worrying as much and it wasn’t until then that I started really putting those things into practice and just pulling back a little bit more, eating less during my meals. Things like that that just started building up and made me personally lose weight, which that was my personal goal. Some people don’t have that. And I started developing more muscle tone and things like that. So, it just kind of all clicked to me that “Okay, this is obviously working for me. This could help a lot of other people. This whole moderation thing.”
Can you tell us a little bit about Fitfish challenge and what it entails?
Yeah. It’s really taking people step by step and going, “This is what worked for me and I didn’t have to turn my life upside down. So, you don’t have to do every single challenge each week. But if it speaks to you and you think you can approach that sustainably and execute it, then try it out. If it doesn’t work for you, then maybe it just wasn’t meant for you.” But I’m doing things like eating less, meal blocking. So, breakfast you need to stay in this calorie range. Lunch, stay in this calorie range. Dinner in this calorie range, which to a lot of people, it sounds simple, but they’re like, “Oh, I never thought about it that way. I was always just trying to hit a daily goal and stressing myself out.”
But also throughout the challenge, you’re going to have some lifestyle adjustments too. So one week it might be just be more conscientious about how much water you’re drinking, try to stretch more during the week, things like that. So it’s not all, “You’ve got to change your life” and all this stuff. It’s just little things that I think people forget about and it might help them check in with themselves.
Do you have any goals for this year as it pertains to fitness, as it pertains to influencer marketing or growing your brand?
Yeah, it’s funny. Everybody’s like, “So, where are you taking this brand? Where’s it going?” And I love my personal, my full-time job so much. I have no intentions of ever leaving that. But my goal with my fitness mom pages is just to grow them organically if people need them and it fulfills me that I’m going to keep doing it. But another thing that I’ve realized is there is substance to what I’m doing and it’s good for advertisers. I stick to a core value where I have turned down many advertisers because it just didn’t make sense for my followers. It wasn’t something that I could get behind and go, “Yeah, this is something that I believe in.” So, I didn’t accept the partnership. So, what I do see going forward is getting some more partners that are really on board with my message and doing that. But yeah, I’m just going to let it roll. And if it’s making me happy, then I’m going to keep doing it. So, if I vanish all of a sudden, it’s just because I wasn’t happy anymore.
Andrew is the Head of Client Services for Intellifluence and has a background in communications. He is committed to helping brands get the most out of their campaigns and is the co-host of the Influencer Spotlight series.
