After 11 years as a gym owner, my mission has changed.

When I opened BFP in 2013, my mission was simple: feed my family.

As we evolved, my mission was adopted by a team and became more complex. We wanted to introduce real fitness to Hampstead. We wanted to be counterculture. We wanted to stomp out the myths around fat loss, performance and health. Our mission, for a while, was hard to iterate.

But my friend Andre put it like this:

“If you care about somebody, you have to care about their health. And if you care about their health, you have to care about the community around them.”

So we built a caring, supportive community. We planted seeds and cut back the brambles and grew in a hundred different directions. It’s been amazing. But if you ask any member of the BFP family, “What’s BFP?” you’ll get a different answer. So here it is, the BFP mission, 2024 edition:

The BFP mission is to enlarge the lives of 1,000 people from Hampstead to Sneads Ferry.

I care about this this area. I came back here by choice after time away freshman year of college. I started working as a fitness trainer at an older folks home back in 2008.

When I opened my own gym, I chose the name BFP and the slogan “Strong, Fit, Confident,” because that’s what a BFP does. I don’t have to bring every single resident in Hampstead and Sneads Ferry to fitness and health to succeed. Because between Hampstead, Surf City, Holly Ridge and Sneads Ferry is a great big area, with one degree of separation, we can change the area by enlarging the lives of 1,000 citizens. They, in turn, can ask their friends to go for a walk, or share their salad and meat for lunch. We can be the area’s way to breakaway from unhealthy habits and into strength, fitness, and confidence.

Why “enlarge”? Because our brand of fitness is more than life-extending; it’s life-broadening.

If you cut out processed carbs and sugar (enjoy them some) and start doing squats, deadlifts and presses, you’ll live longer. But you’ll also live better. You’ll stay independent to an older age. You’ll have strength and mobility and the will to live right up until the end—you’ll practically be your own pallbearer.

You’ll be younger for longer. And while you’re young, you’ll do more things.

You’ll Spartan Up. You’ll play adult sports more. You’ll ride your bike 100 miles to raise money for people who won’t. You’ll get down on the floor with the kids, up on your feet to dance and over the walls of diabetes and depression. You will go, you will see, and you will conquer. You will live a larger life.

The BFP mission is to enlarge the lives of 1,000 people from Hampstead to Sneads Ferry. What’s yours?