by Sunny Eaton | photos courtesy Ashley Hylbert
Natasha “Tash” Weddle is making magic happen. She is doing all the right things for all the right reasons. An essential presence in the Nashville business community, Tash owns TNB Fitness and New Beginnings, where she is using her talents to empower women to change their mindset, habits and bodies.
“The goal is to empower women to take control and live their best lives,” says Tash, who founded the nonprofit organization, New Beginnings, in 2011. The aim of New Beginnings is to give low-income women an opportunity to become part of a fitness community that may otherwise have been out of reach.
Tash recognized that fitness, nutrition and health education can be expensive and for women prioritizing basic necessities such as feeding children, paying rent and maintaining full-time jobs, it often falls low in their hierarchy of priority. “There is a gaping divide between access to fitness for these women and the clear need shown by fitness and health statistics for the state of Tennessee,” she mentions.
Closing the gap
With New Beginnings serving more than 200 women per year, Tash is taking steps to shorten that divide. She hosts several fundraisers a year and a portion of the profits from her TNB Fitness gym and personal training program go to support New Beginnings scholarships. These scholarships enable Tash to get deep into the lives and habits of her participants.
“We go beyond just exercise and break through to the patterns of thinking, daily habits and personal visions that truly shape health.” New Beginnings is a year-long program in multiple phases. For the first phase, women are required to commit to at least eighty percent attendance. “That commitment is the first step in putting self-care into the daily to-do list and the realizing that health and movement don’t have to be a chore or something to suffer through for cosmetic gains, but instead are a hard-earned gift and endlessly rewarding journey. A journey they won’t be taking alone.”
Unsurprisingly, Tash is an extraordinary athlete. An all-star basketball player in high school, Tash went on to play collegiate basketball for both North Carolina State University and the University of Evansville. Her talent eventually met its match with a recurrent knee injury that forced Tash to endure five surgeries. “My athletic career transitioned into a notable 17 years as a strength and conditioning coach for several major universities including the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt.”
More than athletics
Although she loved this work and had earned a reputation for excellence and measured success, Tash knew there had to be something more in store for her life, that there was more she could contribute to the lives of other people. In answering that question, TNB Fitness and New Beginnings were born.
Walking into the enormous, well-equipped TNB Fitness gym and the New Beginnings meeting room, filled with inspirational quotes and vision boards is like having a gauntlet of self-growth and betterment laid at your feet. When you are in Tash’s office, looking at her bookshelves full of training materials and new concepts, you know she is capable and that she does more than talk about excellence and growth, she lives those ideas. “I want people to ask themselves, ‘what more can I be doing – for myself and for my community.”
Tash isn’t all exercise and empowerment, she is also kind, interesting and makes you feel welcome in her presence. She spends her free time traveling, reading and with friends. Soon, she and her wife are headed to central Mexico for some much-needed rest and to scope out some retirement- location possibilities.
Don’t worry, Nashville – Tash is invested in the city and isn’t going anywhere for a very long time.
To learn more about her programs and upcoming events, visit www.tnb-fitness.com.
