Micah and Diana Chaloux-LaCerte are the owners of Hitch Fit Gyms, which recently opened a second location in Overland Park. Micah is a part of the Helzberg Entrepreneurial Mentoring Program, which helps local business owners achieve new growth. (photo by Alistair Tutton)
Hundreds of “before” and “after” pictures line the walls at Hitch Fit Gyms. You can see the legion of people who have lost weight, built muscle and transformed their bodies with help from owners Micah LaCerte and Diana Chaloux-LaCerte and their team.
Yet it’s what can’t be observed that forms the most important part of the striking improvement on display.
“Initially, the physical aspect is why they’re here,” Micah said of Hitch Fit Gym clients. “They see an ‘after’ picture and go, ‘I want to be that girl’ or ‘I want to be that guy.’ But what we always tell people is that it’s an internal transformation with external benefits. So the ‘after’ picture of that awesome-looking body is just a bonus to what they ultimately get—a healthy, sustainable lifestyle. That’s what it’s all about.
“Our motto is ‘believe, transform, inspire.’ Initially, you have to believe in yourself for the change to happen. Then you go through transformation, because of positive choices. And then, ultimately, after you transform, you’re inspiring the world.”
Hitch Fit Gym’s certified team of independently contracted personal fitness trainers helped Kansas City area clients lose 15,000 pounds of fat in 2013.
The figures are even more impressive online, where individually tailored fitness regimens helped Hitch Fit clients in 68 countries lose 45,000 pounds of fat last year.
Hitch Fit’s annual revenue tops $1.5 million, and the company recently opened a second location in Overland Park. But it’s not the need for sales that drives the LaCertes’ healthy business model. It’s their deep desire to help people feel better and live longer.
“I don’t want the focus to be on sales,” Diana said. “I don’t want the focus to be on how long we can retain a client. I want the focus to be on, ‘Did this person transform?’ That’s what’s going to affect someone for the rest of their life. We genuinely want people to succeed.”
BUILDING A BRAND
Before joining forces in life and business, the LaCertes were already notables in the physical fitness industry.
Diana, a native of Vermont, was a high school and college athlete who became a certified personal trainer and went on to hold multiple world titles in competitive fitness modeling.
“I worked a little bit in an office and just hated it,” she said. “I thought, ‘What am I going to do with my life? Where am I happy every day? Where do I want to go and spend my time?’ I was an athlete, and it occurred to me, ‘Oh, the gym.’”
Micah grew up in Olathe, and found favor as a fitness model in more than 100 national publications. He even dabbled in reality TV in Los Angeles on such muscle-happy shows as “Manhunt: The Search for America’s Most Gorgeous Male Model.”
“I did a lot of fun stuff and got into all that,” Micah said. “But at the same time, I was trying to figure out, because I lived in Kansas City, how can I be seen everywhere? The power of social media is what got me there.
“Back in the day, in the MySpace world, you’d come up with a nickname. It wasn’t Micah LaCerte—it was ‘Hitch,’ from the movie ‘Hitch,’ and I was kind of a matchmaker. A hundred-thousand followers later on MySpace, this brand was built.”
In 2007, Micah got the idea to offer online personal fitness training. The impetus was provided by a woman in Canada, who contacted “Hitch” on MySpace to say how much she would like to be trained by him, but that she lived too far away.
“It was like a lightbulb turned on,” Micah recalled. “I told her, ‘Well, I could probably just make you a plan and send it to you.’ And so that’s how online personal training came about. It was like, ‘Why am I capping myself in Kansas City, when I can work globally?’ So I kept doing it and perfecting it, one client at a time, by using social media and posting transformations.”
BETTER TOGETHER
In 2008, the LaCertes first encountered one another on MySpace, as well. They decided to meet in person at the Mr. Olympia fitness competition and expo in Las Vegas.
“I think we both went to Vegas thinking, ‘OK, we’re single, and what you do in Vegas stays in Vegas,’” Micah said. “It didn’t stay in Vegas, thank goodness.”
“We were both like, ‘Oh, I think I want to hang out with you more,’” Diana said. “It was kind of an instant thing. I knew that weekend, ‘OK, this is the guy I’m supposed to be with.’”
Two months later, Diana moved to Kansas City to be with Micah, and the loving couple also became a business team with the launch of the official Hitch Fit website in February 2009. The first Hitch Fit Gym in Kansas City’s Union Hill neighborhood opened in August of the same year, although it was a modest start.
“We were living in an attic in a friend’s house,” Diana said. “But we were so happy, because it was fun and we were building something that was ours. But it was literally just us grinding and marketing and meeting new people.”
A $12,000 loan from an early Hitch Fit Gym client—which was paid back through personal training sessions—allowed the LaCertes to get their financial feet under them. Three months after opening their first gym, the business started hiring trainers as independent contractors to meet the growing client demand. Why not just hire trainers as employees?
“If you’re an employee, there’s a certain, ‘I’ve got to be here, I’ve got to do this’ feel to it,” Diana said. “We wanted it to be ‘no greener pastures’ for our trainers. They pay rent and a percentage of their training sessions. But we don’t take any money beyond a certain cap. These trainers make more money than trainers anywhere in the United States.”
Hitch Fit Gym trainers, like the LaCertes themselves, must care about their clients and bring a relentlessly positive attitude to work.
“They’re people that, when you come into a gym, are going, ‘You’re looking amazing. You’re doing great.’ It’s such a support system. But that’s how we live each and every day,” Micah said.
As an entrepreneurial duo, the LaCertes function in a complementary way that makes their business better.
“The good thing about us is where I’m weaker, he’s stronger,” Diana said. “And where he’s weaker, I’m stronger. We’ve just always made a good team. I am strong at the public speaking, at the more emotional side of things with some of the clients.
“When we opened our Overland Park location this year, he was the one who talked to the building contractor most of the time. He enjoys that more. So I do the things that I enjoy, and he does the things that he enjoys.”
TRULY TRANSFORMING
The LaCertes train clients with different needs, from those who may want to lose 20 pounds to those with a life-threatening weight problem, such as “Tim,” who was 340 pounds at his heaviest.
“We had to save Tim, because he was going to die,” Micah said. “He was that guy who goes through the fast food drive-through every single day and has a backseat full of bags. When I met him, he was around 240 pounds, and we got him down to about 175. He’s lived healthy since 2010.”
The LaCertes’ desire to transform the lives of others goes beyond their livelihood. They support the efforts of Operation Breakthrough in helping local inner-city youth. And they participate in Big Brothers and Big Sisters as a “Big Couple” to a 9-year-old boy.
Their caring extends to Haiti, where they help to feed and school up to 100 impoverished children. But it didn’t start out to be that many kids when Diana visited Port-au-Prince two years ago.
“Every time I talk about this, I get emotional,” Diana said, tears welling in her eyes. “All of these kids needed sponsors. And they just kept coming up, and I couldn’t just choose a couple of them. I kept saying, ‘I know God is going to provide whatever money that these kids need.’ So I just said, ‘I want them all.’ And there’s never been a month that the money wasn’t there to support them.”
“We knew that if we got to some level of success after hard work, you have to give back,” Micah said. “It has to be about more than just you in this life. You’ve got to help people.
“We’ve stayed in Kansas City and done it here, because Kansas City needs help. We’re one of the fattest cities in the nation, and it’s important for us to transform Kansas City. It means a lot to us. We want to see the change.”
