About Jacqi, The Happy Mommy Guide
Jacqi Leyva-Hill was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, until she moved to Los Angeles, CA in 2001. She earned her vocational license degree from the European Massage Therapy Institute in 1993 and completed her Master's degree in Exercise Science from (Southwest) Texas State University. She first became interested in weight loss when she herself gained 50 pounds in 6 months after her parents divorce when she was only 10 and a half years old. Her mom helped her lose the weight with healthy nutrition and exercise, as well as introducing her to the use of a preworkout wrap. She lost the weight after a year and started to workout at the local gym with her dad. It was there that she fell and love with working out and eating healthy, so at 16 years of age, when she got her first care, he first place she drove herself to was a local aerobic studio to offer her apprentice aerobic teacher services for free. From there she designed her own program upon which her original thesis research was on the efficacy of her unique diet, exercise and massage weight loss plan versus traditional diet and exercise plans. She opened her first location in 1995, a few months after graduating inside of a local healthclub where she offered personal training and massage therapy services. She started offering medical massage to the neighboring chiropractor's patients as well. It was at this time that she met and started training her first pageant contestant to prepare for the Mrs. Texas International pageant. The pageant contestant had already competed three years in a row prior to meeting Jacqi and had never made the Top 10 because of her unsightly hips. The other traditional trainers that the contestant used only recommended diet and exercise, and could not affect her bulging hips. When Jacqi agreed to train her using her preworkout massage techniques combined with weight training, flexibility and cardio recommendations, her client won her crown! That is when she encouraged Jacqi to enter pageants as a contestant herself. Jacqi competed at the city, state and national levels, in which she represented her city as the first Ms. Latina San Antonio USA and won the Ms. Phontogenic Award in 1998. It was during this time that she was competing on the beauty pageant circuit that she was approached by the Enjoy Whole Health magazine editor and was asked to be their health and fitness writer, to which she agreed and started her writing career.
When Jacqi returned to the gym, she started to train licensed massage therapists like herself to become certified in her NuFitness techniques as a NuFitness Trainer, who were trained to help people pick and choose where they lose with her diet, exericse and massage program. She expanded from one to five locations in less than six months after returning from the beauty pageant circuit. But then she started focusing more on medical massage and realized that when people ran out of health insurance benefits, if they did not understand their money enough to have an extra savings account to pull out of, they could no longer afford to see the chiropractor or Jacqi anymore. But if people did understand their money, and had an extra savings account to pull out of, they could continue to receive therapy and treatments which helped them get stronger than before the accident that initially got them in the doctor's office to begin with. Jacqi could only give away so many free sessions, so she created a handout of stretches for people who could not afford services anymore, but it was heartbreaking for Jacqi to see them start to deteriorate despite their best efforts to recover.
So Jacqi was telling one of her clients who happened to be a financial advisor about this sad situation, and he said, "Mija, if you really want to help people, teach them about their money!" It was at that point Jacqi sold out her leases and went back to learn about securities, insurance, and real estate investments in which she earned her Series 7, 6, and 63, along with her Texas Life and Health Insurance license as well as her Texas Real Estate license.
Around this time, she met her future husband, and after 7 months decided to escape the Texas heat to move to LA to live on Venice Beach. It had been a goal of hers to live and play on Muscle Beach, so they packed up and moved in two days! There she did some tv infomercial work and was an extra on a few tv shows and movies, attended the local junior college to learn radio communications where DJ Jacqi Jet was "born," but her true comfort zone was the gym. Jacqi ended up competing in the 2003 Muscle Beach Bodybuilding Contest in the lightweight division and won 3rd place. She worked in Santa Monica, CA., as a personal trainer and nutrition coach and later at the Sports Club LA in Beverly Hills, CA as a personal trainer. It was there that she met a Gyrotonic certified trainer and decided to pursue becoming a Gyrotonic for Golfers trainer. After she completed that goal, she became a Stott Pilates Certified trainer and combined that with her Kundalini yoga experience to offer her pilates/yoga mat and chari classes.
Jacqi was married in December of 2005 in the Marina del Rey, CA., and then went on to compete in the Mrs. California USA pageant as Mrs. Marina del Rey, but only after completing her first 26.2 mile Rock-n-Roll Marathon in Long Beach, CA., to help her fit into her beloved dress that she wore at the Ms. Texas USA pageant almost ten years before!
At that time, she went back into the financial industry world to work more "normal" hours (gym hours are crazy, lol) and worked as a Licensed Personal Finanical Representative in the Marina del Rey and surrounding Los Angeles area. But the hectic LA traffic left Jacqi missing the gym again, so again she returned to the gym, but this time it was a specialty gym, just for women, which she loved even more than any other gym before.
After three years of marriage, Jacqi and her husband welcomed their son into the world and that is when Jacqi's world turned upside down with love for her new baby boy. After a year or so, the three of them moved back to San Antonio to be closer to family and she fell "butt backward" into her own studio on the second night back in town. She called it Jacqi's NuFitness and offered primarily just Zumba and pilates/yoga classes. It was during this time that she was approached by the editor of StreetTalk Magazine and was asked to be their health and fitness writer, and she accepted. Jacqi then started subletting to the inventor of Vegas Stiletto Fitness and fell in love with how it empowered women in a safe studio environment in a fun and sassy way, so she invested in the LLC to become a 20% owner. She then expanded her studio to a bigger location and started offering bodywraps and created her own line of patented body shaping corsets along with her own line of Skin Toning wipes to promote elasticity, which often suffers after weight loss. At one point her husband even converted one area into Starville Karaoke Parties for kids and adults to incorporate his love for music production with her business of fitness and fun. Soon after, they invested in purchasing the equipment from SilverFox Studios for the purpose of producing their own shows, such as SA Talk Today and Champagne Talk SA. She was hosting web shows and working with the Northside Independent School District's Adult Education Community as a pilates/yoga instructor. But once the leases were up, Jacqi and her husband decided to focus on their family and close the doors to their studio in 2015. She was relieved because she herself started to feel the strains of being plagued by working too much, frustration with things not working out how she planned, and high levels of anxiety. But Jacqi didn't sit around feeling sorry for herself, she got deep into God's Word, and started to volunteer to work with foster kids, in particular, foster girls who never found a forever home. Jacqi taught the girls breathing and meditation techniques, pilates/yoga classes in the courtroom and in the park, as well as donated yoga mats to the girls. Though she loved working with the girls, it was hard for Jacqi to hear their stories which started to give her secondary PTSD. But she still wanted to help, and out of this desire is where Jacqi's book was born.
Soon after, Jacqi started working as a marketing partner for a women focused ministry and a nutritionist. She learned about and marketed neurofeedback and customized nutrition services., as well as monthly ministry meetups. It was during this time that she learned about lab-tested low sugar/low alcohol wines that have less than 1gram of sugar per bottle, that are perfect for keto, low carb and paleo dieters who wanted to lose weight, but still wanted to enjoy an occasional glass o wine. Jacqi was inspired by certain events to go back to school and earn her Medical Massage Practicioner (MMP) certificate in Grapevine, Texas, as well as her certificate in Radio, TV, and Broadcast from the local junior college. It was then that she worked ON AIR as DJ Jacqi Jet on the Morning Drive radio show as part of her studies. She switched to the Community Health Workers program soon after, but then decided she was too spread thin between family, volunteer, and school duties, so she chose to stay home and work on her own projects combining all that she had learned and done before.
Today, Jacqi still holds her massage therapist license, and has gone on to become Healer Certified and offers free demos of the frequency medicine FDA approved device called the Healy. She became an affiliate for the lab tested low sugar wines and a rep for a therapeutic quality line of essential oils, all of which she offers links to buy here on this website. Jacqi also renewed her Life and Health Agent license and is now licensed in 8 states to offer life and health insurance products.
Jacqi loves to help people, especially mommies, so contact her via text at 210-410-0325 or email at jacqi27@icloud.com or schedule a complimentary ZOOM call. With laughter and love, armed with God's Word, Jacqi aims to help the world one family at a time.
