Shake it up!, a nutrition center at 39 West Broad Street, recently opened for business, bringing extensive weight loss and health services to downtown Pawcatuck.
Owner and certified nutrition adviser Kim Welch said that after taking her health into her own hands, health and nutrition became her passion. Her idea for Shake it up! was to offer a one-stop shop for everything health-related.
“Shake it up! actually combines three concepts into one,” Welch explained. “It is a weight loss center, and we hold weekly weight loss and nutrition meetings and we also offer free private weigh-ins.
“We’re also a supplement store, kind of like a GNC, and we offer over 150 different health supplements for people who are looking for vitamins, fish oils, protein shakes, things like that,” she continued. “And then we also have a juice bar, kind of like a smoothie shop where we offer healthy meal replacement shakes, and herbal teas for energy for people who are on the go and want to stick to their meal plan and make a healthy choice.”
Offering 12 week-long nutrition and weight loss classes during the evening for only $29, Welch said she personalizes her approach for each individual and helps people to understand the “common sense approach to eating healthy.”
Each class begins with a free “wellness consultation,” where patrons learn their body fat percentage, lean muscle mass, resting metabolic rate, and individual calorie and protein requirements, all of which helps to form a plan to help people lose weight safely and with lasting results.
“The classes are a lot like a Weight Watchers or a weight loss center’s, where we’ll focus on a certain topic every evening,” Welch said. “It may be portion control, or dining out tips, learning the importance of whole grains, or the power of protein; those are some topics we cover.”
Shake it up!’s juice bar offers more than 30 flavors of protein smoothies and herbal teas, which Welch said make a great healthy choice for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Shake it up! has only been open for a short while, but Welch said business is good and continues to grow.
“It’s been really great, it’s been growing and we’ve been getting a lot of referrals, which is the best compliment someone can give,” Welch said. “We’re having a lot of fun, and the best part is people are losing weight and they feel good and they feel healthy.”