Going out around 11 a.m. on a Saturday, you would be forgiven if you thought everyone in the Woodside-Portola Valley-Menlo Park metroplex was training for an upcoming Olympic event. Runners spill off sidewalks into bike lanes and the various pelotons slow traffic on many roads.
Being active may seem to be in our collective DNA, but it is in the true, chemical DNA of Jackie Ballinger, a local fitness guru in Woodside. Daughter of a professional tennis player mother and professional baseball player father, Ms. Ballinger grew up following in her mother’s footsteps.
“I started competing when I was eight,” says Ms. Ballinger, “and in high school, I was the first girl to letter in a boys’ varsity sport; tennis was my life.”
Burned out on tennis by the end of high school, Ms. Ballinger quit that sport, but not an active lifestyle. She began riding horseback; hiking slowly morphed into trail running; then came weight training, yoga, and cycling. Some people can’t escape their biology.
In the spirit of sticking to what you’re good at, Ms. Ballinger studied exercise science at Cal State Hayward and received her personal trainer and fitness specialist certification from the American College of Sports Medicine.
Activating others
For the past two decades, Ms. Ballinger has spent her days sharing her passion with others. As founder and CEO of Physically Focused, a consortium of fitness specialists, she’s in the business of making others love what she loves.It’s about finding an activity an individual enjoys so she can stick with it, Ms. Ballinger explains. This is obviously an aspect of her job she loves. “I like to help individuals find and accentuate their strengths, acknowledge and work on their weaknesses and make deep, sustainable healthy changes in their lives.”
Being active, eating right and a healthy mind are all components of healthy living, but there is no set formula for what makes a healthy lifestyle. “Healthy living is unique to all of us at any given time,” says Ms. Ballinger; unique and important.
If you aren’t already active, Ms. Ballinger recommends starting with easy walking and working towards hiking or jogging. Start slowly and make it easy.
She tosses out some suggestions, “such as parking away from the store so you can walk to it; buying a pedometer, which is typically $20-$30, and measuring how many steps you take a day; taking the stairs; dancing to music while cleaning the house.”
“Put your walking shoes next to your work desk,” she adds, “and have a friend call to meet you for a walk; ask for their support. Stretch at your office desk.”
Ms. Ballinger also suggests trying weight-training, yoga, stretching, even dancing; anything to find an activity “that fits.”
What we eat
Slow and easy is Ms. Ballinger’s strategy for healthful eating as well. “Choose to eat a healthy breakfast for a month before making any other changes,” she advises.“Our society typically eats very large quantities in the evening hours,” she says, “and then starve themselves in the morning until they are starving. Then people reach for unhealthy choices.
“Eat breakfast to prevent more hunger at the end of the day.”
She also encourages eating a small meal after a long workout. “You have a 30-minute window of optimal absorption once you end exercising to eat a combination of carbs, protein and a little fat to recover faster and fuel energy stores.”
Care of the mind
The mind-body connection is vital to Ms. Ballinger’s philosophy. “I think of the body as the carrier for our minds,” she says. “They feed one another as they dance, emotionally and physically, internally and externally.“Become aware of your inner voice. Is it guiding you on a healthy track or sabotaging you? The mind is a brilliant thing, but it is also very tricky.”
The mind can set us up for failure in a couple of ways, she explains, through excuses or with impractical goals.
A common excuse is, “I don’t have time.” Ms. Ballinger laughs slightly at this one and says it’s an issue of priorities. She suggests setting a schedule in advance and making exercising part of “personal time,” a time to focus inward and reflect. She adds that it’s about having the strength to say yes to the new and no to the old, and not slipping back into comfortable old habits.
Unrealistic goals, like losing 15 pounds in four weeks or training for a hard ride in two months, also greatly increase the risk of failure, not to mention injury.
Ms. Ballinger is no stranger to injury. In 2007, she strained her hamstring while cycling. “My mind was ready for the push,” she says, “but my body wasn’t.”
To protect her hamstring as it heals, Ms. Ballinger has stopped running and now emphasizes other activities in her life. She has begun exploring local hiking trails and parks, working more with her horse, strengthening her core and increasing balance and stability.
It’s also important to learn how to lean on others for help, she insists. Healthy relationships are a big part of a healthy lifestyle.
This all-encompassing approach is what Ms. Ballinger believes sets her firm apart from other personal trainers. She adds that she and her colleagues at Physically Focused have the time and resources to evaluate the whole individual and work with the person to create a healthy-living regimen as opposed to just a workout regimen.
When pressed to explain, she says, “When I think about a healthy regimen, it encompasses all areas of life, from healthy balanced fitness, what to eat, … growth and development, self-care, friends, family, nature and community.”
Community health
Ms. Ballinger takes the health of her community to heart. She is the director of the Tour for Woodside, a bike ride through the Santa Cruz Mountains that raises money for the Woodside High School Foundation Endowment.In its second year, she says, the event raised $70,000 for the endowment, which provides funds for books, technology, equipment, supplies, and student support programs, according to its Web site.
The interconnectedness of the community brings Ms. Ballinger back to the interconnectedness of the individual. Health and fitness, she concludes, is not about changing bodies but changing lives.
Change of plans: Research campus to leave Menlo Park, make way for more housingJune 12, 2026 6:46 pm