Phoenix Fitness Foundation was founded by professionals who have spent their careers working at the intersection of fitness, behavior change, and medically complex populations.
Phoenix Fitness Foundation was born from a straightforward observation: bariatric surgery patients receive a great deal of support in the months leading up to and immediately following their procedure — and then, precisely when behavioral change becomes most difficult and most consequential, that support largely disappears.
The mission of Phoenix is to fill that void with something the field has been missing: expert, activation-centered fitness coaching delivered by properly trained professionals, subsidized so that income is never the reason a patient goes without support.
Our program is grounded in the Patient Activation Measure (PAM-13), a validated clinical instrument that allows us to assess where patients are in their self-management journey and tailor coaching accordingly. This isn't a standard gym program dressed up in clinical language — it's a fundamentally different approach to fitness coaching, built from the ground up for this population.
We are based in Denver, Colorado, and focused on building a model that can be replicated as the organization grows. While our pilot centers on the bariatric surgery population, the Phoenix framework is deliberately designed to be adapted for any population where fitness coaching is a meaningful part of managing a long-term health condition.
Geof Shuford brings more than 15 years of professional fitness experience working with bariatric and high-weight clients — one of the most underserved and technically demanding populations in the field. His work has been defined by a consistent commitment to meeting clients where they are: building competence incrementally, reducing shame, and creating the kind of successful physical experiences that shift a person's relationship with their own body.
He is the author of Now What? What to Expect in Your First Year of Bariatric Surgery, a practical guide for post-surgical patients navigating the behavioral challenges of the first year. That work, and the countless client conversations that informed it, made the gaps in long-term aftercare impossible to ignore — and ultimately led to the founding of Phoenix Fitness Foundation.
Geof also serves as a trainer within the Phoenix program, working directly with a pilot caseload of clients alongside his administrative responsibilities.
Dr. Kristin Lloyd is a licensed psychologist with 12 years of specialized experience in bariatric mindset coaching — a career built at the intersection of behavioral health, surgical weight loss, and the psychology of lasting change. She has worked with hundreds of pre- and post-surgical patients, developing deep expertise in what actually drives long-term behavioral success and what undermines it.
She is the author of four books on the psychological dimensions of bariatric care, and brings that depth of knowledge to the Phoenix training curriculum. As Director of Education, Dr. Lloyd oversees the mindset coaching and behavioral components of trainer certification, ensuring that Phoenix-trained professionals are equipped not just to design effective exercise programs, but to have the kinds of conversations that help clients build genuine, lasting confidence in managing their own health.
Dr. Lloyd's contribution represents a rare integration of clinical psychology expertise into a fitness certification curriculum.
We assess each client's Patient Activation level before designing any program. The coaching intensity, pace, and content are all calibrated to where the client actually is — not where a standard program assumes they should be.
Every element of our trainer curriculum is grounded in peer-reviewed research. We use validated clinical tools, draw on established behavioral science, and hold ourselves to the documentation standards of the health systems we partner with.
The subsidy model isn't an afterthought — it's core to the mission. A program that serves only the patients who can afford it isn't solving the problem. Income-based access is built into how Phoenix operates from day one.