Mia Kuhn offers a little-known fitness regimen at the Mayport Fitness Center intended to help individual Sailors discover their inner strength while developing physical strength and fitness.

As a fitness specialist, she is helping Sailors stationed at the Southeast Regional Maintenance Center (SERMC) who are enrolled in the Fitness Enhancement Program (FEP) with some new exercises that dramatically depart from traditional workouts.

Kuhn facilitates segments of the Navy Operational Fitness and Fueling System (NOFFS). NOFFS provides physical fitness and nutrition information for Sailors, going so far as to tailor workouts to various ship platforms. They have specific training for the tight spaces of a submarine, or the open spaces of a big deck ship, for instance. NOFFS introduces several series of workouts too, such as the Strength or Endurance Series. The Regeneration Series helps facilitate recovery, which is also a critical component to any training program.

"Lack of awareness prevents our Sailors from achieving mental and physical strength," Kuhn said. "They don't know how to take care of themselves."

According to a NOFFS website, rather than focusing specifically on the physical readiness test (PRT), NOFFS emphasizes how to specifically improve the functional performance of a Sailor during daily operations including: lifting, pushing, pulling, carrying, aerobic/anaerobic demands, body movement skills with balance, agility, and coordination.

"Core strength is essential. If our core is weak, everything is going to be a tired, uphill battle and at a higher risk of injury," Kuhn said.

The NOFFS workouts are deceptively demanding, most involving little more than one's own body weight for resistance and can be performed nearly anywhere. The effort to maintain balance and breathing is surprisingly difficult. The repetition of exercise is what develops strength. Kuhn said being mindful of your body and what you do with it - or to it - will make the difference in achieving fitness goals. It's a balance of mind and body that helps you become truly strong, she said.

"If you have a Ferrari, or a Porche, and put in a lawn mower engine, you always struggle, and it's like that with us," she said.

"I've done the yoga, the cycling and NOFFS," Machinist's Mate 1st Class (SW) Ernest Young, one of SERMC's FEP participants said. "Yoga was kind of surprising; it takes a lot of strength and muscle coordination. Stretching is really important, and with yoga it helps a lot of people stretch so we're not sore."

Stress management is hugely important, too. The Navy teaches how to exercise. It's equally important to learn how to relax, and recover from a workout.

"It's a process, a transformation through fitness that helps to balance your life; how to exercise, eat, relax and become the 'pilot' of your body," Kuhn said. "You will learn to trust yourself, and your energy. We need to have mental fitness to achieve these goals. You cannot be all you should be without mental fitness."

Kuhn said nutrition is major part of the balance. She said many FEP participants believe they have to starve themselves [to lose weight]; it's not true."

Nutrition is simply the process of nourishing the body, giving it what it needs to perform. Giving it too much of something negative may lead to obesity and poor health. Good choices must be made in this area.

"I've learned to feed myself better food, and I eat more often," said Gas Turbine System Technician (Electrical)(SW) Georgina Bennett, another FEP participant. "I have breakfast, then a healthy snack, lunch, a healthy snack, dinner, and healthy snack."

Bennett's philosophy is to keep the body's metabolism at work instead of eating just three big meals and then starving the body between meals when the body is likely to store food as fat. By eating healthy and more often, her metabolism is always working, burning calories, but the key is healthy eating. Processed food offers little nutritional value and ultimately slows the metabolism and creates fat.

There's a lot of responsibility, and personal accountability in making choices and living with the consequences of those choices - this is part of that mental fitness, part of the journey to inner/outer strength.

"A person who knows how to achieve these goals can grow on more levels; they can be a better parent or spouse, better people. There's a lot of power in that," Kuhn said.

Kuhn said the transformation truly begins when there is that "Aha" moment and the commitment decision occurs. Sometimes it's a dramatic event, sometimes it's an environmental influence. It's different for different people.

"The energy makes us buoyant. It brings you up," said Kuhn.

She said having consistency and strictness to your people, or yourself, will ultimately deliver this buoyancy. That doesn't mean we become fitness tyrants. It means plotting a path to making healthy choices and following that path.

"You have to find something that sustains you through the jungle of life," Kuhn said. "The most powerful body-fat-cutting, muscle-toning, anti-aging substance known in science is the human growth hormone, which is naturally produced by the body through exercise."

"I did NOFFS before I was a CFL, and I saw it was much more than pushups, sit-ups and the run," said Damage Controlman 1st Class (SW/AW) Jose Espinal, one of SERMC's command fitness leaders. "I started using NOFFS, and then cycling to try to mix up the workouts."

NOFFS workouts routine with photos and videos, nutrition information and other fitness tools is available as a smartphone application, and it's free. Just go to your app store and search "NOFFS."

While there are endless options to exercise, one philosophy remains constant, and that is no weight can be lost, no fitness can be achieved by ignoring your health. The two primary tenets permeate all workout options: diet and exercise.

"Whatever your normal exercise routine may be, add short intervals to fight off aging and acquire never before levels of fitness," said Kuhn.

For more information on NOFFS, log on to www.navyfitness.org or visit the MWR Fitness Center.

For more news from Southeast Regional Maintenance Center, visit www.navy.mil/.