FORT IRWIN, Calif. — When Matthew Breit brought his nutrition business to Fort Irwin in May 2018, he also brought with him a motto of transformation.

“You can literally walk through our doors and change your lives,” Breit said. The owner opened his NutraVerity business at the National Training Center after being asked by a former staff member of the sports program on post.

“He liked the way that we did business with integrity and we did everything the right way when it came to health and fitness,” Breit said.

NutraVerity is located at the Box Fitness Center inside the Resiliency Center of Bldg. 127. Breit said he got the idea for the business name because “Nutra” means nutrition and “Verity” means strong belief in fundamentals. Breit calls the store a one-stop shop for anything that is health and fitness.

“I’m a fitness coach and nutritionist outside of this, so basically we wanted to create something so we have answers for anybody that wants to endorse,” he said.

NutraVerity offers meal prep options, supplementation, meal plans and even smoothies. There are seven options for meal prep and Breit said they try to provide a theme for each culture—Mexican, Asian, etc. —  to satisfy a variety of needs.

For those looking to gear up and get their “summer body” into shape, the nutritional options available at NutraVerity are a plus. Breit is also a certified personal trainer with his sports nutritionist certification, and a competitive body builder on the national level. Breit has about 20 clients of his own who are amateur athletes and said each customer receives a consultation.

He said he knows there are people who like to take advantage of each, new “fitness trend,” offering items that may not be the healthier option.

“Anybody who walks through our door, I try adjust to what they’re already currently doing, in which case I can recommend certain things,” Breit said. “We’re not really trying to make sales, we’re really trying to bring value to our customers, so I really ask a lot of questions, as if they were my clients.”

The business prepares meals and smoothies for anywhere between 300-400 people a month on post, and has a repeat/regular customer base for meal planning of about 250-500 a week. Although Breit has consultations with clients, he said he avoids guaranteeing results—he’d rather provide the education and options and hope they follow through with it.

“It’s really hard to make predictions based off of that (meal prep alone), because you don’t really know what they’re doing for the rest of the day, so I never make predictions or diagnose,” Breit said. “I just give them as much as I can verbally that they can use on their own.”

Breit said he doesn’t make promises to customers but has heard some great success stories.

“The cool thing is, a lot of people come straight over after their Bod Pod,” Breit said,  “And we’ve had people do our meal preps for 2-3 weeks and come over and show us the difference in their BodPod, where they’ve lost 4-5 percent body fat, just following our basic advice and buying the meals.”

The “BodPod” is a body fat analysis machine offered by the Health and Wellness Center to gauge how much body fat you have.

“Sometimes it’s scary to know but it’s better to know,” he said.

As Breit celebrates one year in business at Fort Irwin, he said he wants to do some form of a “Lose-to-Win” challenge on post this year. It would involve contestants paying an entry fee to see how much weight can be lost over a certain amount of time, and awards offered, based off of the BodPod results.

Breit said when he first got into the business four years ago, many focused on supplements but he saw a bigger picture.

“I fell in love with it,” Breit said. “When I started doing it, honestly, I just wanted to feel better about myself, then a couple of years into doing it…I realized that there was a huge gap of opportunity there, when it comes to being able to add value to people’s lives, so I expanded on the meal prep, the smoothies and the coaching. It’s really something for everybody, when before, not everyone wanted to take supplements.”

Briet also has another location in Barstow at 1251 E. Main Street and orders can be made in person at his Box Fitness Center location, by phone at (760)881-5364 and you can visit his Facebook page at Facebook.com/NutraVerity.

Breit is happy to be celebrating a year on post and hopes it continues to thrive.

“I think it started as trendy, but I think it’s here to stay,” he said.