Teresa Tapp – Person of the Month – May 2017
The EPIC Foundation proudly recognizes Teresa Tapp, the creator of T-Tapp workouts and founder of T-Tapp, Inc. Teresa is our Person of the Month for May, 2017. Teresa Tapp is an affiliate of The EPIC Foundation. We believe that T-Tapp changes the lives of people who live with chronic illness! Teresa previously worked in the fashion industry. Her vision for T-Tapp started in 1994 after retiring from working in the fashion industry. Teresa worked with celebrities and fashion models (both new faces and super models) for over 18 years. After doing this, she wanted to help “REAL women get REAL results.” Teresa finally started her company in 1997 so that this amazing workout would be available to all to enable more people to have the opportunity to learn how to do T-Tapp and be able to achieve success in the privacy of their home. Although she had been privately teaching T-Tapp for over 35 years, she decided that it was finally time to incorporate her company, “Better Body Basics by T-Tapp, Inc.” and by December 1997, she also created her first website.
At first, Teresa primarily worked with rehabilitative patients, but soon the workout gained popularity and word spread quickly that her “Super Fat Burning Inch Loss System” quickly delivered results for everyone regardless of age or level of fitness.
In 1997, Teresa accepted a job position as the exercise editor for a magazine called “Women’s Fitness International”. In addition to providing a new exercise with pictures for each issue, she also wrote a column for them called “Shared Secrets for a Better Body and Beauty by Teresa Tapp”. Her job position at “Women’s Fitness International” not only enabled her unique way of working out without weights to be exposed to their readers, it also offered her the opportunity to promote VHS tapes of her workout through their magazine.
Eventually, Teresa also started the 60 day T-Tapp challenge. The first 60 day challenge was in 1999 to feature success stories for others to see. During the challenge, people use the workouts for 60 days and then report their results and submit an essay telling their personal story. Teresa believes testimonials of success are a powerful motivator. She continues the T-Tapp challenge today to give more people the opportunity to come to their annual 4 day/3 night fitness retreat for free, as this is the prize for winners.
This year’s challenge had over 1000 entries and ran from February 15th through April 15th. Interest in the challenge continues to grow.
Teresa reaches the masses! She encourages us to never give up! She, herself, believes in never giving up. In her words, “I can’t give up…..I believe with blessings come responsibilities …. my passion and purpose is to help others understand that it is never too late…. that the human body is an amazing machine that CAN repair and rebuild regardless of age or fitness level.” This is the amazing thing about T-Tapp! Everyone can use it! Berei, for instance, first started T-Tapp at age 73 and has continued to do so for almost 17 years. Berei is going to be 90 years young on August 20, 2017! Berei appears in many T-Tapp workouts and just filmed two new workouts this year (First Step Fascia Fitness and First Step Fascia Fitness – Part 2). Teresa says, “In my opinion, she is the perfect poster child on how the body CAN rebuild better balance, better brain fitness, better coordination and improve both muscle and skin tone even while getting older. Like fine wine, Berei gets better with time!”
Throughout her workouts, Teresa is always using the phrase, “Yes You Can!” She usually ends her workouts with this phrase as well. You can always count on Teresa to remind you that you can do this! Teresa believes that this saying is powerful! She usually says it just when needed in order to help you not give up. Teresa strongly believes that positive words help empower the body with a positive bio-chemical reaction. Teresa’s own passion is driven by helping others achieve their desired results.
The EPIC Foundation believes that we can do powerful things when we have a strong support system. Teresa has several people who help with her mission and vision. In addition to her wonderful staff (Jennifer Decker, Brian Hashey, Berei Brandenstein and Marisa Wolfe), and her amazing certified T-Tapp Trainers who are all over the U.S. and Europe; Teresa also has a fantastic literary agent (Heide Lange), publicist (Imal Wagner) and web/social media manager (Kristina Gallant).
However, Teresa says that the primary people who help keep T-Tapp going are “T-Tappers”! Teresa started her company from people sharing with others. She loves that people don’t only share their stories but they HELP others achieve success by answering questions, giving advice, helping celebrate success stories, and helping encourage those during times of struggle. She calls T-Tappers her FAMILY! What a wonderful FAMILY we have within T-Tapp! She expresses gratitude for “the BEST support team ever”!
In Teresa Tapp’s book, “Fit and Fabulous in 15 Minutes”, she gives credit to her birth mom, Corenna Booten Tapp. Teresa also credits two other cherished people in her life for motivating her vision: an elderly person named Minnie Endsley who she met while attending university and a professional performer named Joy Holiday who she met in her 30’s. Ultimately, Teresa says that her primary motivator has always been God. She “realizes that God has blessed her with an understanding of the human body far beyond traditional training and has guided her entire life.”
Teresa has been very influential within the Cushing’s and Addison’s Communities. She really believes that T-Tapp workouts can make a difference and that they really can help a person in remission from Cushing’s look, feel, and function better. T-Tapp truly does help the recovery process! Dr. Karen has also discovered that people who normally would fear adrenal crisis from working out feel safe doing T-Tapp.
Teresa Tapp reaches many other chronic illness communities. Over the years, she has witnessed many people achieve incredible health improvements, especially those with auto immune disorders such as Epstein Barr, Chronic Fatigue, Adrenal and Thyroid issues. People with the chronic illness Multiple Sclerosis, have received significant improvements and/or gone into remission. Any disease dealing with inflammation (Arthritis, Joint and Back issues, Foot issues, etc.) receive great results with T-Tapp workouts too.
Teresa, herself, has been through her own journey: Her birth mother died from cancer when she was just 6 years old. Teresa watched her mom go through multiple brain surgeries for 2 years. She finally died at age 29. From that time on, Teresa feels that she has had an amazing connection with God guiding her and blessing her in so many ways. Teresa’s mother taught her that there’s a positive in every negative and to look and learn from it. Her first “positive out of negative” lesson came when she injured her back during high school. “Pain is a great teacher”, Teresa says! She became aware of how effective full fiber activation of multiple muscles with equal tension from origin to insertion (aka tuck butt with knees out) was in reducing pain. Her insights even impressed her university professors.
Teresa’s second “positive out of negative” lesson came during university when she developed an enlarged lump in her right armpit in 1978 (back then the lymphatic system had not been identified). This gave her greater insight into how certain behaviors (lack of sleep, too much sugar, alcohol, etc.) would cause the lymph node to increase or decrease in size. These two incidents greatly contributed to her ability to not only create the T-Tapp Method (full fiber activation of multiple muscles with equal tension, as well as leverage isometrics) but also the sequence for optimal lymphatic circulation.
After graduation from Eastern Illinois University (BS in Exercise Science, Public Health and Education) , Teresa accepted a job offer to work in the fashion industry as a new face developer and booking agent primarily so she could continue studies in Europe , especially in Hamburg, Germany where incredible research was being done in exercise science with Olympic training facilities. After 18 years of traveling between Hamburg, Germany, Milan, Italy, Paris, France, NYC, NY, and South Beach Miami, FL, Teresa gathered a lot of life experience in training people from all over the world. Then in 1992, she decided to retire and focus on helping real people, not just celebrities and models, get real results, real quick. She wanted to change the mindset of everyone putting more focus on what they weighed instead of the numbers on their measuring tape. In her opinion, inch loss matters more! She also wanted others to realize that it was unnecessary to use weights for strength and that less could deliver more results (never more than one set of 8 reps).
From 1992-1996, Teresa focused on rehabilitative training from physician referrals before she accepted the exercise editor position with Women’s Fitness International magazine and made her first VHS exercise tape in 1998. She hired her first publicist in 1999, was featured in Prevention Magazine in 1999 and received her first national magazine cover and feature story in 2000 (Women’s World). After the impact of 9/11, Teresa decided to write a book, traveled all over the country as a motivational speaker for 2 years, hired a new publicist, and received a second Women’s World cover and feature story in 2003. She wrote her book, “Fit and Fabulous in 15 Minutes” and got published by Ballantine Books (Random House) in 2005. She agreed to do a Public Broadcast TV National Pledge Program in 2011 (“Healthy Hormones: Brain-Body Fitness”) and due to its great success in raising money for over 300+ stations, she was asked to do a second show in 2015 called “Vibrant for Life”.
Thanks to her current publicist, Teresa has been appearing on a CBS (wtsp) morning show called “Great Day Tampa Bay” on a regular basis since April 2016. But now, Teresa says that she is ready to focus on the multiple “More than a Workout” benefits that T-Tapp Workouts can provide, especially to those dealing with Chronic Illness, like Cushing’s.
This is Teresa’s personal message to the chronic illness community: “YES YOU CAN and don’t give up! Since T-Tapp movements are much more comprehensive, even just a few minutes each day can help deliver results….. SOMETHING is better than NOTHING! Just do your personal best and you WILL receive results! Also, movement matters and mindful movement matters even more in helping the body help itself look feel and function better.”
T-Tapp, Inc. is an affiliate organization to The EPIC Foundation. Teresa Tapp and Dr. Karen believe that they can work together to make a difference in the chronic illness community! #YesYouCan
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Teresa, you are a gem to us! We honor and cherish you! We know, at The EPIC Foundation, that many people will have positive success from using this program! You touch so many lives!
To learn more about Teresa Tapp and T-Tapp, Inc., please visit: https://www.t-tapp.com/
Teresa Tapp’s Legacy Award Article
Together, We are EPIC!