Karina Inkster is a fitness and nutrition coach, TEDx speaker, and author of five books. She’s been vegan for 23 years. As the founder of K.I. Health & Fitness, she leads a small team of coaches who work entirely online with vegan clients across the globe–helping them build strength and health habits they’ll still hold at the age of 103.
Karina is known for her practical, no-nonsense approach to plant-based fitness: no before-and-after photos, no 30-day challenges, no “clean eating” language, and no diet culture. Instead, her focus is on sustainable, individualized strength training and nutrition coaching built specifically for plant-based athletes, whether they’re chasing long-term bone density or simply trying to get comfortable in a gym.
In this episode of Pivot Podcast, Karina shares how she went from an hourly in-person trainer in 2013 to running a fully online coaching business in 2017, a shift she describes as the moment she felt like she was truly running a business. She talks about why vegan nutrition can’t simply mirror omnivorous plans, how she thinks about long-term vs short-term fitness goals, and why niching down to vegan clients was one of the smartest business decisions she ever made.
You’ll learn about
- The real difference between vegan nutrition and standard fitness coaching approaches
- How she transitioned from hourly in-person training to a scalable online model
- Why Karina doesn’t use before-and-after photos, and what she does instead
- The 80/20 framework she uses to help clients eat sustainably without constant food tracking
- Why specificity in your niche is one of the most powerful marketing tools available
- How she balances running a coaching business with a parallel career in music
