Lift As You Rise

Fitness coach, realtor, and mother of four, Valerie Solomon established her career after returning to her hometown
By Madeline Haak

photo by shane darby.

Fitness didn’t just strengthen Valerie Solomon’s body and mind: it also opened doors that she never imagined and allowed her to create the life she has always desired, all in her hometown of Texarkana.

“I have lived many places, and Texarkana is a special place,” she said. “It’s a wonderful town to raise children in. My [youngest] boys were in fifth, eighth, and tenth grade when we moved here [from Maryland, in 2021], and they have thrived. We know what it’s like to live away from family and in different community situations, so we really value what we have here in Texarkana.”

Valerie not only manages 30 in-person clients through her fitness program, along with running an online fitness coaching business; she is also among the top 25 realtors in Texarkana (with $6,504,900 in property sold for the year of 2025). Still, of all of her titles, being a mom is the one she is most proud of, and it has influenced her greatly in her other roles.

“Being a boy mom is my absolute favorite thing in my life. I parent a lot like I coach. I’m a teacher and a guide, always helping them choose for themselves what is going to make them proud, not me proud,” she said.

Pictured here, Samuel, Hawkins, Valerie, James, and Bennett recently attended a family wedding. submitted photo.

Valerie believes her journey of discovering her strength began during her swim career at Texas High School. After having four kids in her 20s, she decided she wanted to focus on getting back in shape, but she was intimated. All she knew was that she enjoyed weightlifting during high school.

“I loved getting up early to lift weights before school back in the day,” she said. “[Being on the swim team] probably shaped me more than anything. I learned what hard work was, and I learned that I was tough. Although I had lifted [weights] as a teenager at Texas High, I didn’t feel like I knew what to do [as an adult]. I hired a trainer to teach me and fell in love with lifting, seeing results, feeling strong, and feeling empowered.”

From that point forward, Valerie became passionate about helping others realize their full potential. She started working as a fitness coach. One of her first fitness clients was Lauren Callaway, PH Realty team leader.

“I was not a realtor yet, but I had been thinking about it,” Valerie recalled. “Lauren had been thinking that she wanted a gym at her future real estate office, so basically our worlds collided. I got my real estate license, and she built me a gym at our new office.”

It’s not just her devotion to a healthy lifestyle that inspires others. Valerie believes she brings a relatability to her interactions with clients that helps motivate them.

“I think, for my clients, seeing me as a woman who could have crumbled a few times in life but decided to have no excuses—it keeps them having no excuses, too. If I can do it, so can they,” she said. “I’m a natural teacher. I love breaking things down and helping people see what they are capable of. I find that one of my strengths is that I’m relatable and laid back.”

In Texarkana, Valerie has found it easy to network and prioritize what she values in life while working hard and staying fit.

“I love having both careers. Fitness comes easy for me, and I love the time I have with my clients. I’ll never stop training and sharing my love of lifting,” she said. “My fitness clients are some of my best referrers to my real estate business, too. Both businesses work well together for me.”

The networking skills Valerie exhibits are likely related to her competitive spirit. She used to compete as a UFE Figure PRO bodybuilder but learned that the lifestyle wasn’t intended to be maintained forever. This led to her establishing her own idea of fitness and creating a business to help others improve their lives.

“Without addressing mindset, we aren’t going to be successful in a lifelong pursuit of fitness.” submitted photo.

“I’m different because strength is the goal. Many trainers sell sweating, high intensity, shrinking bodies, quick and fast workouts. I sell strength as an identity,” she said. “I coach traditional weightlifting. It’s a style of exercise that anyone can do for life. It’s modifiable for any limitation. I used to have to convince women that they need to lift. Now women get it.”

Valerie maintains the Facebook and Instagram pages “Busy Mom Gets Fit,” where she shares an inside look of her day-to-day life and workouts from “Club PH,” which is the custom gym built for the members of PH Realty, PH Property Management, and PH Design Firm. Her workout program, “Val’s Gals,” can be accessed via an exclusive app. One of her main goals is to help women everywhere grow stronger, by growing her online Val’s Gals coaching program, which she has been running since 2011.

“[Clients] get strength-training workouts delivered though my app, and it changes up monthly. They can do the workouts at home or in a gym. They communicate with me through the app, messaging and checking in,” she explained.

Valerie encourages others to think ahead and imagine the future they want for themselves. Her mission is to enlighten people by showing them that how they treat themselves plays the biggest role in the quality of their livelihood.

“Showing up for myself now, when it would be easy to give up, will pay off,” she said. “The work you do today builds the body you’ll have in the future. You have the power to create the life you want, and you are going to need a strong body to live it. Taking care of yourself is an absolute must. You will feel the compounding effect of doing something healthy for yourself. You start to have more energy. You start to have confidence. You start showing up differently in other areas of your life. Also, you are teaching your kids how to take care of themselves when they are busy, overwhelmed adults. Set the standard for your family. You will impact generations.”

Mo Orr, one of Valerie’s clients, poses in the middle of his workout on his 89th birthday. submitted photo.

Valerie also believes mentality plays an important role in health and wellbeing, and she considers it her responsibility to help shift the attitudes of her clients.

“Most of us struggle, not because we don’t know what to do, but because we have self-doubt, self-sabotage, issues with consistency, an all-or-nothing mentality,” she said. “Without addressing mindset, we aren’t going to be successful in a lifelong pursuit of fitness. I’ve learned that just saying you want to get in shape is not enough. You have got to truly dig deep and identify what is going to keep you in the gym for life. I joke that, as a trainer, I’m a therapist. We all have a whole other level we are keeping ourselves from. It’s my job to pull it out of people in the weight room.”