Formula for success

Ashley Borden

Age: 36

Occupation: Fitness and lifestyle consultant, personal trainer

Why she matters: Like an alchemist, this fitness guru to the stars has found the formula for turning an interest in health into professional gold. Her accomplishments provide inspiration and a blueprint for other trainers seeking to parlay fitness into a full-time career.

Always pressing forward, Borden is living a personal trainer’s sweaty dream.

She has whipped a stable of celebrities into shape, including Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore and Tori Spelling. She’s a spokeswoman for Nike, and her fitness tips have been featured in more than two dozen magazines, nationally and internationally, including Self, Vogue and Shape.

She’s the fitness and lifestyle guru for TV programs, including “The Tyra Banks Show”; she’s partnered with the Four Seasons Resort in Punta Mita, Mexico, to create private fitness retreats; and she’s working with Podfitness.com on an audio exercise library for MP3 players.

A longtime fan of mixed martial arts, she recently traveled to Hillsboro, Ill., to help nine-time Ultimate Fighting champ Matt Hughes tweak his diet to boost endurance.

And she has just published her first book, “Your Perfect Fit,” co-written with Paige Adams-Geller and Zibby Right.

The defining moment of Borden’s life was entering treatment in January 1990 for an eating disorder. “I’ve been in recovery for 17 years, from anorexia, bulimia, compulsive exercise -- you name it,” she says. She credits her success to lessons she learned in recovery.

“When I came out, I realized that I wanted to help others have a better relationship with food and training and exercise,” by assembling and bringing them information that was already out there, she says. “I didn’t reinvent the wheel. What I do is put it all together for them.”

Her experience taught her the importance of taking control of one’s life, and she’ll do whatever it takes to guide her clients in the right direction.

“When I coach people, we get down to the organization of the closets in their bedroom,” she says. “All of that has to do with why your life feels out of control.”