Today we’d like to introduce you to Jillian Smith.
Hi Jillian, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My journey really started long before I ever imagined having a career in health and wellness.
As a teenager and into my early adulthood, I struggled with my weight, my relationship with food, and understanding what it actually meant to be healthy. At my heaviest, I was over 250 pounds, out of shape, and heading down a path that I knew I needed to change.
What started as a personal mission to transform my own health eventually became my career. I lost the weight, started running, completed a half marathon, found CrossFit, and eventually became an elite-level competitive athlete. Along the way, I fell in love with understanding the human body and went on to build a career spanning fitness, nutrition, mindset, mobility, yoga, meditation, and holistic wellness.
Over the last 16+ years, I’ve had the opportunity to coach hundreds of people, lead teams, manage successful fitness and nutrition programs, and help others create transformations that went far beyond what they saw in the mirror.
But my own journey also taught me that being “fit” and being truly well aren’t always the same thing.
After years of pushing my body hard, I became much more interested in longevity, recovery, nervous system health, reducing toxic load, and the everyday choices that influence how we feel and function. That evolution eventually led me to molecular hydrogen water.
Initially, I was interested in the water purely from a wellness perspective. I incorporated it into my own lifestyle and became fascinated by the research and by what I personally experienced. The more I learned, the more I realized this aligned with so much of what I had already spent my career teaching: creating healthier daily habits and giving the body an environment in which it can thrive.
Then I discovered there was also a business attached to it.
That changed the trajectory for me because I realized I didn’t have to choose between my passion for wellness and my desire to create more flexibility, ownership, and scalability in my career. I could educate people about something I genuinely used and believed in while building a business that wasn’t dependent on how many hours I could physically coach in a day.
Today, I see what I’m doing as an extension of the same mission I started all those years ago. I went from being the person who desperately wanted to change her own health, to building an entire career helping other people change theirs, to now creating a wellness-focused business that allows me to make an impact in a completely different and much more scalable way.
And in a lot of ways, I feel like I’m still just getting started.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Definitely not, but I think the challenges are a huge part of why I’m so passionate about what I do today.
My journey started with struggling with my weight and my relationship with food at a young age. When I finally discovered fitness, I went from one extreme to another. I became incredibly disciplined and eventually competed at a very high level in CrossFit, but there were seasons where what looked like “health” from the outside wasn’t necessarily health on the inside.
That experience completely changed the way I viewed wellness. I started realizing that more exercise, more restriction, and more discipline weren’t always the answer. It pushed me to look deeper into nutrition, recovery, stress, nervous system regulation, longevity, and ultimately a much more holistic approach to health.
Professionally, there have been challenges too. I’ve spent more than 16 years in the fitness and wellness industry, and as much as I love coaching people, I eventually realized there was a ceiling to trading my time for income. You can become an incredible coach, build a full client roster, manage teams, and create great results, but there are still only so many hours in a day.
That became even more important to me as I entered motherhood and a season of life where flexibility, family, and being present matter more than ever.
Building the water business has brought its own growing pains. Learning how to build online, how to build in person, learning ads strategies, becoming comfortable sharing something outside of the traditional fitness space I had been known for, navigating other people’s opinions, and trusting myself enough to pursue a different path have all stretched me.
But I think one of the biggest lessons throughout my entire story has been learning not to be afraid of reinventing myself.
I’ve gone from overweight and unhealthy, to athlete, to coach, to wellness leader, to mother and entrepreneur. Every chapter has required me to let go of an old version of myself to make room for the next one.
So no, it hasn’t been a smooth road, but I wouldn’t change that. The difficult seasons are what shaped my philosophy around health, business, and life today: build something sustainable, stay willing to evolve, and create a life that supports your wellbeing rather than sacrificing it.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Jillian Is Wellness, LLC?
At the heart of my brand is a really simple belief: wellness should support your life, not consume it.
After more than 16 years in the fitness and wellness industry, my work has evolved far beyond workouts and nutrition plans. Today, I focus on helping people look at wellness more holistically, from the water they drink and the environment they create in their homes to movement, nutrition, recovery, mindset, and the everyday habits that compound over time.
A major part of what I do now centers around educating people on water quality and molecular hydrogen water. I help individuals and families understand what is actually in their water, why hydration is about more than simply drinking enough of it, and what options exist for upgrading the water they use every single day.
I also mentor people who are interested in building a business within the wellness space. For the right person, the same product education can become an opportunity to create an additional income stream by sharing something they genuinely use and believe in. I especially love working with people who already have a passion for health, fitness, wellness, or personal development and want to expand the impact they are making.
I think what sets my brand apart is that I didn’t enter this space because I was looking for something to sell. Wellness has been my life’s work. I spent years coaching people face to face, leading fitness and nutrition programs, managing teams, and continuing to deepen my own understanding of holistic health before water ever became part of the conversation.
Because of that, education will always come before a transaction for me. I want people to feel empowered to ask questions, look at the information, and decide what makes sense for their own lives. I don’t believe wellness needs to be rooted in fear, perfection, or pressure.
Brand wise, I’m probably most proud of the evolution itself. I’ve allowed my platform to grow as I’ve grown. I’ve been the woman trying to lose the weight, the competitive athlete pushing her body to its limits, the coach helping others transform, the wellness professional looking beyond aesthetics, and now the mother and entrepreneur thinking much more deeply about longevity, family, time, and what sustainable success actually looks like.
Ultimately, I want people to know that my brand isn’t just about water, fitness, or even business. It’s about creating healthier choices and more options in your life.
Whether someone comes into my world because they want to improve something in their home, feel better in their body, learn more about molecular hydrogen water, or explore building an income within the wellness industry, my goal is to give them education, tools, and support that help them make an informed decision about what’s right for them.
I’m incredibly proud that something that began with changing my own health has evolved into a platform that allows me to help other people change theirs while also creating a business and life that can grow alongside my family.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
I think the next five to ten years are going to bring a major shift in the way people think about wellness.
For a long time, wellness was largely centered around diet and exercise. Those things will always matter, but consumers are becoming much more sophisticated. We’re seeing growing interest in prevention, longevity, metabolic health, sleep, stress and nervous system regulation, environmental exposures, water quality, recovery, personalized health data, and the health of the home itself.
The numbers reflect that shift. According to the Global Wellness Institute, the global wellness economy reached approximately $6.8 trillion in 2024 and is projected to approach $9.8 trillion by 2029, growing about 7.6% annually. One of the areas that has grown particularly quickly is public health, prevention and personalized medicine. I think we’re moving toward a world where people don’t simply ask, “What do I do when something goes wrong?” They’re increasingly asking, “What can I incorporate into my everyday life to better support my health over the next 20, 30 or 40 years?” (Global Wellness Institute)
That’s one of the reasons I’m so interested in the future of water.
Water is something every human interacts with every single day, yet historically we’ve thought surprisingly little about it beyond whether we’re drinking enough. I believe we’re going to see much greater consumer awareness around filtration, contaminants, mineral content, hydrogen concentration and the technologies being used to treat and modify water.
Water ionization itself is already a growing global category. Because different market-research firms define the category differently, estimates vary considerably, but the direction is remarkably consistent. Future Market Insights estimates the global water-ionizer market at approximately $3.2 billion in 2026 and projects it to reach about $7.3 billion by 2036, representing roughly 8.6% annual growth. Another recent estimate places the broader U.S. water-ionizer market at approximately $1.2 billion in 2025 and projects it to reach $2.5 billion by 2035. (Future Market Insights)
The hydrogen-water category is also gaining attention independently of traditional alkaline water. One 2026 market analysis estimated the hydrogen-water market at $2.55 billion in 2025 and projected it to exceed $5 billion by 2033. Market estimates should always be viewed as forecasts rather than guarantees, but collectively they show increasing consumer and commercial interest in this area. (Data Bridge Market Research)
What excites me even more than market growth, however, is the scientific conversation taking place around molecular hydrogen.
Hydrogen-rich water contains dissolved molecular hydrogen, or H₂, and researchers are investigating its effects on oxidative stress, inflammation, mitochondrial function, metabolic health, exercise recovery and other physiological processes. A 2024 systematic review examined 25 studies involving hydrogen-rich water and found encouraging preliminary findings across areas including oxidative stress, cardiovascular and metabolic health, exercise performance and recovery. (PubMed)
We’ve also begun seeing randomized controlled trials rather than exclusively laboratory or animal research. A 24-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving 60 people with metabolic syndrome reported improvements in several measures involving glucose, cholesterol, inflammation and redox balance in the hydrogen-water group. Another randomized controlled study involving 181 participants with metabolic or pre-metabolic syndrome investigated electrolyzed hydrogen water and found promising differences in several oxidative-stress and metabolic markers. (PubMed)
More recent evidence is beginning to aggregate those individual trials. A systematic review and meta-analysis of eight randomized controlled trials involving 357 patients with metabolic disorders found modest improvements in several blood-lipid measures with hydrogen-rich water, while also concluding that larger, longer-duration trials are necessary. That’s an important distinction for me because I don’t think we need to exaggerate emerging science to be excited about it. (PubMed)
Researchers are looking at performance and recovery as well. Recent randomized controlled trials have investigated hydrogen-rich water in trained and elite athletes, including its relationship with muscular endurance, muscle damage, power and recovery. Again, I view this as an emerging field rather than settled medicine, but that’s precisely what makes the next decade so interesting. (PubMed)
Another piece that I think surprises many Americans is that electrolyzed alkaline-water generators aren’t entirely new from a medical-device perspective. In Japan, certain alkaline electrolyzed-water generating devices fall within a regulated Class II medical-device category, and published research has discussed their use in connection with gastrointestinal symptoms. That does not mean every ionizer is a medical device or that hydrogen water should replace medical treatment, but it demonstrates that this technology has a much longer clinical and regulatory history in parts of Asia than many people in the United States realize. (PMDA)
Ultimately, I think the biggest shift will be from reactive wellness to proactive, everyday wellness.
People are beginning to recognize that health isn’t built through one supplement, one workout or one doctor’s appointment. It’s shaped by thousands of repeated decisions: how we move, eat, sleep, manage stress, recover, what we’re exposed to and, yes, the water we consume every day.
That’s where I see my industry going, and it’s also why I’m so excited to be positioned at the intersection of wellness education and water technology. I don’t believe the future is about making exaggerated promises about one product curing everything. I think it’s about giving people better information, better tools and more agency over the foundational choices they make every day.
And when I look at the growth of the wellness economy, the growth of the ionizer and hydrogen-water categories, and the increasing amount of human research being published around molecular hydrogen, I think we’re still very early in that conversation.
Pricing:
- The flagship Leveluk K8 water ionizer currently retails for $5,890 before applicable sales tax and shipping.
- My company offers several different ionizer models at varying price points, so I work individually with families to help determine which system makes the most sense for their household, lifestyle and goals.
- For those who prefer not to purchase their system outright, my company offers an in-house installment program with payment terms ranging from 3 to 24 months.
- On the current 24-month K8 payment plan, the financed portion is $205 per month after the required initial payment, plus applicable tax, shipping and processing charges.
- I also personally provide education and ongoing support to the people who purchase through me, including helping them understand the different types of water their system produces, everyday household uses, care and maintenance, and how to get the most value from their investment.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://water.jillianiswellness.com/molecularhydrogenwater
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/jillian.leigh.smith
