More Than Workouts: How Denyse Ute is Helping Combat Chronic Disease

Denyse Ute is committed to removing barriers to health and fitness for the people of the Wind River Reservation. 

Denyse Ute is dedicated to improving the health of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes living in the Wind River Reservation in central Wyoming, where the average age of death on the reservation is 54 years old, more than 20 years earlier than the national average. 

Inspired by her own CrossFit experience, Denyse and a small group of tribal members opened a CrossFit gym on the reservation, called Intertribal Fitness, in 2015. The gym is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide a fitness community and programs for at-risk or underserved community members, either for a low cost or for free. 

However, Denyse soon realized her community needed more than affordable, accessible workouts. 

“The reservation is a place of poverty,” Denyse said, “and there are a lot of systemic barriers keeping us in poverty.”

Addressing Every Aspect of Health

Denyse realized she needed more education to understand the complex causes of chronic disease that disproportionately affect tribal members. 

“When it first started it was initially just because I love fitness, but as I progressed into more of the health world, I got my bachelor's degree in nutrition science and started becoming more involved in the food side of it,” Denyse said.

She then earned a master's certificate in community and public health and created Intertribal Wellness, an educational arm of the nonprofit that offers chronic disease prevention programs.

This education led Denyse to work on improving the health and lifespan of her community by addressing nutrition along with fitness. She began offering the Prevent T2 Curriculum, offered by the National Diabetes Foundation, a year-long program that includes fitness and nutrition education. Denyse complemented this with sessions in the gym, where participants could put the lessons into practice. 

Through this program and her guidance, Denyse said many of the participants were able to lower their A1C levels.

“Through that program we get a lot of people losing five percent of their body weight, or even more,” Denyse said, and “we've had people in the program for five years, since we started it.”

Change Takes Time

Denyse has also seen other health transformations among the people in her community, including improvements in strength and mental health. 

One woman came into the gym weighing almost 300 pounds. The 28-year-old was very sedentary, and struggled to do box step-ups. After four years of consistent training – and addressing her nutrition – she was able to back squat 270 pounds and do rope climbs. She’s also lost more than one hundred pounds.

“Her fitness ability is just amazing,” Denyse said.   

Another woman, who Denyse grew up with, came into the gym when it first opened. 

“The first time she came in it was pretty challenging,” Denyse said.

She didn’t come back for three months. Then she trained for two weeks and disappeared again, this time for six months.  

“Finally, she came back and the third time stuck it out,” Denyse said. 

She’s now been training at Intertribal Fitness for almost ten years and is close to getting a pull-up, Denyse said. 

“She is faster, stronger, and her endurance has gone up,” Denyse said, but more importantly, she keeps showing up, understanding that health is a long-term, lifelong endeavor.

Denyse understands it takes time to improve the health of the people in her community, and she’s dedicated to finding new ways to address the systemic barriers to health. 

Going forward, Denyse plans to find other ways to bring fitness and nutrition instruction to the people of Wind River Reservation, including cooking classes that incorporate more traditional foods, such as buffalo, establishing a food pantry, and promoting gardening. 

About Author, Hilary Achauer

Hilary is a renowned fitness business writer, marketing content writer, and journalist. She’s written content for start-ups, entrepreneurs, executive coaches, wellness providers, gyms, and CrossFit. Her focus is always on telling the best story with a clear, compelling style and being able to engage readers, bring in new customers, or build an audience.