About me
I wasn’t always interested in health. As a child, I was overweight, inactive and mocked for my weight. I attempted diets as early as the second grade. Middle school was even worse. In my teens, I tried running and other physical activities and although I lost some weight, my self esteem was non-existent.
By the age of 20, I had been married, gave birth to my first child and gotten divorced. My self worth was no better. I began taking diet pills and smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. I was only eating once every four days and that one meal usually consisted of binging junk food. I was the lightest I’d been since middle school, but I was extremely unhealthy.
Around this time, a close friend of mine landed herself in the hospital with complications of excessive diet pill usage and thankfully, that was enough to scare me into quitting them cold turkey.
Over the next eight years, I gained a lot of weight back, survived an abusive relationship and eventually met my now husband and had a son together. By that point, I knew I wanted to lose weight for good and do it in a healthy manner, but I still had no idea how.
I started by running. At first, I couldn’t even run one mile, but eventually I was running 40 miles a week, including a 10-12 mile run every Saturday morning. I was living on tilapia, brown rice and steamed bok choy. I lost a lot of weight, but eventually my weight loss stalled. I had to keep adding more and more miles to my runs to even maintain my weight at that point.
Desperate to understand what was happening, I turned to the internet for research. This is when I was introduced to female weight lifting. I had always believed that women who lifted weights would become bulky and masculine looking, but I quickly learned that was not the case.
Over the course of the next few years, I followed many female weight lifters and influencers, bought dozens of e-books, workouts and diet plans. In an attempt to really understand, I earned my first Personal Training Certification and I even participated in a Kettlebell Competition!
I was almost to my transformation goal when I experienced several traumatic incidents that seemingly came back to back. I quickly gained 30 pounds in just six months. I became truly depressed for the first time in my life. I recall waking up each morning, praying that night would come so I could go back to sleep.
This lasted three long years, over which I packed on another 30 pounds. I also gave birth to my youngest child and the hormone fluctuations didn’t help my depression.
I was so tired of feeling this way, I went completely out of my comfort zone and reached out to a Health Coach, desperate for anything to help me feel like myself again and to try to regain what I had lost.
At first, I couldn’t even commit to going for a ten minute walk, but after working with this coach for several months, I was finally able to change my mindset. It was challenging and probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Not only did she help me see my potential for health and happiness, but she also helped me realize that my experiences could help others.
Since then, I have regained my sense of self, gotten my health back under control and become a NASM Certified Personal Trainer and Nutrition Coach, as well as an FRC Mobility Specialist. I’m so excited to continue my journey towards my personal best and to help others achieve their goals no matter where they are in their journey!
