TOGETHER WE RISE

I've been lifting weights since they brought my middle school gymnastics team into the High School weight room to "build" strength and have been squatting and bench pressing ever since. I have always had a love for dance and body sculpting. I was often asked: "are you a body builder?" long before I took that challenge and officially became one at the age of 35 after the birth of my fourth child!

 

Like many moms, getting married and having children put me on a roller coaster or weight gain and loss. Fitness took a back burner in my late twenties as I started my family and career as a mental health counselor. Getting to the gym with a baby was not "fun," my husband at the time didn't want to pay for a gym membership anyway and insisted I "go for walks" (which by the way does NOTHING but make my feet hurt). With a lack of support to do what I enjoy for fitness and the ensuing depression of living in a "bad marriage" I just didn't work out for several years.

 

After the birth of my third child I had a health crisis, discovering I had an atypical form of hypothyroidism and was nutritionally deficient. I decided then to learn all I could about the back then new "clean eating" movement. I jumped on that diet band wagon full force and become obsessed with what I ate. I also started doing home workouts that were dance/kickboxing and HIIT focused. This approach worked really well for me and I found my body's natural healthy weight and shape. It was AMAZING, I looked better at 34 then I did at 21! That's when my heart for becoming a personal trainer began as well. I have always enjoyed sharing with others what I am passionate about, and fitness and health became my passion. Since 2012 I have been working with women, adding "health coach" to my slash mom/counselor job title. I LOVE teaching women the principles that I have learned that lead to a balanced and healthy lifestyle. 

 

In 2015 when my fourth and youngest child was 14 months old I competed in my first NPC Figure competition and took 4th place overall and 2nd in the Masters (over 35) division. My second competition was the Sun City Regional in El Paso where I also took second. I took the feedback from my competitions on what I needed to improve and determined it was my lack of glutes, "flat butt", that kept me from that coveted first place trophy and title. Prior to having children I had always had a nice round rear end, but dieting had "eaten way" and metabolized my booty away!

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After "failing" to meet my own standards of perfection and come in first I found myself in a vicious cycle of binge eating and starvation. I wanted to continue to compete but due to family issues I decided it was not going to happen. So I did what a lot of competitors do, gave up and just ate my feelings. I remember eating a entire quart of ice cream and crying because it all felt pointless. You might wonder why a therapist succumbed to an eating disorder?! It happens that I had the resource I needed to overcome and exit the vicious cycle of dieting. It was on my shelf collecting dust! I had purchased a book called Intuitive Eating hoping to learn more about eating disorders but never took the time to read it. As I read each chapter and the stories Evelyn Tribole shares about her clients I realized I was not at fault for my eating disorder. Our diet culture and mentality is the problem. Since then I have been doing my best to live by the 10 principles of Intuitive Eating. Click on the tab at the top to learn about these principles!

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After overcoming my binge/anorexia disorder I went back to training on working on my "package," as most body builders refer to their stage body. But I couldn't get my BUTT to grow! Then I found Bret Contreras on Instagram because all of the other competitors at the gym was talking about the barbell hip thrust. He was just starting to become well known for his method and technique. I attempted this awkward and slightly sexual looking movement at my local YMCA weight room and didn't really "feel" like it was making a difference. Then Bret started posting about posterior pelvic tilt while performing the hip thrust. MAGIC happened. I had learned to rotate my hips under in gymnastics as part of the "hollow body" form that must be maintained to maintain a handstand or perform giants on the uneven bars. It ALL made sense, this posterior pelvic tilt, that I already had been doing and teaching my clients to do while planking. At this point I began implementing what I call "Urkel butt" into my hip thrust cueing. I watched my glutes grow. I saw all the fireworks and light bulbs turning on for my clients as well as we learned to "turn on" and "activate" the glutes. 

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The work I do now with clients is a full body sculpting and intuitive eating nutrition approach. WE ALL have that inner critic that has been fed to us by the media that seeks to steal our happiness and satisfaction by enticing us to constantly measure and compare ourselves to unrealistic and unachievable standards. Most people are not going to be body builders and my goal is not to make everyone "look like me." My goals is to help you achieve YOUR most balanced and strong body through strengthening the Mind & Body!