Are you constantly struggling to make time for exercise and eating healthfully?

Does it feel like every time you start a new exercise or nutrition program that you "fall off the wagon" or "get too busy" to continue?

This on-again, off-again type of program can take a toll on our perception of ourselves, as it often feels like failure when we can't continue with what we started.

I want to encourage you to see it differently. That instead of perceiving that you failed at your diet/exercise/health program, to see that that program FAILED YOU. If it's not sustainable after a while, it might not have been the right choice for you!

Instead of dropping the idea of getting healthy and fit all together, why not learn from your past experiences and eliminate the things that you've tried before and haven't worked.

Get a coach to help you plan out the next step, building on your previous experiences and planning the path forward so that you find a program that works for your own INDIVIDUAL needs.

Let's talk. You're not a failure. You have the skills. Together we can build a string of successes for you.

Ask questions (both of yourself and those that you entrust to help you on your way - personal trainer, nutritionist, health coach, etc.), recognize your incremental accomplishments on the path toward your goals, and celebrate your unique healthy body.

Change is an uncomfortable process. Knowing yourself is the first step to creating a sustainable plan for goal achievement.

A good coach will help you refine and clarify your goals and will work with you to break them down into manageable and achievable steps.

We can all benefit from having a coach in order to make sure that we are planning appropriately, making incremental progress and adjusting the plan as necessary due to any changes or challenges that real life throws at you.

Our capitalistic and consumerist-based society would like for you to believe that there is only “one way to be healthy” and that way involves spending a lot of money on food and punishing yourself with bland meals and frenetic workouts to “burn fat”.

I’d like to challenge those assumptions and tell you that you can eat the way that you love to and still improve your health. You can enjoy your meals and still burn fat. There isn’t “one way” to eat healthy, just like there isn’t one way to live. Finding your optimal health is a worthwhile journey, and it involves rejecting assumptions about what healthy food looks like and finding foods that improve YOUR OWN health.

I believe you have to take all failures, struggles, and challenges as necessary learning experiences and use them to be better.

My dream for the future is to help inspire young people, especially young women toward strength sports.  Powerlifting teaches such a beautiful series of life lessons learned through hard work, dedication and respect for your own physical capacity and limitations. 

I learned so much about my own body through this sport that I was able to reframe all of the decades of negative body image that I had into love, astonishment and appreciation for what I have and what I can do.

As a recovering former perfectionist, I can tell you from personal experience that while extremism and intensity are initially appealing, being on a diet/exercise roller coaster is exhausting. It can make you resent the very things that keep you healthy in the first place, and there’s definitely a better way.

I acknowledge that it’s hard to dedicate time to each of these essential health aspects each and every day. It’s important to celebrate when you DO feel that you’re making progress, so that you can stay motivated to do what needs to be done when things get tougher.

Read my spotlight interview here!