Rachel Connolly

Female

18

Maryland, United States

Jan, 2005

My story is kind of long but interesting and I hope inspiring so please read. I was overweight growing up, and about 4 years ago when I was at my heaviest weight of 165lbs I decided to lose weight. My father is a bodybuilder / powerlifter and my mother studied nutrition so this is in my blood. Slowly but surely I learned what I needed to know about health and fitness and over these 4 years got down to my goal weight of 115lbs, built up my wind to where I was running 4 miles daily, and set PRs like a 300lb deadlift in the weight room! I even cured the acid reflux disease and anemia I suffered from by changing my diet and eating clean. But ... things turned ugly shortly thereafter. Because my weightloss turned into exercise bulemia and an eating disorder. My whole life revolved aeound working out and monitoring what I ate. I was up to 100mins of cardio and 90mins weight training SIX times a week and taking my calories as low as 1000 a day. Every single morsel of food I consumed had to be burned off or I thought I would regain all the weight I had lost. I was getting weaker in all my lifts, none of my clothes fit (00 was too small), and I stopped menstruating, even talking felt hard. My family and everyone I knew kept trying to help me but I wasn't realizing how far I was taking it. Then about 2 months ago I really started to see what I was becoming. I was like a walking skeleton. Extreme dieting and cardio had eaten away all the muscle I worked so hard to gain. I was down to 95lbs and knew I had to do something and that's when the journey I'm on now began. My first clean bulk. Its been a scary process so far to gain weight on purpose. I'm slowly decreasing my cardio and increasing calories, and while some days it gets hard and I want to fall back into my old habits, I know how far I've come in just 8 short weeks. I'm back up to 103.5lb (my goal is 115-120), I have so much more energy, I cut WAAAY back on cardio and focusing more on weights, all of my muscles are growing (3/4 inch on arms in 1 month!), and my lifts have gone up insanely. I'm gettin my booty back! and finally starting to get the muscular, athletic look I want. I'm going to give this process as long as it takes and get healthy again and am looking to start competing in figure once all of my goals have been reached. I'm starting college in oct to study nutrition and I'm getting certified as a personal trainer and hope to help others who I struggling like I did.

I love the feeling I get not only seeing how it can improve your appearance but how awesome it feels when you realize physically what you can accomplish. How far you can run, how fast you can sprint, how much you can lift. The human body is amazing. Seeing the progress I've made makes me feel like I can accomplish anything.

This is what I'm passionate about. I've helped not only myself with the knowledge I've gained but have helped others as well lose weight and get in shape. This journey has inspired me so much that I plan on starting a career in the fitness industry. I have plenty of goals, fitness modeling ; personal trainer ; life coach and nutritionist! The sky is the limit!

As of right now none .. but I plan on changing that in the hopefully near future!