During college, I had an incredibly unhealthy lifestyle. The things I ate, the things I drank, the things I thought about myself and others... it was a volatile time of life. I believe I topped the scale at 220lbs and I am 5'8".

One day, I received a phone call from my dad saying my aunt (his sister) passed away. Check another box for a family member passing in their early 50's. This time the culprit was lung cancer. I noticed the trend between all the recent deaths in my family--no one made healthy life decisions. It took less than a second to realize that I was headed down that same destructive path.

Having PTSD from a traumatic incident in high school, the way I think about things and assess situations are different than most. It's not a very positive way, unfortunately. A lot of my battle is trying to reign in my negative thoughts and not let the anxiety run rampant. It's a daily battle that I've found, improves with whole food as close to the earth as possible, daily movement, and prayer. Once I began making better choices with food and exercise it took a couple of months for the habit to stick. When the weight started to come off, I still battled with how I looked compared to others and decided that I needed to have muscles too just so I could have that sex appeal. I went into working out with the right reasons that took a turn for the wrong reasons later down the road.

I took things seriously. My personality is an "all or nothing" kind of thing. I pushed myself to be so restrictive of my diet that I developed an eating disorder. I would get infuriated when the weight wouldn't come off and was trapped in a plateau for nearly a year. After a big coming to Jesus episode I was able to try to be the kind of healthy good for my body instead of the warped version I had of fitness model healthy.

Fast forward a couple years of working out and losing weight and not really gaining any muscle... I decided to do my first Spartan race. Just to see if I could. Ends up I did really well and a huge light bulb went off in my head. I finally had a reason for all of this "training" and now I have a goal. Huge mistake before = I never set a goal. I never set a single goal. My goal was to do these races and improve every time. I took up being a NASM personal trainer not to have a new job but to get so much knowledge on how to achieve my shiny new goal.

I still struggle with the negative thoughts and anxiety. I can have awful motivation some days. But most days I want to wake up, kick the negativity in the face, and have a good day full of love, food, and movement.

Honestly? I love lessening my chance of dying from some disease that was avoidable. Death is a scary thing for me. I want to be healthy because I want to live to see my kids grow up and graduate from high school/college/everything! I love being able to interact with other fitness weirdos and work with others to help them build the best, functional life they can have. And maybe help them crush some goals.