I struggled with my relationship with food and my body image from a young age.

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I can recall as early as elementary school being ashamed of my body. I was a competitive gymnast and very muscular for being so young, and as a result I got comments such as, "Your arms are so big." While they may not have meant harm at the time, this comment has stuck with me because it brought on years of shame towards my muscular figure.

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In high school I constantly heard thin girls express they were fat and complain about their bodies, so I began to do so too. Despite being thin myself, I was constantly unhappy with my body and found myself Googling, "How to lose 10lbs in 1 week" leading up to a trip in Florida. Eventually I was sneaking diet pills in my dresser, restricting my food intake, and obsessing over my weight. I graduated high school at 105lbs and at the time felt the need to lose more.

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By college things only got worse. I was drinking - like any normal college kid - and became more and more uncomfortable in my body. I look back now and recognize it was the bloat from excessive alcohol and high sodium foods that affected me, but at the time my first thought wasn't to eat healthier. Instead I got into fitness - obsessively going to the gym for hours at a time, which was easy to pass off as a "healthy" habit. I did learn to love going to the gym, but there was always an ulterior motive to going so consistently. I wanted to be able to control what my body looked like.

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I still found a love and passion for fitness, which eventually lead me to a career in the field. It started as a part time gig outside of my corporate job when I got a job as a spin instructor. Eventually it escalated to coaching CrossFit, and finally I decided to quit the corporate world and pursue a career in fitness full time. I moved across the country to California and took a job at CrossFit 858 as an instructor and the general manager.

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My time in the fitness industry enabled me to mask my disordered eating, and I believe it only made my problems worse. Counting macros and obsessing over your food was seen as normal and disciplined, so it seemed okay that I was restricting. My restriction would lead to weekend binges and immense food-guilt, which led to a cyclical binge and restrict habit for me for years.

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My last diet was my turning point in my journey. I had decided it was time to begin to heal my relationship with my body by intentionally trying to gain weight. I went on a mass plan using the RP Strength app, and the first few weeks I found myself HUNGRY but I refused to eat beyond what the app let me. The way it works is each week it increases your intake bit by bit, so eventually I felt fed and even managed to gain 5lbs. This process required me to weigh and measure my food, so I did so each day and plated and packaged my meals to the exact gram I was allotted to eat. One day I plated my food and sat down to eat, and my partner reached over and picked a single cashew off my plate. I absolutely lost it. I screamed at him, "How could you take from my plate when I have everything portioned and this is all I get!" After I had calmed down, I looked back at what I had said and realized that even though I was on a mass plan, I was exhibiting restrictive behavior. I felt I couldn't eat more than an app told me to and I became enraged over a single cashew. It was in that moment I knew I needed to change.

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After that pivotal moment I transformed my relationship with food and my body. It took time, healing, a lot of work, and help to get to the point where I am today. I reconnected with my body cues, fixed my poor eating habits, and let go of all weighing and measuring. I began to focus my training more on health than manipulating my body. I found a sense of freedom I never knew was possible. I also found my calling.

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Being in the CrossFit and fitness industry, I constantly saw the women around me on various diets like I had done. These women were doing what I was doing - restricting in efforts to achieve drastic results that weren't healthy for them mentally or physically. I wanted to help others achieve the food freedom I had achieved for myself, so I became a nutrition coach and started this business.

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My method focuses on using intuitive eating habits with tailored plans to help people achieve their goals without restriction. I help people see food and nutrition more on a continuum rather than as "good" foods and "bad" foods, eliminating their guilt when indulging. I believe mindset work must be incorporated along the journey to truly heal and find peace with ourselves. To me it's all about finding balance and long-term sustainability while enhancing our lives through food rather than hindering it.

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I use my story to show others that it IS possible to heal, you CAN achieve your goals without restriction, and that healthy nutrition should NOT overwhelm or stress you out.