Have you ever thought about being a fitness and health coach?

Last week I booked a ticket to see my cousins on Easter weekend and I’m SO excited. My mom, who is understandably sad about me leaving, told me she wasn’t going if I wasn’t going, because it was my last month in Boston before I fly south. I am thrilled to be moving to Florida, but leaving my family and friends is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Leaving my mother is the hardest. 
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I've never been someone who travels a lot. I LOVE to, but because of heavy duty grad school loans and a penchant for fine dining and boots, I’ve always felt bad spending the money. I’ve done it, but only occasionally.
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This Easter trip will be on the last weekend I’ll have in the northeast, and I’m so happy that I get to spend it with my family. And it occurs to me that I wouldn’t be able to do this if I didn’t have the extra money from being a health and fitness coach so I am SO thankful for this opportunity.
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I never ever in a million years thought I could help people improve their health and fitness. I never thought I could help people with something I’ve struggled with my whole life: feeling comfortable in my own skin, and having a healthy relationship with exercise, food, and my body. I thought I needed to be this perfect example in order to help people, in order to be in this industry… But I was so wrong. I don’t need to have perfect nutrition, fitness and mindset -- or a perfect physique -- to help people.
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If this is something you’re interested in, I would love to talk to you. You can dedicate as much time as you want to it. I started by giving it half an hour a day, but I gradually upped my time because it’s honestly SO fun and SO gratifying to be part of such a positive community. I love my team smile emoticon
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If you have questions, get in touch! Comment, message, or send me an email. Ask me anything smile emoticon

Be proud of where you're at RIGHT NOW.

This is not a before pic. This is not an after pick. This is a “I’m feeling strong, confident, and happy in my own skin so I’m going to show you what USED TO BE my least favorite part of my body because I’m a BADASS” pic.


Now, my stomach is my favorite part of my body, even though it’s still the least toned. You want to know why? Because my stomach shows that I’m still kicking. I’ve been through some terrible times personally and professionally. I’ve spent whole years starving myself and existing on diet pills and diet soda. I’ve binged, and purged, and compulsively exercised all because I didn’t feel good in my own body. And I’m still here. I’m still kicking. I’m still getting stronger, physically and emotionally, than I’ve ever been before, especially when I was 30 pounds lighter. My stretch marks, my cellulite, my lovehandles? They are battle scars from a time when I wasn’t taking care of my body, so my body took care of itself. I wear this body - every inch and pound of it - with pride.


Every time I start to hate on my body (and it happens, because this is a loooong-term process) I remind myself that I’m doing all the right things. I’m improving my balance, strength, flexibility, energy and mindset by eating right 80% of the time, exercising consistently, and surrounding myself with like-minded people who hold me accountable and help push me to be a better version of myself every day than I was the day before.


So while I’m sure in a few months I’ll post another pic, and I’m sure in it my body will be significantly more toned, I don’t think it’ll mean as much to me as this one.


So please please please please PLEASE be proud of your now. Appreciate where you are in this exact moment in time. I don’t care if you were thinner 2 years ago or you’re going to be 10 pounds lighter by May, BE PROUD OF YOUR NOW.


You know what? SHOW ME. Post a pic below. Show me your favorite part of your body, your least favorite part of your body, or anything else. Show me your muscles, or your scars, or your lovehandles, I don’t care show me something!


If you want to do it but aren’t sure where to start, show me calves because I am a total calf person and I LOVE looking at them and appreciating them.


If you want to post a pic but you don’t feel comfortable, get in touch. I can help you get there.


*Also, don’t mind the background of these pictures. I took them in my landlord’s place because our apartment is too teeny to fit a full-length mirror. To her credit, when I knocked and said, “Can I take a photo of my stomach in your mirror?” she asked no questions at all.

Transformation Tuesday /// from Starved to Strong

BEFORE, I was slowly starving myself.

At the time I was so proud. I had just lost 25 pounds in 3 months with a restrictive diet of pre-portioned, processed foods that totaled 800 calories a day. My high school prom dress fit. Every 2 weeks I went shopping and bought the smallest jeans I could fit into, and to my joy the pants size kept getting smaller.

It’s taken years to admit that despite weighing less than I did in high school, and fitting into a size 3, I wasn’t healthy. It was even harder to admit that I slid right back into the dangerous eating habits I thought I had left behind in high school.

After all, I never looked like the stereotype. I knew people with eating disorders didn’t all look like the stereotype: gaunt and skeletal with sharp, visible hips and countable ribs. I knew it wasn’t a disorder for the visibly skinny only. But somehow I still couldn’t see it in myself. Plus, I still looked like me, aside from thinning hair and slightly sunken eyes. I think. I don’t know. I still don’t have enough distance to be objective.

I definitely didn’t FEEL good. I was weak. Little, stupid tasks were hard, like carrying a load of laundry or walking up a flight of stairs. I hadn’t exercised in months, since I was eating so few calories.

I was super unhappy. At my thinnest, I still felt fat. Food was my enemy, and I lived in fear of gaining weight and relinquishing the ironclad control I had over my body. I had to eat less and less to maintain. Eventually I couldn’t.

I wish I could say I had an epiphany and changed my habits right away. I wish I could say I started using portion control and (mostly) clean eating to build a healthy relationship with food and using regular (but not excessive) exercise to improve my strength, balance, and flexibility.

But I didn’t. It took a few more years, countless rounds of dangerous dieting, and a lot of anxiety and shame for me to get to where I am now.

NOW, I exercise and eat healthily because it makes me feel good.

Now, I’m stronger than I have been in years.

Now, I look in the mirror and I’m proud of what I see.

NOW, though my body is far from perfect, I’m happier in my own skin.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m not done. I still have muscle to gain, and fat and inches to lose. I have many mental hurdles to overcome. I still fall into spirals of negativity and unhealthy habits. Progress is slow, because as it turns out, eating 800 calories a day on and off for a few years does a number on your metabolism. But each day I work towards being healthier, inside and out, mind and body. And I’m doing it the right way, on my own terms.

Mindful eating, aka how I stopped eating my feelings.

Mindfulness is about being present in the moment, focusing on being here, now, and absorbing and enjoying and interacting with your surroundings, instead of worrying about what happened yesterday, or what’s going to happen (or not happen) tomorrow, next week, next year.

Now I could go on and on about mindfulness and how practicing it has helped me recover from a lifetime of binge eating, anorexia and bulimia, but there are people better versed in it than me, so I’ll leave it to them.

I will, however, tell you my biggest takeaway:

The problem isn’t that we eat crap and feel bad. The problem is that we eat crap, feel bad, and are overcome with shame and guilt, which often leads to eating more crap, feeling more shame and guilt, and so on.

I never understood how people could eat crap, feel physically blech, and then get up and live life the next day. I would always let my sluggishness (because let’s be honest, my “crap” is ALWAYS carbs, thus the malaise) compound my shame and guilt. I’d eat more crap. I’d set a date 3 days in the future to stop eating crap, some arbitrary date because “It’s Monday” or “It’s February first” or “It’s 3 months exactly until bikini season.”

The arbitrary start date is a blog rant for another day, but you get what I’m saying.

Then I planned my cheats.

Actually, let’s call them indulgences. I hate the negative connotation of “cheats” and I hate the sound of the word “splurges.”

When someone offered me cupcakes, I wondered, “ Are they worth it? I am going to Friendsgiving this Saturday and I really want to splurge on sweet potato pie with marshmallows on top. Do I really want these cupcakes? Are they that important?”

Then I thought, “I’m going to wait 10 minutes and reevaluate my need for these cupcakes.”

Later that night, someone offered me a drink and I said, “I’ll see how I feel in a little bit,” and I meant it. Then I forgot about it entirely because as it turned out, my body wanted a buttload of seltzer, as it usually does.

What began as a single-minded goal of only indulging when I planned to slowly helped me be more present. I thought about things more. I indulged less frequently. When I indulged, I ate less because I was actually enjoying it, rather than scarfing it down. I noticed when I was full. I ignored this and kept eating, but I stopped before I was uncomfortably full, and definitely before I was Louis CK full.

Suddenly I was a person who could indulge for one meal and get back on track. In the last week, I also became a person who could indulge for one meal that wasn’t planned ahead and get back on track.

I’ve been trying to figure out how it happened. I know it started with my goal of losing weight while still enjoying refined sugar occasionally, but it turned into something bigger, something that I apply most of the time now.

Then it occurred to me: It’s not about carbs, calories or crunches. It’s about being in control and aware of your mind and your emotions. Then you can think over your options carefully, and make an informed decision. Even if it’s a decision that involves far too much bourbon and/or onion rings, it’s a decision you made thoughtfully and mindfully, after considering the consequences.

By making thoughtful choices instead of impulsive ones, you eliminate (or significantly reduce) the shame and guilt. Without that shame and guilt, you can move on without eating crap for the next 5 days. The cycle ends there. Wait. There is no cycle.

You can only do this if you’re fully present in the moment that you’re in.

That is how I took control of my emotions and stopped eating them.

That sentence sounds really strange now that I reread it, but I kind of like it so I’m leaving it.

The weirdest thing is all the mental airspace that’s left now that I’m no longer feeling guilty and ashamed of every time I’m not 100% on point with my nutrition and exercise. In fact, I’m far from it. But I no longer feel awful about a missed workout or eating too many carbs. I just think, “Well, I’ll make healthier choices starting now.”

Sometimes I say things I used to say, like, “Ugh I’m so fat I shouldn’t have eaten that ____,” but I don’t really mean it. I'm not happy with my body right now, but I’m no longer actively shaming myself about it. It’s a body that I have as a result of thousands of tiny decisions I made and DNA, and I realize that it’s going to take a few thousand more tiny decisions to make it into something I’m prouder of. What’s a couple of onion rings in the grand scheme of things?

I’m going to Florida in 16 days and I thought I would be 15 pounds lighter by now, but I’m not. I can still see all the cellulite on my legs. But I’m so much happier that I almost don’t care. I trust the process. I know that I’m fixing my brain and my thighs will follow, and for the first time in my life I realize that my mindset is more important than my body fat percentage, and that, my friends, is huge.

Below are some tips on mindful eating from this website that I found extremely helpful!