This blog is dedicated to helping others get the information needed for a healthier lifestyle, weight loss, and weight management. Also, I am an Independent Beachbody Coach and offer all official products from Beachbody via my Team Beachbody Store.
Purchasing through my store will also assign me as your personal Beachbody Coach to help you stay accountable, on track, and informed. I update this Blog several times a week with weight loss, motivational, inspirational, and informational articles all related to health and weight loss.
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The following will explain a little more about me personally and how I got to where I am today.
Seeing a chubby kid in high school isn’t such an unusual thing to see now a days , that is unless that kid is me and your in my home town. I was raised in a surf town called Santa Cruz, California. It’s a place run by long dirty blond, athletic or thin, sun kissed tan high school girls. I stuck out like a sore thumb and that exactly what I was. It wasn’t unusual to have food thrown at me, pig noises called at me as I walked down the hall or sometimes even during class. High school was seriously a cruel place. To hide I would study in the classrooms during break and talk with the teachers. When I got home I would eat. I could eat an entire large pepperoni pizza by myself. I remember waiting in line at Taco Bell and already thinking about something else that I needed to get next at Burger King. It got bad. At the time I didn’t notice. All my friends, the few I had, were fat too so I just thought it was ok. I didn’t know I was hiding behind the food. That was until the summer before my senior year.
My life changed that summer more than ever. In my hometown there is an amusement park called the Boardwalk. The company has a summer transfer program where they bring in students from all around the world to come for the summer and work at the Boardwalk in exchange for logging and food. It’s party central! So naturally, as any soon to be senior would, once I was invited to a party from one of the student transfers I started going every moment I could. And let me tell you Europeans can party! But it wasn’t the partying that changed me, it was their friendship. They welcomed me with open arms and had no care about my size. It was one of the first times I had a guy tell me I was beautiful. Life was great, minus the hangovers, and with the complements came my self-esteem. I just stopped wanting to eat so much. I didn’t want to stay inside anymore. I was ready to see life!
Senior year I came back a new woman. I walked those halls with confidence even though I had lost only about 15 lbs. I felt strong and I didn’t take any crap from anyone. That year I sang the national anthem for my graduating class. It was the perfect way to say goodbye to the pain and hello to life. This was the first chapter of my weight loss journey.
As life continued and I went to college the weight slowly continued to come off. I had my first relationship, followed by my first break up. It was time for my next big leap, so I moved to Hollywood!
I had always loved music and had been studying it for years, so the move to Hollywood had been a dream of mine for a long time. I knew that going to Los Angeles Music Academy would be a huge step in the right direction and it was. I sang on stage every day. I hung out with people from all over the world who had the same passion as mine, music. I was now surrounded by people who were healthy mentally and physically. I started going to the gym with my girlfriends in the morning and began eating a little healthier. My body slimmed down to a size 9 which was a big difference from the size 14 I was in high school.
After graduation I continued to live in Hollywood for a few years performing until I moved to Palm Springs. I had my bag packed for a 3 day vacation there, and I never left. The city life had burnt me out and it was time to settle down a little….or so I thought.
It was about a year in when I got a call from a friend telling me I should audition to gogo dance at the local casino. The thought of performing in the 3 story night club they had sounded amazing, but ME a gogo dancer professionally..ha! I wasn’t the size of a professional dancer. But then I thought “ hey what’s stopping me!?” I had one month before auditions so I ran to the gym and began my training.
A month later I had toned up and trimmed down and was ready to rock the auditions! I showed up and saw every other girl standing there had to be no bigger than a size 4!! I was a size 7. But I reminded myself that I’d been through worse and I worked too hard to turn back now! I stepped on stage with my head held high and danced my butt off! When the music stopped I seriously thought I was gonna throw up! A week later I got the call. I MADE IT!! Holy crap really!? The DJ on the other end of the phone said he had gone against what all the other judges had wanted. They said I was too big, but he said “ She can dance! So what if she has curves!” He said he saw something in me. “ Now don’t F&%k it up.” He said. Hah! We became good friend over the next 2 years I danced there.
As time went on I continued to work out hard! I was on a strict diet, hit the gym twice a day and trimmed down to an extremely fit size 4. I was in the best shape of my life and with the smaller waistline filled in a greater inner strength. I knew that other casinos needed good dancers and they were shipping them in from Los Angeles, so I started a company called GG Agency. I would go out and find girls who were naturally pretty and had great personalities but didn’t know how to dress, hold them selves, or needed to drop a little weight. I would train them to their fullest potential and then book them out to the casinos while collecting an agency fee. Soon I expanded to alcohol company promotions and then on to golf, casino and radio station promotions. My company was the top promotional agency in the valley!! It was incredible! I was bettering these women’s’ lives. Helping them get the self confidence that was given to me and I was making a good living from it! Man I was busy! However, sadly as the economy took a down turn, so did my business. The first thing to go in a budget cut is the “extras” and we were the extras.
As the business closed I decided to take a year break from performing. I moved to Greece for four months and backpacked in London. I needed to see the world with my own two eyes…I loved what I saw. Returning home I knew it was time to take to the stage again. I immediately auditioned for a local musical and got a supporting lead part! I continued on to an opera, and then a touring musical theater show. I started up teaching vocal performance lessons one on one with cast members from the show and then expanded it to my fulltime job. Two years flashed by in a blink. Then summer came and I put on my bikini. Wow what a scary sight! I didn’t realize how much weight I had gained back. It was in shock! It was time for some balance.
I knew this time around that I didn’t want to go crazy at the gym. The days of counting the calories in a banana were not wanted back. I decided to try a system I heard about two years previous called P90X. As I did my research I learned that I could be a coach to others at the same time I would be training and losing weight myself. This was perfect for me cause I had already been training and helping all my friends lose weight and eat healthy, but this would take it to the next level. I immediately ordered P90 ( it’s the step before P90X), a super food protein shake called Shakeology, cleaned out my fridge and signed up as a coach. I was ready!
The first month of P90 was hard!! Every time I felt I couldn’t do it I would go to the message boards online or chat with one of my fellow coaches to keep my motivation up. About 3 weeks in one of my friends noticed I was losing weight fast and she wanted in too, so she bought P90 and started working out with me three days a week and two days on her own at home. Even on the days she wasn’t with me we would text each other when we were working out just to keep on top of each other. She was my workout buddy. We were doing this together!
During this process people were asking me like crazy what I was doing. They all wanted to try it. They needed changes in their lives and I could help them! I couldn’t workout with everyone one at a time so I started doing fit clubs out of my home. Fit clubs are where people come together, workout, and learn about nutrition and Shakeology. It’s a great place for people to meet other workout buddies and get the motivation they need each week to stay healthy and happy. And it’s a free event!
I expected the first couple fit clubs to only have a few people, but man was I wrong!! By the second fit club my house was packed!! People from each week previous had loved it so much they would come back the next week bringing friends and their friends would bring friends and continuing on. At on point within the first month I had a fit club with over 20 people in my living room!! People wanted and needed this! I expanded the fit clubs to twice a week and started to do an online version for those that lived too far away to physically be there. This was growing fast and I needed help.
Help wasn’t far away at all. I had touched the lives of people and they wanted to return the favor by becoming coaches and helping others just the same. We now had a team, the Desert Team! We were ending the trend of obesity in our Coachella Valley one person at a time and it felt great!!
Currently I sit at my desk in my office writing. It’s been several months since I became a Team Beachbody Coach and my life has dramatically changed physically and mentally for the better. I’m about 5 lbs away from my condition I was when I was a size 4 , but the effort I’ve put into it has been much less. I don’t count the calories in a banana anymore! I simply eat several small healthy meals a day after my Shakeology for breakfast (seriously tastes like a chocolate frosty yum!) and exercise up to 45 min with P90X. I’m excited about what my future holds and how many thousands of lives I’m touching and changing. Maybe someday I’ll run into a quiet chubby high school girl and hand her a P90 DVD, give her a hug and tell her “ hi, I’m your fitness coach and anything you need I’ll be here for you anytime.
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