I'm just an average gal who can’t stop talking about how prioritizing movement and nutrition has changed my life, and how maybe it can change yours, too.
MY MISSION IS TO HELP YOU FIND FREEDOM IN YOUR BODY & MIND
just a small town Midwesterner
that ran away to Colorado after college to chase the things that made me feel most alive. Movement, nature, and adventure have this way of shining a light on my soul, of creating this spark that makes me feel connected to something bigger. A spark that's fueled by intentional lifestyle choices around food, movement, and mindset — to create this magical feeling of alignment in mind, body, and soul.
This is my story...
Movement has always been what makes me feel most alive. I grew up as a gymnast, and I was that kid that was constantly upside down, literally cartwheeling my way through life. There was a short period in my life that I lost that spark for movement, and I truly didn’t feel like myself. I found that spark again through rock climbing, and through my rock climbing gym eventually fell in love with yoga.
FROM THE BEGINNING...
MY JOURNEY WITH MOVEMENT
Quieting the monkey mind
When I started yoga I was a stressed out, burned out CPA working in public accounting. I quickly found yoga to be a multi-dimensional outlet for stress - it was not only a place to move the body, but to quiet the monkey-mind. To practice self-reflection. To inspire alignment and personal growth. After a few years of practicing yoga and realizing what an impact it made in my life, I decided I wanted to share my love for it with others and signed up for my first 200-hour teacher training in Denver.
Somewhere along the way in my yoga journey, I felt this insane desire to start up a handstanding practice. I already knew how to do a handstand from my years in gymnastics, but a long hiatus in practicing left me in a space where I couldn’t hold a handstand for more than a second or two.
And so the passion came alive again, and I practiced nearly every day to get to a place where my handstand was more solid than it had ever been in my life as a gymnast. For me, handstands are the best way to truly get into my body and out of my mind.
from yoga to handstands
After a few years of yoga, handstanding, and climbing, I ended up injured. I found myself in chronic pain with a shoulder and neck issue that took over a year to get to the bottom of, and in the meantime while trying to figure out that injury I broke my foot. At this time movement had become such an integral part of my life, and being stuck in pain and unable to engage in my favorite forms of movement severely impacted my mental health.
I spent countless hours in physical therapy, at the chiropractor, and visiting sports medicine doctors before finally finding a doctor who specializes in regenerative orthopedics who was able to identify the root cause of my shoulder and neck chronic pain. I had a procedure done that helped immensely, but the entire journey led me to wanting to feel more resilient in my body and to prioritize preventing future injury so that I could continue to do the activities that I love.
dealing with chronic pain
MOBILITY, MOBILITY, MOBILITY
I quickly became obsessed with finding the best form of movement to support my body as a whole, and after lots of research, decided mobility training was the answer for me. An essential for moving freely, without pain, throughout life, which becomes so important as we age to prevent injury and maintain freedom in our day to day lives.
Mobility training is about active mobility, or strength through range of motion (whereas flexibility only relates to passive range of motion, which isn’t functional or supportive). In modern society with the amount of sitting and repetitive movement that we do, we've lost a lot of fundamental joint motion. Training mobility is the key to restoring that active range of motion, leading to feeling more freedom of movement without fear of injury.
After being injured for so long, I’ve become passionate about supporting my body through all types of movement and preventing future injuries, and want to help others do the same. To dive deeper into the topic and be equipped to teach others all about it, I completed a training (Functional Range Conditioning) to become certified as a mobility coach.
finding mobility
My journey into nutrition began in college, when I hit a point that I was drinking way too often and not paying much attention to what I was eating. I had dealt with chronic migraines for as long as I could remember, and started noticing that they were becoming more frequent. I gained more than the freshman 15. I didn’t feel like myself anymore, and I knew something needed to change.
I had this intuitive feeling that my diet needed a complete overhaul. As a kid I was a really picky eater, and something inside me shifted and I suddenly had this desire to overcome that picky side and start trying new foods. I stopped drinking pop (soda to you non-midwesterners), I started eating more real foods, and cut back on processed junk. Simple changes…and I couldn’t believe how different I felt. I had more energy, more mental clarity, and slowly but surely, my migraines started to become less frequent.
Ever since then, I’ve always felt acutely aware of the impact that the food I eat has on my body, my energy levels, my mental clarity, and my mood. During a time period when I was injured and suddenly found myself with more free time, I decided to use my newfound downtime to really dive deep on nutrition and holistic health. I enrolled in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition’s Health Coach Training Program, and earned my certification to become an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach.
FOOD IS MEDICINE
ONE BODY, ONE MIND, ONE LIFE
I’m passionate about sharing my knowledge of movement and holistic health with others because I truly believe that health is wealth. Our current choices when it comes to movement, nutrition, and other lifestyle habits impact the future state of our bodies (and minds!) — how well we move, how well we think, if we’ll end up with chronic disease — so much of our quality of life (especially as we age) is dependent on our lifestyle choices.
I've dedicated a lot of time to learning about about the anatomy of movement, nutrition, and how these as well and other lifestyle choices are deeply interconnected and impactful to our overall health. I've also experienced meaningful change in my life — how my body feels, my energy levels, my emotional health, and so much more — from prioritizing my health.
We only get one body in this lifetime - my mission is to inspire you to treat it well and educate you on how to do that.
my "why"
