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I've was always a heavy set child, blame it on the genes of Italian & Polish heritages? I leaned out a bit in my teenage years from becoming more active, yet upon drinking, smoking & poor lifestyle choices in my early twenties, the pounds got packed on quite quickly. Always hiding myself in dark clothing & behind alcohol, cigarettes & food one day at the age of 23, I woke up

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I've was always a heavy set child, blame it on the genes of Italian & Polish heritages? I leaned out a bit in my teenage years from becoming more active, yet upon drinking, smoking & poor lifestyle choices in my early twenties, the pounds got packed on quite quickly. Always hiding myself in dark clothing & behind alcohol, cigarettes & food one day at the age of 23, I woke up knew I needed a drastic change. Coming from a family of ex-Marines & Naval men, I decided the best way to change my life, my body & see the world was to enlist. So, I did!

When I got on the scale at the Naval center it teetered to 175#'s. Now consider that I am only 5 foot 5 inches?! yikes! It was a shocker to me!

Military life, was my first exposure to a regimented life of fitness, forced fitness that is. Bootcamp was certainly as intense as one would imagine. Waking up at 3am to run, jump & do push ups was a huge change considering I would be typically getting home from the bars in my "old lifestyle." I only lost about 12#'s during the 8 weeks of bootcamp, but the strength & endurance gains were great!

Fast forward to being in the service a few years, being taught fitness, but nothing on nutrition, the minute I would stop working out for more than a month, the weight would find me. I'd starve myself thinking one meal a day would offset the not working out. Once I got out of the service in 1999, my lifestyle went back to what it once was, only difference was that my threshold for being overweight was lessened, I only allowed myself back up to 155#'s before I said "ENOUGH! & I woke up again in 2002, hired a trainer who taught me components of nutrition. Shortly after hitting heavy weight training, I could see MUSCLES & quickly!

Soon after, I found another inspirational woman who was running womens bootcamps. She empowered me to become a bootcamp coach/trainer for her in 2004 once she saw my results after going thru her camp just one month = I got lean down to 14% bodyfat, & dropped to 128#'s! It was the discipline of diet & 530am bootcamp workouts 3x week. That's the closest I've been to my body ideal goals. *sigh*

I've been a group fitness instructor/personal trainer part time ever since, yet continued to smoke until about 7 years ago at the announcement of my Father having cancer. This was also the turning point of seeking out and educating myself about holistic ways of being that needn't rely on the pharmaceutical or FOOD industry "guidelines." Discovering they both work hand in hand to make the US population SICK to make MONEY. Another topic saved for another time.

The minute I released that habit of smoking, the weight came on, and quickly & over 15#'s back on my frame within 2 months time! I was discouraged & disgusted with myself, I continued to workout doing drastic workouts doubles..and yet my body was not adjusting to not having cigarettes. I even began training for the Chicago Marathon and spent 5 months totaling over 450 miles in training for the big day. Well the big day came, and at mile 18 out of 26.2 my knee went out...

I kept going for the rest of the marathon, leaving myself fully injured & out of commission for several months afterward.

I picked myself back up after recovering, got certified to teach Zumba Dance Fitness in early 2005 then got knocked down again with needing major surgery that left me on bedrest. Seemed as if, I'd get back on track then life issues would arise.

Once I was cleared, I found the P90X program. Made an attempt at it about 3 years ago, yet was teaching group fitness ontop of the schedule so quickly became overtrained by the end of phase 2.

Fast forward to a move to Australia for the past 2 1/2 years now back to Ohio. I've made drastic changes in my eating, going beyond vegetarian to a raw food-ist, and even more so by becoming a Certified Raw Food Chef. Having said that, now that my diet is no longer a DIET, it's a LIFESTYLE ...a WAY OF BEING and comes from my respect for my body, it's time to embark on another BB product as a part of my journey.

I have accomplished competing in an all natural Figure Competition in Australia and though I didn't place, I got on that stage in the best shape I could have been in all WITHOUT any POWDERS nor any ANIMAL PROTEIN..I did all on a HIGH RAW FOOD DIET! Green Smoothies, loads of sprouts and salads..yes you can too! Let me show you the way to BUILD MUSCLE without the INGESTION or HARM of animals.

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