Bonner, MT
I am a 35-year-old married mother of two and a college writing instructor in beautiful Missoula, Montana. I am a healthy person, inside and out and in all aspects of my life today, but it was not so long ago that I was a tired, unhealthy, and out of shape mom who was fully centered on recovering my child from autism.
Though I was active throughout high school, participating on the volleyball
I am a 35-year-old married mother of two and a college writing instructor in beautiful Missoula, Montana. I am a healthy person, inside and out and in all aspects of my life today, but it was not so long ago that I was a tired, unhealthy, and out of shape mom who was fully centered on recovering my child from autism.
Though I was active throughout high school, participating on the volleyball and track teams, my early adult life featured poor eating habits and a lack of workouts. I had a quick metabolism at the time, which meant that I could melt off extra pounds without much effort. That was a significant problem for me, because it allowed me to ignore the importance of health. I wasn't paying attention to the kinds of nutrients I was providing for my body and to the ways my body was weakened by not moving it and not adding strength. I was skinny on the outside and, at the time, that was all that mattered.
After clearing the age of 25 and having two kids, I had to face the reality that my metabolism had slowed and that my bad habits now had outward consequences. After the second pregnancy, I found myself more than 30 pounds overweight and exhausted. There came a day when I got on the scale, looked at the number, and decided that I never wanted to see that number again. I began a lifestyle of fitness that same day.
That lifestyle was a constant battle to uphold, though, because at the same time I was attempting to commit myself to health and fitness, I was discovering that my first child, my son, had autism. Hearing that news was devastating and it was easy, first, to get caught up in the emotional impact of the diagnosis and, second, to get caught up in the day-to-day effort to recover my son. Each day, my energy was devoted to understanding my son and his sensitivities in order to reduce physical overloads, to working to define and implement the best daily skills programs (with the support of his ABA team) and to make those programs intuitive and consistent, to offering social opportunities in order to develop his engagement and to making those interactions more fluid, and to outlining future steps including assessments of local educational programs. My life was devoted to and was scheduled around my son and his programs, and I wouldn't change that devotion and focus because he was recovered. What was challenging was finding the time and the focus to offer the same kind of devotion to myself and to my health.
It didn't take long to discover that if I wasn't fit and wasn't energetic, then I didn't have my full self to give to my son. Even if I could manage only a 30 minute workout, I was committed to giving myself those 30 minutes. I would hit it hard for that period of time, knowing that I could commit to at least half an hour each day and that I could give my personal best in every minute of those 30 minutes, drawing the most benefit from the time I had available.
Those 30 minutes were my saving grace. It is so easy for parents, whether we are parents to a child with a disability or just busy parents in general, to lose sight of ourselves and to focus solely on the needs of our children. When our schedule is packed full every day, it can be hard to see where we might make the time for workouts and for healthy home cooking habits. When we are exhausted from the day, it can be hard to find the energy to put on the workout gear and get into the gym. What our children need, though, is the very best we can give them, and that includes a parent who is fit enough to play with them, energetic enough to keep up with them, and healthy enough to spend a lifetime with them.
It is that commitment that I bring to my coaching. I want to help each of you be the best YOU that you can be. I'm not interested in helping you achieve an idealized body you see in a magazine or on a friend; I want you to achieve your best body. I'm not interested in helping you achieve the goals that others may define for you; I'm interested in helping you define what you want out of life and giving you the skills to make each of those goals, no matter how big they seem in this moment, come true. I want you to be devoted to yourself, starting today.
Today is the first day you give to yourself. Today is the day you commit to being an active participant in your own life and a healthy person inside and out. It's not easy; it's a path that you've likely started on and stalled (as we all have) many times, but it's absolutely worth it in the end. It’s helpful to have a partner to walk the path with, and I'd love to be that partner for you.
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