I’ll never forget when I heard these words:
“Your wrist would likely never be the same”
In the SAME week, TWO professionals; my my sports medicine doc AND physical therapist told me I needed to step away from CrossFit to rehab a nagging wrist injury
Internally, I felt my world turn upside down.
This was the outcome after three straight years of doing CrossFit 5-6x per week, most of that time being very under fueled and living in a space of calorie restriction so I could have that coveted six pack.
I heard what they were saying to me, but I still told myself - I would cut back but not quit altogether (NO WAY I was ‘stopping’ )
CrossFit was my life. And all the sudden, I found myself having to shed my entire identity
At the time, I had many of the CrossFit members as nutrition clients and I felt I couldn’t keep working with them IF I left the gym completely.
All my friends were there, my youngest child practically grew up there. It felt like family and I knew leaving would change that.
I tried to cut back to 3x per week, but I struggled to tailor the workouts to my wrist injury and continued to overtrain outside of those 3 days with running and strength training at a local gym.
I felt so out of place at a normal gym, I missed my routine and my friends, but I had no choice it was this or nothing so I stuck with it.
I was in so much pain my body eventually forced me to do the rehab and shift into less intense strength training.
I was confused at what I had done wrong and even felt anger with my body as if it had failed me.
This entire entire moment in my life (rehabbing an injury and UNDERSTANDING my body a lot more) drove me to become a personal trainer so that I could learn as much as possible about the human body. I was FASCINATED.
Over 2 years of studying to be a PT, I learned my body in fact, didn’t fail me, but I had failed because I didn't know what it needed and I missed all the signs when it tried desperately to tell me the ONE thing it needed was the ONE THING I was ignoring:
Rest and recovery!
As I educated myself more, I saw a huge shift in my health, sleep, body comp, and mood but it wasn’t a quick or easy transition by any means.
It took A LOT of time, time that I maybe would not have given myself had my body not forced it upon me. I worked around the injury not through it, that combined with PT allowed the pain to become non existent rather quickly.
I eventually hired a coach to help with gym programming and nutrition.
She helped me see I was trying to train like an athlete YET I wasn’t eating, sleeping, or managing my stress like one. I had zero idea what recovery from a workout really meant, or how important it is for my workouts to even be effective.
After months of struggling to transition things started to CLICK.
I didn’t have FOMO about missing the ‘workout of the day’ at crossfit.
I had a program to follow that was aligned with my specific goals, and I was seeing the best strength gains I had seen in years!
I wasn’t overly sore after workouts or in pain anymore.
I was energized and motivated to support my training with good nutrition instead of restricting calories all day and then overdoing it at night.
I don’t live for the gym anymore, I don’t workout everyday.
I workout so I can stay as strong as I can as I age. I workout so I can add muscle and KEEP muscle because it is so vital for our long term health and body fat levels.
I feel so at peace with my fitness and nutrition. I don’t even have to think about it anymore, where it was something that crossed over to obsession back then.
It doesn’t consume me anymore, it just adds value to my life.
It is funny because this transition felt like the end of the world at the time, but the truth is: it was something that changed the trajectory of my life forever, for the best.
Reflecting back: That injury drove me into personal training, pushed me to go deeper into understanding nutrition so I could perform optimally, and it was the reason that Move the Needle Nutrition and Fitness was born, my health and fitness company that teaches women how to get stronger, stay lean, and do it all without it taking over your life.
In my world, we focus on not only results in the form of sustainable fat loss and powerful muscle gain, but also on teaching you how to make this a FOREVER change and WHY results matter in YOUR life.
Strip it on down, and nutrition and fitness are really simple in nature,I KNOW, though that it can be hard to execute alone when you are working against current societal norms, (ex: shitty fad diets, cardio classes 5x a week) where I see most people have that “all or nothing” approach.
I am OVER THE MOON EXCITED about the 6 women who SECURED THEIR SPOT in my 16 week virtual coaching program, “Move The Needle Methods” where they will be going from frustrated and confused about weight loss to CLEAR, FOCUSED, and moving confidently towards their individual goals.
We kick off Monday, February 26th, grab the details and apply here.
The choice is yours. Keep doing what you’re doing OR sign up and change your entire life. Because 6 months from now, you will NOT be where you are right now, I promise you.