Meet Our HAES Team

I remember a time when I didn’t really over analyze my body. Of course, growing up in a society that plagues the minds of us all to act, eat, and look a certain way to be deemed societally acceptable, I felt some pressure as a CIS, white, young female to “fit in”. However, now, I am learning just how privileged I am to be in the body I have. I had felt empowered and confident in who I was, in the purpose of my body, and what I needed from it. To perform. My relationship with food consisted of ways I could fuel my body to perform optimally for each game. My body felt like a well oiled machine. Sleep. Eat. Soccer. I didn’t need to second guess who I was or what was required of my body. Until one day, it started.

When I reached the collegiate level, I was met head on with chronic knee injuries as well as a loss of sense of self. Like for most of us, friend groups shattered, our foundations of security crack, and stress comes in like a bitch. When I needed to get surgery for one of my knees, I soon realized that I no longer felt like I fit in. I lost my sense of self and with it, my passion for my sport. So I retired from playing. Little did I know I would soon be faced with years of eating disorders, anxiety and depression, and a fuck ton of societal pressure. What was my body and food good for if I didn’t need it for sport? What do I do with myself now? Who the fuck am I?

When I found personal training, my healing process with my body and mind began. Where I once used food and exercise as a way to control my weight, I now found a path that worked for me and my body. I no longer spent hours doing cardio and lifting heavy weights so I could look like some fitness influencer I found on Instagram. I no longer felt the need to weigh myself or take my measurements religiously. My frustration with my body when I looked at myself in the mirror, the endless hours of being consumed by diets, as well as the guilt associated with “failing” those said diets and exercise programs, started to lessen. I started to learn about intuitive eating. I began listening to what my body was telling me and stopped abusing myself. I found a profession that started my journey towards learning to look at my body for everything it is, rather than everything it is not. And through years of certifications, training, and actual hands on work, I’ve found my purpose. I’ve found my worth again. And that my friends, is to help other people who have had similar histories as mine, give diet culture and all of it’s toxic friends a huge fucking middle finger. To finally start living our lives in ways that do not revolve around how our bodies look, but rather everything else life has to offer.