How My Journey Began

For me, I must have started 827 times before I finally got it right. And that’s no exaggeration.

My “fitness journey” began when I was 14 years old, after I decided to pick up a fitness magazine off the shelf at the grocery store I was cashiering at.

At this point in my life I was very self-conscious about body and insecure. I would never wear shorts to school, that’s how much I hated my body.

Looking through the magazine, I began to learn about nutrition, exercises and how I could practically reshape my body.

I was hooked!

I began buying my own groceries, packing my own lunches in High School, and started jogging and rollerblading practically every day after school. In 10th grade I even signed up for weight training because I just loved exercising so much.

I took things to the extreme though when I first started – because I just didn’t know any better.

I allowed myself 1,000-1,100 calories a day and I wrote everything I ate down in a journal. I was very strict with my diet!

I can still remember back to high school what I ate – breakfast was an egg with a mini bagel, lunch was a Balance protein bar with a piece of fruit and dinner was a protein with veggies. I never snacked.

At my skinniest, I got down to 98 pounds (I’m 5’4″).

I didn’t know what it was called at the time, but I also began binge-eating because of this unhealthy eating pattern. I’d restrict myself for so long, that once I had something sweet, I’d go way overboard.

I sat in pain with this for hours – emotionally and physically.

One night while working at the grocery store, I remember eating 3-4 cheese danishes on my 15 minute break. Then as you know, that’s when the guilt and frustration set in. You feel like you just gained 10 lbs. in five minutes.

I went back and forth with restricting and binging for well over 10 years!

Fast forward to the age of 23 when I was in college. At this time I was going back and forth from Gainesville to Jupiter (about a four hour drive one way) because of school and work. Once again my eating habits were all over the place and I was unhappy, insecure and lacked confidence.

I remember eating a lot of ice cream around this time after work to help compensate for the loneliness I felt.

Once my semester was over in Gainesville I moved back home to Jupiter.

I was so happy! I had my friends, family, the beach (which I practically lived at when I didn’t work) and normalcy again.

At the age of 24 I had a lot of family issues going on and had to care for my little sister (who was three at the time) because of my mom’s mental disability. Not only was I in school for Nursing and working 5-6 days a week at a restaurant (sometimes until 11 pm), I now had a tremendous responsibility thrown on my lap.

On top of that, I was beginning to hate my job as a waitress, I was barely able to pay my bills and I didn’t enjoy the “friends” I had and the people I was surrounded by.

Life was miserable at this time, as you can imagine.

I was broke, working at a job that I hated, my relationships weren’t the best because I didn’t love myself and couldn’t fully except someone else’s love, my mom was put in an assisted living facility because of her mental disability, my three year old sister was taken away from my mom, I was dealing with my binges — I didn’t know how much I could take.

It’s around this time, at the age of 25, that I decided I wanted to become a personal trainer and start helping others to live healthier lives.

I was working out at a local mom and pop gym for about six months now, and absolutely loved it!

There I began talking to the personal trainers and learning more about the machines, different exercise techniques, nutrition and supplements.

I was obsessed with learning from them!

This is also the time that I learned about fitness competitions. I couldn’t commit to doing one, though, because I was still binging a few times a week and wasn’t willing to change my bad eating habits.

I was even given the opportunity from one of the trainers to do my diet and training for free, but I declined because I couldn’t give up food. It was literally the only thing that calmed me down when I was stressed.

The thought of not being able to binge literally scared me. What was I going to do when I got stressed out? I didn’t know any other way to relieve my stress.

For the next few years I was still enthralled in everything fitness and training others, but was still dealing with my own issues behind closed doors.

Things got so out of control.

I had two rock bottom moments. One was pulling half melted (wrapped) ice cream sandwiches out of the garbage and eating them because I could not control my urge. The other was driving to two different McDonalds to get an Oreo McFlurry after my waitressing shift because I thought they’d judge me for buying two at one location. “They’re going to know they’re both for me and they’re going to judge me“.

The things you think when you’re in a binge brain.

In 2010 I met my husband and shortly after all my urges and compulsions stoped. 

Since meeting him, everything’s been stable and happy. I haven’t binged or restricted myself in almost seven years now (as of 2016).

With all that being said…

Learning what works best for you and your body can take you years – it took me over 10.

The whole time I knew what to do, what not to do, how I should do things and how I shouldn’t. I just didn’t have it in me to apply those things because giving in was easier.

I believe this is what makes me a great coach.

I’ve been where a lot of you are now. I know that giving up or giving in is way easier than going through things you don’t want to face.

What I went through isn’t that unique. I know there are millions of young girls and women experiencing the same issues with food and their body. And it is my lifes mission to help them.

Email me at Christina@SizeHappy.net if you ever need to chat 🙂

Does my story sound familiar to you?