I've been there. All the way there.

I grew up obese. Not “could stand to lose a few pounds” obese — the kind where you avoid mirrors, buy the biggest size they carry, and pretend not to care so nobody can see how much you do. I stepped on the scale backwards for years. The last number I actually saw was 329 pounds.

Eventually I lost over 100 pounds. I thought that was the finish line. I sprinted toward it expecting everything on the other side to feel different — and in some ways it did. But I'd been so focused on the destination that I'd never built anything sustainable. I crashed hard.

I sprinted to the starting line expecting everything after that to be easy — and it destroyed me.

What followed was six years of rebuilding — not just my body, but my relationship with food, with exercise, and with the person I still saw when I looked in the mirror. That process — every setback, every lesson, every false start — is the foundation of every piece of coaching I deliver today.

I got certified as a personal trainer and nutrition coach not because the career seemed lucrative, but because I'd lived what most of my future clients were living. I'd been the person who tried every diet. I'd been the person told their labs were “normal.” I'd been the person for whom willpower felt like the only tool — and it kept breaking.

Eleven years and close to a thousand clients later, the one thing I know for certain is this: there is no black and white. There is no right diet. No wrong food. No perfect program. Everything — especially your health — is a gray area. My job isn't to give you a system. My job is to find what actually works for you.

These days I train BJJ (Brazilian jiu-jitsu — I'm still a white belt and I love it), spend time with my family in Henniker, NH, and coach women online who remind me every day why this work matters. If that sounds like the kind of coach you've been looking for, let's talk.