Hello friends, family, people of the world! Welcome to my blog, created to share my experiences with nutrition, exercise, and overall happiness. My relationship with health has had many highs and lows, and while I do not believe this journey is meant to have a final destination, I thought it would be fun to document the landmarks along the way. I strongly believe that life is for discovering what makes your soul happy. Through this blog, I hope that I can inspire and help others with their own journey through my experiences.
At the end of my freshman year in high school, I made a conscious decision to start eating healthier. It was great at first and I lost some weight, felt great, and looked better. Lending to my [type-A] personality however, it was never enough, and I got carried away and too restrictive. I mentally labeled too many things as bad and dropped so much weight that friends and family became concerned. While I was never diagnosed with an eating disorder, I had some sort of disordered eating and possibly orthorexia (a new term that is more recognized today).
There was never one single moment when I realized that I needed to start eating more. There instances that just added up (not being able to buy a prom dress because my chest looked so bony/ always being cold at swim practice) until I finally made the decision to eat more food and not weigh myself every day. Gaining weight was extremely mentally difficult and physically uncomfortable. But also incredibly necessary.
Fast forward to May 2017: I graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont, where I ran both cross country and track. After a successful running career in high school, my collegiate running experience was not exactly what I had in mind. Seemingly chronically injured, I suffered from a sacral stress fracture, two calcaneal stress fractures, and a torn hip labrum over the span of three years.
Currently, I am a graduate student at the University of Colorado in Boulder, working on my masters degree in Integrative Physiology. After a smooth recovery from hip surgery in December 2016, I got into cycling. My fitness goals have definitely changed since I first entered college, and I have much less “running tunnel vision.” I love to run, and I just discovered cycling, so with my solid swimming background (10 years of competing), I plan to get into triathlons. Living in Boulder couldn’t be more perfect for my fitness goals, and I fully intend to take advantage of these resources over the next two years.
I hope you’ll follow my nutrition/fitness/lifestyle journey by subscribing to my blog! If I haven’t convinced you yet, let me gain your respect by providing you with some fun facts and stats about myself:
- I can walk on my hands
- I give stick-n-poke tattoos and ear piercings to friends
- My mile PR is 4:56
- My beer mile is PR: 7:57
- I am a 2x DIII All American in the distance medley relay
- After graduating, I biked 270 miles home from Vermont to Maine
- stay tuned for more to come…
Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you want to discuss food/fitness/life! I love hearing from people with similar (or completely different) stories and knowing what content people are interested in. The community of wonderful people that I have found through social media is incredibly powerful. Can’t wait to here from you!
Maine Energy 