Health Coach | Speaker | Writer | Welcome to my digital diary! I'm here to help you blend life & fitness to find your health & happy! Thank you for being part of my family & allowing me to add value to your journey!
8 years ago I had never touched a barbell or back squatted in my life.
At 8 yrs old, my food & body issues began.
It’s been 7 years since my first CrossFit competition which I entered only 3 months after my 1st foundations class.
I was scared & intimidated af at each stage.
Even as a CrossFit coach, I was still struggling with body image, digestive issues & had no idea how to properly nourish myself. Mentally, emotionally, and physically I may add.
Hot. Mess. Express.
I finally reached a point years later & knew it was time to quit trying to compete & eat a certain way & be something I simply was not.
No one equips you for the flood of emotions that come with changing the way you’ve lived for years & the body changes that come with it.
Doesn’t matter if you’re an athlete, a mom, have chronic illness, or disordered eating — we never look at food, exercise or our bodies the same ever again.
No one equips you with the knowledge that before, during that season, your body’s purpose was to be an athlete, or a dancer, or a mom & wife, or a nurse, or a fur mom & single girl just doin the best she can.
No one reassures you your body is supposed to change & your life & relationships & seasons are all going to change — & all those changes are totally OK.
We’re taught young that our worth & purpose are attached to live up to societies beauty standards.
I’ve gained weight, lost weight, gained muscle, lost muscle, been every shape & size & tried every diet always coveting the smaller, leaner version of myself.
Always jealous of the girls that could eat anything they wanted & live like a ‘normal person’ and not have to worry about bloating or constipation or diarrhea or nausea & vomiting just because she ate a salad or had pizza with friends or ate food too late.
With frustration, I started to hate what I saw in the mirror getting in the shower. I didn’t even want to take my clothes off half of the time. Seriously affected my sex life & honestly any kind of abundance I wanted to bring into my life.
Its taken took 30 years of struggling with IBS, Crohns, disordered eating & just being freakin human to realize that I don’t need to be a double 0, an athlete, an ‘Influencer,’ or whatever label you choose to have purpose & worth.
I found love in relationships, & food, & entrepreneurship, & exercise, & LIFE again.
That 8 year old little girl you see on the left didn’t know it then, but she is a mf Queen, an authority, & was meant to help others thru her challenges.
She was meant for greatness.
So are you.
I’m here to help you. Link here if you’re struggling like I did too.
Message me anytime on IG or Facebook. I know most of you follow me on the gram and I’m grateful to have such a wonderful fam like yall!
Had someone tell me yesterday, “I want to look like you. How do you eat & train?”
I replied with, “You can’t look like me & I can’t look like you.”
This mornin before work, I had about 40min. So this is me, a shameless gym selfie, committing to me.
Some important things I’ve learned the hard way I want to pass along when it comes to training.
Listen, I’m not the expert, but I have been one to make all the wrong moves first.
I’ll lead off with hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. You know the saying. I’m not just talking about this in the aesthetic sense, same thing goes to your healing protocols & taking time off too.
Here goes…
1️⃣Genetics play a big part & if you hate what you’re doing you won’t stick with it. Consistency & adherence get you results with nutrition & training.
We’re not genetically made to all look the same. Thru trial & error, you will find the aligned nutrition & training program that work for you. INVEST in coaches & trainers to guide you. Quit your diet & program ADD.
2️⃣Be intentional about your training. Just because you go to the gym doesn’t mean you’ll see results if you’re not really doing the work. Just like hiring a nutrition coach, you still have to do the work. Stop trying to out supplement shitty nutrition, over training, & putting more work into posing in the squat rack or being more concerned if your hair & makeup look on point in your IG video.
→ Follow your program.
→ Nutrition & recovery build your foundation.
→Supplements aren’t really that important. The basics are. SLEEP.
→Prioritize HEALTH first. Eat food. Get your gut & hormones in check.
3️⃣MOST important, manage your mindset. You can wish all you want but if you don’t commit to yourself, don’t believe you can achieve, & still tell yourself you fxck up all the time — you’re gonna fxck up all the time.
We all have cups we fill: self care, career, relationships, body goals, financial goals. Choose which cup to drink from & which one to refill. Your seasons will change & that’s ok. But commit fully to that season so you can truly reach your potential.
I went into this low carb, insulin reset diet as another learning experience. What I found was a wake up call.
A lot of knowledge and life bombs here 💣
With the dramatic life changes for us all over the course of the past 2 weeks, cliché as it sounds, everything happens for a reason at precisely the right time.
Why the reset? I had been overly stressed, trying to cut, eating a high amt of carbs (via jasmine rice/rice Chex/occasional alcohol) while intermittent fasting & focusing on 2 (occasionally 3) larger meals a day.
👉🏻I have Crohn’s, struggled with a missed diagnosis of IBS basically my entire early life & was overweight.
👉🏻Don’t digest fruits or vegetables or fiber or seeds or skins well
👉🏻Thrive off animal meals & animal-based nutrition
👉🏻Struggled with disordered eating & bingeing
👉🏻 Spent 4-5 years healing my gut & getting myself out of metabolic adaptation because I ate poverty macros for fuggin forever
👉🏻Tried to competitively CrossFit on Paleo, Quito, low carb & did all the dumb shit for years
👉🏻I eat lowfodmap, gluten-free, dairy free, bullshit free 😆, and basic af, not cute meals are my jam. Why? Because that’s how I like to eat, Karen.
Save this for later 😉
My cut started out well, but as we progressed I noticed my energy was all over the place I was starting to feel more out of control eating larger meals (I was fuller throughout the day). My fasting blood sugar was consistently higher (for me) around the 95 to 100 range, staying elevated even 2 hours after eating.
Mine typically sits around 80 to 85 in a controlled environment, fasting.
My digestion was decent, but I still felt inflamed, puffy, & like I was carrying a lot of “fluff” around my middle which I did not have in my 20s. (I was more low carb as far as my diet approach in my 20s, & my workouts were lower intensity). I didn’t CrossFit until my 30s.
My lifestyle now is very different from even December 2019. My stress is higher & I’m traveling more.
My last cut was amazing (I had not dieted in 2 years & was coming off of a surplus) My schedule & stress were more controlled.
Last 12 week cut for a photo shoot.
💭🤔 HELLO!!!! Katie, you’ll be 38 in July, you don’t have the same body you had in your 20s. Dude, you’re almost a legit Cougar 😻😂
💁🏼♀️It’s time to get real, refocus, & realign.
To those of you in your 30s, let me tell you, things change quickly. You don’t recover as quickly, nights of bad decisions haunt you for weeks, and you’d rather go to bed by 9:30 than stay up & go clubbing. PS you still don’t have your shit together in your 30s. 👍🏼🤘🏻
I’ve learned this is the time to accept, adjust, & think about longevity more so than a ripped set of abs.
I love being lean & feeling light & strong, but just because you look the part doesn’t mean you’re healthy on the inside. Abs, striations, & single digit body fat — don’t help you live to a ripe old age.
These require different levels of commitment and flexibility with your diet and training. Be realistic.
MY CHANGES:
👉🏻Focus on a low carb approach, primarily animal-based nutrition. Why? Because I thrive off animal meats & already don’t digest fibers and plants well. I will harp at you till I’m blue in the face, go your own way! Don’t send me fucking hate messages because I eat animals. I’m not telling anyone to eat this way, I’m simply sharing my experiences and reasoning why.
👉🏻I also am not “CrossFitting” because all the gyms are closed, therefore, my activity is more lower intensity. This would warrant lower carbohydrates for my needs are not as high.
👉🏻I am also sleeping more, reducing caffeine intake, & fasting at least 14-16hrs overnight to recover, give my digestion a break & allow my body to balance itself out.
👉🏻I need an approach that is going to keep me fuller, longer, with less energy crashes to sustain long days working at the clinics & hospitals. I don’t like worrying about food & a bunch of meal preps, just my personality. I prefer two large meals a day. Naturally, protein and fats will do this. they take longer to digest and are harder to digest by the body — keeping blood sugar more stable, energy levels more stable with you feeling fuller, longer like a cherry on top. Which is why I’m taking a higher protein, higher fat approach.
👉🏻Macro wise, I am loosely tracking just to make sure my calories are in check. Keeping my carbs 50 g & under. Not really paying attention to where my protein & fats fall, obviously I’m getting plenty of both with animal-based nutrition with the inclusion of nut butters.
👉🏻I Am tracking weight, progress photos, & blood sugar with a simple glucometer (am fasting, 2 hrs post meal, bedtime) just to see how my body tolerates specific ratios, salt intake, stress, & food choices. Not because I’m focusing on the weight on the scale. Obviously when reducing carbohydrates, you’ll naturally lose water, so a lot of this is water weight loss, initially.
Me this morning 3/24/20 113.7lbs
THINGS IM LEARNING:
✅CrossFit is not in aesthetic sport. Stop choosing CrossFit to look like a bodybuilder. Align your training, lifestyle, & align your food. Manage you mofo stress!
✅I personally feel much better on a carnivore-ish diet which aligns better with my lifestyle right now.
🌀My digestion is exceptional, my bloating is gone, bowel movements routine & normal, my puffiness is gone, I feel lighter.
🌀After nine days I’m noticing aesthetic changes finally. Stomach is starting to lose that patchy fat in my stubborn areas above and below my belly button.
🌀Yes with the training differences I’m getting smaller, and softer but I’m fitting more naturally back into my happy setpoint. My weight is staying around 113 pounds.
🌀I don’t hurt as much (minus my broken toe I have right now).
🌀No energy crashes, I have absolutely no cravings for sugar and I’m offen satisfied with one large meal during the day after my fasted walk.
🌀I love walking, it is my savior mind and body. I don’t need to work out six days a week and I need to sleep more. Duh.
✅The more data we have the more we can make educated informed decisions about our lifestyle & food choices. Do we need to worry about tracking & measuring all of the time — NO! But there’s a time & a place for it so you can learn & make educated decisions about how to live your life for YOU.
Quit whining, complaining, yo-yo dieting, yo-yo training, yo-yo living your life aimlessly because you’re not educating yourself. Get tested, invest in mentors, coaches, doctors to help you. There are free podcasts, wonderful people & resources on social media, books you can purchase & things out there at minimal cost.
✅Your goals should be centered around 4 different areas: healing, performance, aesthetics, & longevity. Your seasons will change, adjust accordingly.
✅People just think glucose is just a measure of carbs, it’s not, it’s a measurement of your lifestyle. Stress, food choices, sleep, your workouts, air pollution, under eating, over eating, toxins, artificial shit you put in your body or on your body — it all matters. It all affects your physiology, hormones, gut health, & processes that go on internally.
✅You have to ask yourself what level of stress you are OK with in your life. Adjust accordingly. If you choose this stress level, don’t bitch when you don’t get what you want.
✅The biggest thing people ignore are their mindset & their thoughts. So why are people having such a hard time right now being at home with their thoughts?
BINGO.
I hope this helps you wherever you are in your journey. Remember only you know your body best. I am not endorsing anyone to follow any particular diet I want you to learn, I want you to follow your heart, and I want you to ALWAYS listen to your gut. ❤️
I’ve talked about it openly through the years via my Instagram.
For yrs my reason for diving into these fad diets were focused around self loathing, lack of education & wanting to shrink my life away.
I’m grateful, however, bc I learned how my body responded to different foods, different quantities, my energy level during training, my crohn’s & digestion, recovery, & realistic sustainability.
I don’t believe in any perfect way of eating — only the perfect way of eating for you. So I don’t bash anyone who hates meat or prefers a certain way of living.
💁🏼♀️Golden rule: basically don’t be a dick.
I simply want to educate you on my journey & why I utilize specific methods.
Currently I’m going through a reset diet. I found with my high carb approach I was feeling inflamed, blood sugar consistently high, digestion off, hungry more often than I should’ve, energy was all over the place, & I was having to eat an asinine amt of food to feel full to keep from wanting to binge during my cut.
Obv life has been pretty crazy for everyone recently so stress levels high. I felt I needed to hit the redo button.
Why I choose a diet based on animal foods👇
✅Majority of my calories are from the most nutrient-dense bioavailable foods
✅I LOVE & thrive off meat with no digestion issues #farmersdaughter yo 🐮❤️ BM’s have been normal! Maybe TMI but for those of us who struggle with gut stuff — shit matters — literally 💩 😂
✅Minimal fiber, meaning everything is easy to digest. I’ve talked before about my special needs — I don’t digest vegetables very well at all. Gritty, tough textures like skins, nuts & seeds, gluten, dairy, high FODMAP foods are a no no FOR ME.
✅Low to no sugar, or highly palatable processed carb based foods. I found these are my biggest triggers when it comes to binging or basically eating like an asshole.
Cereals, cakes/donuts/cookies/chips. I told you I’m an all or nothing person — I’m not a moderator. I can’t have any of that stuff in my house bc I know if I have it here, I have a higher probability to binge. KNOW THY SELF!
✅Natural fats & plenty of protein. I’m fuller longer, I don’t have energy crashes, I can eat 1 to 2 large meals & be happy all day & not have to worry about having a bunch of meal preps.
I work in healthcare — I don’t have a lot of time to fuggn worry about 100 perfectly measured out meal preps. I like to live life simple, this takes the guessing out. It was driving me nuts.
✅My body is more recovered, less inflamed. I do have to take it easy with higher intensity work like CrossFit. Yes, I love it but trying to do a 30 minute metcon on no carbs — let’s be real people, you’re gonna have to change your training.
Don’t be a dumbass & try to do Orange Theory & CrossFit on zero carbs thinking you’re going to perform like a games athlete. It’s not gonna happen. These are highly glycolytic sports & the most efficient fuel for these will be carbs. They’re not your enemy.
I modify my #carnivorish diet to my preferences. There is room for leniency, you are in charge of what you put in your mouth. If there is a food not animal based, that doesn’t trigger symptoms for you, don’t feel pressured to avoid it.
Some I include in my diet are:
💟 nut butters (pb @sunbutter & coconut)
💟 eggs & egg whites & spray butter (vice)
💟 @strongcoffeecompany & coffee
💟 water flavoring (dudes I hate water, whatevs, pick your poison)
💟 @zevia & occasional alcohol
💟 Plant based protein powder
💟Jasmine Rice or Rice Chex around training
I loosely track & eat till I’m satisfied. I still eat mainly animal foods, but this is what works for me. I don’t beat myself up if I want nachos. I make them fit. They’re still my #bae
