My Transformation Story

My fitness journey starts back in 7th grade… Prior to 7th grade, adults and other children would point out my body and how “thick” I was, but I never thought much of my appearance until 7th grade. I was in our F.A.C.S. (family and consumer science) class, when the teacher asked each of us to walk to the front of the class, to step on the scale, and to report our weight to her. This was the day of many firsts for me…. This was the day that I first realized I was much heavier than most. This was the first day that I learned that I was considered obese on the BMI scale.
This was the first day that I lied about my weight to others. This was the first day that I began utilizing distorted eating habits. This was the day that will forever be remembered in my mind as “The Day That Started It All”.

In 7th grade, after this fall class,

I began to do “research” on how to lose weight. Everyone around me was obsessed with the number on the scale… and they were proud of their number. I wanted to be proud of mine as well. I found many “diets” that promoted eating under 1200calories. So that’s where I started. In 7th grade, feeling alone, feeling disgusting, and feeling self conscious, I began obsessively tracking my food intake. I continued to limit my food intake to 1200 calories or less all through freshman year in high school, until I had hit a number I was proud of… (118lbs to be precise) and then I began eating “normally” again. I was so proud of myself for staying strict for 2.5 years. The scale began to slowly increase little by little without me noticing much, until a comment from a coach was made. I was told I was getting slower. So what did I do? I went back to my “research” and found that the way to “make weight loss stick” was to eat even less. I began eating less than 1000 cals/day and quickly the weight came off. I remember being so miserable, yet more and more people were commenting on how beautiful I now looked. Which, at 15, made life very confusing. As a young woman, I was being told directly and indirectly that my thinner appearance made me better. So I continued down this path. Obsessively tracking, ridiculously restricting, and doing extra cardio.

In Fall 2012, my freshman year in college, I was proposed to. I had also watched my first bodybuilding show! My immediate thought: I need to look even better in my wedding dress. I also thought that I could do a show on my own right after my wedding. So what did I do? I tried every fad diet in the books, every gimmick, and I began yo-yo dieting. I was eating less than 1000 calories a day and doing 2+ hours of cardio daily, yet the scale was going up. I was devastated. That’s when a friend across the hall from me suggested I try laxatives. My world changed again. I began this vicious cycle of extreme caloric restriction, insanely overeating to the point of blacking out, to waking up and feeling guilty, to utilizing laxatives multiple times a day just to feel small enough.

Our wedding day came and went in 2013, yet my distorted eating habits continued… I continued behaving like this for another 2 years, until I finally broke down to hubby and told him what was happening. I went through therapy for my distorted habits, I took a year off from tracking or going to the gym, and I gained 80lbs. THIS WAS NEEDED. After 9 years of restricting calories non stop, my body needed this break. Mentally I was in the best spot of my life and I had gotten the okay from my therapist to try bodybuilding for real this time! I was excited!

Since 2017, bodybuilding has become a huge part of who I am today. I have educated myself properly on what chronic dieting can do to a body. I learned how to fuel myself properly, how to build efficiently, how to do a proper fat loss phase, and how to reverse out of said deficit. I am so passionate about women learning to eat more for their bodies, about women creating a body they love, and about women doing what they want to do! I am against 99% of diet companies out there. I truly believe most of them are just made with fillers and processed crap that our bodies do not need! I am against yo-yo dieting! It’s time for all women to learn how to eat more, build muscle, and be proud of who they are!

Ready for your transformation story?

apply for coaching

DumbbellsNDoughnuts

When beginning my college fitness journey in 2012, I also began working at a bakery in Muncie, Indiana! My first job there was a “doughnut girl” AKA I was the girl behind the doughnut glass that served you your doughnuts. After my first year there, I began learning how to create the chocolates, make the doughnuts, and decorate the cakes… but my favorite thing to do was to eat part of a doughnut while leaving work to go to the gym. So as I pulled up to the gym with half a doughnut in my hand, the name “DumbbellsNDoughnuts” was born.

Why Purple?

Do you have a lucky number, clothing item, or trinket? Maybe you have a favorite animal, color, or symbol that reminds you of something or someone of importance? For me, the color purple is both lucky and important. Purple, and more specifically the shade of lighter lilac purple, has been present in my life at various times. For me, the color purple symbolizes strength, grace, and opportunities even during the darkest, most trying times. Through hardships in college and work, through my grandparents’ deaths, and through various other times, the color purple has been there. It reminds me that we are stronger than we think, we can learn from our mistakes, and that there are opportunities and great things waiting for us if we open our eyes and heart to the possibilities.