Hey all! I’m new here and just getting back into the gym. Can’t wait to see everyone reach their fitness goals. Today is a short gym day for me so I’m doing 20 min on the stair stepper.

Post your costumes today! ANDDD The STACK Fitness Games beta 1 winner is confirmed tmrw! The winner eternal bragging rights & last months gym membership (single member dues) paid for! 💰 Be safe tonight & make sure to do your final check in tonight, *you must do this to be qualified to win.

Totally missed check in yesterday, but I am still stacking! Feeling great and pushing through old barriers.

Being totally real here, after extremely strict diets training for my bikini competitions, finding a new normal has been tough. What used to work for me, doesn’t seem to work anymore or as well. Part of that is my age and beginning to enter perimenopause. So, I’ve been educating myself on what supplements are best, what approach to my diet, and movement. I’ve been really hard on myself for not being at my peak because I supposedly “know” what to do. But, I feel like I’m navigating in a new body with new rules. So the good news is, I’m figuring it out because I refuse to give in to the story that this is just how it’s going to be now, that as we get older we just change. The book by Dr. Haver “The New Menopause” has been super helpful for supplements and she also suggests intermittent fasting to help regulate hormones and insulin spikes. I’m excited to have a new approach to my health and fitness and nothing is ever the same, but if we are willing to figure it out, there is a way to wellness.

2021brought forth the hardest challenges I had to face in my life to that point. And that is saying a lot. 😣 My entire life as I knew it, including my identity was about to change and I wasn’t prepared for the resistance and the calculated torment that was coming. This would begin the most grueling 36 months of my life. It was also an opportunity to make a decision to decide who I was, who I was going to be and decide amidst pure and udder chaos how I was going to respond to all this. Would I become angry, retaliatory or hostile? Would I focus at everything I was “losing” and walking away from. Focus on what was being said about me? Become a victim? Give up? Turn to alcohol, meds, or even food to numb and sedate myself from the torment? Only to have to undo all reverse progress I gave up by being weak during the trial period I had entered? Orrrrr could I actually come out of this smarter, stronger, and a better version of myself? I believed I could use the anxiety, stress, fear, and pain as effing JETFUEL to launch myself into an insanely, unrecognizably BETTER version of myself. It’s an option we all have. There are 5 littles counting on me. + 3 younger siblings that I know I need to remain an example for. And, to be honest, I also want my life to matter. I refused to allow this insanity to change me from a happy person to a sad, asshole :) I knew I couldn’t just leave it to chance. So I did this. 👇🏽 I implemented a Happiness Improvement Plan It’s heavily anchored in gratitude. 1-Write down daily gratitude - must be physically written or typed 2-Meditate daily - even just 5 minutes 3-Exercise Daily 4-Serve someone daily - hold the door and smile at someone, even a kind comment counts 5-Write down one thing great about your day It may not revolutionary, and yes IT TAKES EFFORT and falling apart requires almost NO EFFORT, but I promise its nearly impossible to remain sad or depressed if you use this. *As of this writing the madness is still ongoing. My divorce still isn’t final. 3 years later… And it’s almost getting worse :) But everyday I choose happiness and gratitude. And by choosing to use all this bullsh*t as jet fuel, now 36 months later… I am not the failure people though I may become ;) I am jacked, more skilled, and 1000% more resilient, grateful, and calm during the storms. I remain grateful by looking the opportunity in destruction. Failure as one step closer to figuring it out and rejection as redirection. Im certainly not perfect but I'm at least not regretting who I allowed myself to become during the hardest 3 years of my life. Im truly the most happy I have ever been. And I have a completely different and more healthy perspective on life than ever before. I enjoy every damn moment.