Intro/Background!

HI! As you know, my name is Chelsea and I'm a health and fitness guru. Basic personal background: I come from an amazing family- great hard working parents and 3 siblings- 2 older sisters & one younger brother; I’m the middle child but the baby girl. I’m a blessed wife to a great husband I’ve known/been in love with for about 7 years. We’re still getting “our” life going as newlyweds as of June 2015! No kids yet but planning to start one day in the next couple years. Anything else you wanna know, feel free to ask! I’m an open book.

I'm new to this blogging thing so bear with me- but here's some background about why I'm doing this & what this is all about!

For starters, I've always been into fitness. I played softball my whole life including through college and was always in shape. Many people don't realize what all goes into being an athlete- or a competitive softball player specifically. Growing up I played ASA/AAU travel softball (you travel to compete in tournaments, most of them being showcases to get recruited by college teams once you hit the 16u/18u level); I started playing at this competitive level at the age of 8 and played little league previously. Anyway, I of course did this to get recruited and therefore continued my softball career into college. Everyone on the team regardless had field time 6 days a week- whether it be practice or games. This was in addition to assigned gym weight lifting workouts as well as conditioning twice a week. Oh and winter/summer/spring break? Forget about it. We got our big "breaks" like all other students for the summer but still had assigned workouts- most of the time they were crossfit workouts and same goes for winter break (which was shortened for spring-season athletes). Games were the easy part! Practices were anywhere from 3-6 hours long and sometimes twice a day. A 2-hour long practice was considered a lucky/short day. Welp..I was a pitcher (til Junior year) & outfielder which meant no breaks really during practice. BP (batting practice) was my “break” since it was the part of practice where I could actually have a sec to catch my breath. Pitching consisted of that- pitching which obviously involves compound and explosive movements. And as an outfielder…HA! Outfielders were running…CONSTANTLY. Whether it was sprinting across the grass during OF defense…or acting as baserunners during the infielders’ defense.

ANYWAY- sorry for the ramble but it’s essential to my story of how I got to where I am now! I quickly realized after graduating (May 2013) that I only had MYSELF to count on to whip me into shape & stay fit since I didn't have softball to force me into shape anymore! During the best shape of my life early-mid college, I was 135lbs which was all toned muscle. I’m 5’6 so some might think 135 sounds too skinny for my height but they’re wrong- I looked very well and healthy. I was in the 140-145 lb range during my senior year of college but was still very fit & looked so too. I ended up getting engaged soon after graduating- on June 29, 2013. I was still pretty fit/in shape by this time so didn’t think too much and I guess took advantage of my happiness and contentment with life.

SO. After gaining some [quite a bit of] weight through the 1st year after graduating (I ended up at about 170-175lbs- my heaviest- within a year…Jan-March 2014), I took it upon myself to start taking charge of myself- nutrition & workout wise. I was doing well in the gym & somewhat with eating and lost some weight but still wasn't exactly where I wanted to be. I gradually dropped- down to 160 then eventually in the 150 range.

HOWEVER, with my wedding coming up in June 2015, I needed some extra UMPH. I was introduced to It Works! in March 2015 and fell in love right away and ended up becoming a distributor. These products definitely helped to amp up my health/workout results but I'm stubborn and still wanted more- I was looking in the mirror for the girl I was in school when I was in the best shape of my life. In fact, I wanted to surpass it to look/feel the BEST I ever have for my wedding! It Works! Really does work but I had a certain # in mind to reach so decided it was time to add something new to my routine in order to shock my body and get more results.

 I was introduced to Beach Body- shortly after I was introduced to It Works- with the 21 Day Fix Extreme for some extra UMPH to change it up and amp up my "getting ready for the wedding." I started in May 2015 and the program worked REALLY well for me and pushed me past my current plateau at that point, and got me down to a number I hadn't seen since midway through college and I also loved how I looked/felt right in time for my wedding. It also worked amazingly well with my It Works regimen I was personally using!

 After the wedding, I sort of fell off the 21dfx train. Not only because I was content with life after my wedding, but I went back to my old gym routine. I loved what the 21dfx at-home workouts did for me, but I missed the gym and weightlifting. BUTTT…that, too, ended up becoming less frequent awhile after marriage; lol.

I also sort of dropped off the IW train a bit and I ended up getting back up to my pre-21dfx weight- yikes! Therefore, I kicked it back into high gear with the gym during this past winter (December 2015-March 2016) and even hit a squat PR for the first time in 2 years and made it in the top 10 for girls on squats at my gym (of course, not by squatted weight period but they go by a proportion called Wilkes points). I've been pretty fit and healthy and have dropped some #s since but I kept hitting plateaus..regardless of trying new/different things. I admit- I can be a “yo-yo” dieter sometimes with trying to find things that work- and get impatient when they don’t OR when they stop working/hit a wall. SO- in order to break those plateaus & start reaching my goals, I decided to go back to something safe. Something I KNEW worked well for me/my body in the past as well as made a great team with my usual It Works! products. I got back into following the 21 day fix extreme- I started my 1st current round this past April 2016 and combined with It Works, it's doing what I wanted/thought it would do.

As mentioned earlier, I’d already been running my It Works! business for about a year. I still love/use the It Works product line and very much believe in it!

 However, since I'm also very active, I wanted to combine my products with the actual activity aspect since I'm an avid user of both! So, here I am. Lol. Although I’m still a newbie to the Beachbody Coach world, I wanted to utilize both sides of the spectrum to help you reach your goals! I wanted to bring both of these programs I'm an avid user/believer of together to tackle both sides of the spectrum & forward my health and wellness passion to help others tackle their goals as well! It also helps that I already had some prior fitness/health knowledge in my background- not an expert or anything but as an athlete, we’d worked with quite a few personal trainers and nutritionists throughout my softball career =) I'm not one-dimensional in my personal life and therefore refuse to be one-dimensional with my passions as well 😊 Doing both of these not only gives me the ability to promote health in a fitness sense, but pretty much virtually any health/wellness goal!