If you had asked me 10 years ago where I would be today, my answer most likely would have been dead or even more lost and depressed than I was at that time. Mentally and physically I just was not in the right state of mind and could not find my way out of this massive hole I had dug myself into. Physically I was weak, worn, drawn, my bones hurt, and everyday I was losing my hair and my health. Mentally I was anxious, lost, depressed, confused, and consumed.
When I went away to college I somehow developed a horrible eating disorder. My FEAR of gaining the "freshmen 15" spiraled completely out of control and that was the beginning of the worst 10 years I would have yet to live. I battled anorexia and bulimia for over 10 years...but with that came utter anxiety and depression that had begun to consume me and who I once was. I didn't know anymore. I couldn't find my way back. I tried everything from doctors to psychologists, to dietitians, and anti depressants, to even changing my major to nutrition and dietetics to try and "fix myself." Nothing worked. I thought life would always be this way and I would never find my way back. I lost good people, relationships, and true friendships because I couldn't be helped.
Years of trial and error and trying to "find myself" again led me down so many paths but none that brought me back to life. That is, until I found fitness. A few years back my brothers forced me to join a gym with them and to start weightlifting. Of course, feeling as though I was going to "get huge," I didn't want to do it....but then after just a few weeks, I fell in love. I fell in love with not only weightlifting, but I fell in love with who I was starting to become....my old self again. For the first time in over a decade, I started to feel like me again. I started to see light at the end of a tunnel. I began to change, not just physically, but mentally, which was even more important. Fitness and weight lifting not only gave me my confidence and my self esteem, but it gave me my life back.
After years of weight lifting and finding a new balance of myself mentally and physically, I can honestly say I am completely cured. I almost look back as if it were all a bad dream. When I found fitness, I found myself. When I found myself, I found my passion. This is my motto and the foundation on which Reps Over Rest was built.
A few years into training, I saw there was a need to solve the common problem of losing ones gear. When I decided to create a hoodie with all your gear built in, it was out of my own necessity and I had no idea, at the time, that I was creating what would become a seriously intense training aid that would go on to help so many people. I had no idea ten years ago that my life now would be so different, so fulfilling, and touching the lives of so many others everyday. Maybe I went through what I went through to inevitably lead me here and to tell my story. For me to be able to help others and let others out there know that life doesn't always have to be that way, that nothing is permanent. You can change yours stars and that you can be the hero of your own story. Fitness changed my life, but starting Reps Over Rest and being able to bring a piece of my life to someone else and be a part of their fitness journey, has changed me. It has given me my sense of purpose and I feel whole again.
I am lucky - I learned. I changed. I survived. I am TRULY ALIVE for the first time in years, and now, I have the opportunity of a lifetime to make the best of the years to come and to be the strong, motivated, positive, passionate person I always knew I could and should be. For what once was lost, now is found. My depression has turned into motivation and my weakness into strength. My purpose and vision have become clear and now that I have found my path...I WILL FIND A WAY!
