ABOUT VEE
PHILOSOPHY
My mission is to help transform people’s lives by improving their health and find greater self-worth, fulfillment, and joy. I find purpose in mentoring others to do the same!
If you want to create healthy habits, use at home/gym workouts, achieve a balanced diet, and find out self-care hacks, you came to the right place!
WHO I AM
I’m a mid-forties Momma of two awesome fost-adopt kiddos and 2 crazy dogs, married to my high school sweet-heart living the dream in southern Cali and working full-time doing geeky computer and map stuff. We’re originally from Philly and in 2000 we lived in a van for 5 months before moving out west to various national parks.
I’m also artsy, vegetarian, animal lover, and like being in nature. I’ve always been pretty active and lanky – except for those art school college years – and before kids I was a bad-ass making maps for wildland fire team and on search and rescues and got to go up in helicopters and planes. I used to do CrossFit, run, aerial yoga, circus silks, kickboxing, yoga, go to the gym, hike, and rock climb.
Then we were fortunate to have 2 amazing kids come to live with us when we were at Yosemite, and my self-care came to a screeching halt. I had an hour commute with the kids and worked at least 40 hours a week plus their appointments and activities and joined the “4 microwave dinners a day and no sleep or exercise” club. I felt awful. I slowly started gaining 10 pounds a year, but bigger issue was that I was miserable and cranky and loosing my sanity. I was a walking crap-ball shell of a human and trying to give my all to my kids but had nothing left to give. After about a year after we adopted them, we moved back to northern Arizona (near my Colorado River) and I started doing online fitness workouts with a friend from Philly who was doing Beachbody coaching. I started to mentally feel better and more like myself and stronger but hadn’t lost any weight. My coach suggested I try adding in a nutrition plan – pick what I eat, but within certain portions and categories of food. That helped me lose weight and have more energy to workout. She had also given me some superfood shake samples and I was like “I drink green smoothies with vegan protein powder, I’m a bad-ass, and not trying that voodoo shite!!”. And then I tried them for a week and felt so much better and helped with my IBS.
Since coaches get a discount on the superfood shake, I decided to sign up. After a few months, my full-time job had a freeze and I decided to try actual coaching and discovered it kept me even more accountable for fitness and nutrition. And that I’m passionate about helping people get going on their health and fitness journeys! It’s such a positive role to guide someone to programs that can help them feel more confident and stronger and get healthier!!! I’m now a Certified Personal Trainer, have a Nutrition Certification, and Exercise Therapy Specialization and plan to continue helping folks long after I retire from my day job!!!!