STARVATION TO STRENGTH: Coach Siggy’s story

“I share my story in hopes to provide perspective of why Jolt exists and the reason we’re so passionate behind our methods. Many people assume, that personal trainers are the ‘health ideal’, that we never struggled with our health. Although the opposite tends to be true, many personal trainers pursue this career because of what they have been through. Your personal trainer has struggled, faced challenges, and continues to be a work in progress. No one lives a perfect life, but everyone has the opportunity to build their resilient and high quality life.

age 8

CHILDHOOD

I wasn’t your typical little girl dressed in pink princess gowns and practicing for my next dance recital. It looked more like ball caps and hockey practice, day in and day out. I loved all sports and played competitive fastball and hockey into my adult years. Filled with touch football, dodgeball and swimming lessons in between. I spent a lot of hours on my rollerblades, biking, snowboarding, playing ball hockey, and faking it at piano practice. I LOVED sports and that was pretty much it. I was a bold kid who lived by my own rules (and the rules of my good parents), but I didn’t really fit the status quo. I struggled in school because I don’t love sitting still or being told what to do. I had a young entrepreneurial and creative spirit as seen in my fashion sense. This is a vibe and yes those are butterfly wings.

I wish I could say that I kept this vibe throughout my entire life, but that was not the case. Somewhere along the way this girl got temporarily shoved deep down into a shell of a body.

As I continued to excel at hockey, I continued to learn more about fitness and training. My mom caught on to my love for fitness (and the fact that I was a chubby little gal about to enter high school - see image below) and signed me up for Curves; a women’s only gym that had a 30 minute circuit and we marched around to a timed buzzer system. I loved every minute of it!

age 13

TEEN YEARS

Training sessions turned into obsessive workout behaviours. Most days I would spend 2-3 hours in the gym on top of a 2 hour hockey practice and 2 hour cheerleading practice. I truly loved every minute of it, but my physical and mental health did not. I don’t know if it was the lack of female role models in strength and conditioning, the constant pressure of competing with other girls in sports, or the fact that every piece of media told women to take up less space, but I started obsessing. I obsessed over how many minutes I could put on the stairclimber, how little calories I could put in my body, how many pounds I weighed on the scale. I had an array of weird habits, to name a few:

• I obsessively looked in the mirror multiple times per day and I was attached to a certain mirror that I owned that I could never part with (even when I moved provinces for school)

• I looked at images daily of skinny people on Pinterest willing myself to be like them and plastering fitness models on my walls for “motivation”

• I wore multiple layers of sweaters and sweatpants on hot summer day’s cause I was doing internal damage to my organs and metabolism

• I took my scale with me whenever I left town overnight for hockey

• I would weigh myself up to 10x a day

• I would calculate exactly how many calories I would need to burn before I ate something

• I was eating less than 500 calories per day

• I would judge my friends (unknowingly) based on their fitness habits and pressure them to fit into my ideal mold

I thought I was the “normal” one, I thought that I had it all figured out, I thought I was healthy and fit. By grade 12, I was very skinny, but not skinny enough for anyone to question my health (which is a whole different issue on how we treat eating disorders). I use to “blackout” every time I went from sitting to standing because I was eating so little. When I told my doctor about the issues I was having with my health and the habits I had created. She recommended I simply drink a meal replacement shake. If you have experienced this type of eating disorder, then you know that this is not the answer to the psychological warfare taking place inside your brain.

Not only did my doctor not take my small cry for help seriously, but people thought I ‘looked great’ and that I was ‘in great shape!’. For a girl who grew up as the chubby, weird, side kick to all her really cool friends, this was a pretty awesome feeling! I continued my regime of endless hours in the gym fuelled by baby carrots well into my university career.

YOUNG ADULT

age 20

I played women’s hockey for the Mount Royal University Cougars where I spent the first year of school wondering what to do with my life (as most 18 year old’s do). All I really cared about was playing hockey and working out. I spent every day on the ice after class, but I spent even more hours in the gym. By this point my full on obsession was pretty clear, I would skip hangouts with friends and any extracurriculars I could to workout. I would of skipped hockey for leg day if it was permitted to. My first year of university was 2011, fitness competitions were on the rise and the hot topic of the fitness industry. I deep dived into poorly sourced online body building articles, blogs, and Pinterest workouts more than my textbooks. Reading in depth on how to starve yourself and call it “fitness” while I snacked on vitamin C tablets, because “health”. I thought I had learned the in’s and out’s of health and fitness, yet every day I felt worse and worse. I would go to the gym day after day, lifting the same weights, the same exact program, with no variation, progression, or plan. I just knew that 20 minutes on the stairclimber, 10KM on the treadmill, plus an insane amount of squats, box jumps, and sit ups ‘felt good’. I was doing everything ‘right’, yet my body didn’t respond the way I wanted and everything started going wrong.

I started getting really sick after my first year of university. Looking back on it, a diet full of vitamin C tablets probably does that to a girl. I wasn’t able to digest any food without excruciating stomach pain. Anytime I ate, whatever I ate, I ended up on the floor wrenching in pain. My stomach was swollen like a balloon and hard as a rock, most of the day. My skin was itchy, to the point where I would draw blood from scratching it raw. My face was even worse, swollen, sunken and sickly. The skin on my face was raw and red like it was disintegrating off my face. I spent about a year in and out of doctors offices trying to figure out what was wrong with me. Tests here and there, scopes up and down, professionals peering in. Finally after a year of no answers from doctors my mom made the connection (yes mom’s are the best), ‘I think you have Celiac’s disease’ she said, after spending the same year searching the internet. Sure enough, we go back to the doctor and get tested for Celiac’s. Results… full blown Celiac, holes starting to form in my stomach lining, an immediate stop eating gluten or you will die type of realization. So began the process of changing my health.

THE NEXT CHAPTER

We started meeting with a new medical doctor who specialized in naturopathic health and the gut. She taught me how different foods play a role in my gut health and how the microbiome effects my entire body. It was the first time I had ever been educated in a way that didn’t focus on aesthetics and numbers. I returned to school that year with better health and a changing mindset. I enrolled in the Physical Health and Education program. The degree combines the elements of kinesiology and education which gives me a platform to teach movement. I slowly started to change and learn. I started my first fitness job as a youth fitness trainer at the local recreation centre. It was eye opening watching the youth I worked with struggle through the same issues I did just a few years earlier. The high school girls passing out in the gym because they hadn’t ate in days staying hyper-focused on cardio and light weights based on the blog article they found online. The boys injected steroids and spent most of their time flexing in the mirror. The kids emulated everything I had overcame and I felt so deeply their struggles. So began my passion for helping others with honest and educated fitness advice. I couldn’t stand to watch young kids suffer the same way I did.

age 23

I wish I knew when the “a-ha” moment was in between trying different juice diets and obsessing over minutes on the stair master cardio machine. Looking back, I really can’t say that there was one big event that made me change my ways. It was a slow, long, and hard process rehabbing my body out of 500 calories and up into 2000+. I was weening myself off poor quality supplements like estrogen blockers and fat burners and putting real food in my body. I was unfollowing those trying to sell me starvation and removing myself from the fitness competition media and social groups. I lost a close colleague of mine to obsessive body behaviour, he died of heart failure in our early 20’s due to fat burning supplements.

I started studying and writing my university papers on why female athletes were more likely to develop disordered eating. Not just the ballerinas and the gymnasts, but us tom-boys too. I knew I wasn’t the only one on my hockey team struggling. I studied the unhealthy practices of fitness competitions and the poor health that coincides.

That bold little kid in me started to emerge after University, I started feeling more myself again, ready to live by my own rules and create my own path. My love for fitness didn’t die, but my perspective on it changed. I was (and still am) never afraid to ask questions, study a little deeper, and challenge my beliefs. I started healing from the inside out.

JOLT FITNESS

Jolt Fitness was created because of this story. I created Jolt because our methods, coaches and community is what I needed when I started. Jolt is here, so that no one has to suffer through fitness without expert guidance and caring leadership. Our methods create an environment where fitness is more than just six pack abs and bicep curls. We bridge the gap between health care and fitness. At Jolt Fitness, we build resilient bodies and create high quality lives. We believe that when you leave the gym you should feel better than when you walked in. We’re part of the active health care solution. Every time you step through our doors is an opportunity to improve your health, physically and mentally. Our methods are rooted in science based education, but also the realistic experiences of working with thousands of individuals. We’re changing the narrative of health and fitness.”

-Siggy