A healthy lifestyle doesn't mean giving up your grandma's bourbon caramel crunch cake

No one gets what it's like to be a curvy lady trying to be healthy.

You like the idea of a healthy lifestyle, but you hate exercise and diets. Not to mention certain healthy food tastes like embarrassingly shaped water (*ahem* cucumber! *ahem*). Plus it’ll take a lot of time and money to cook something. Speaking of which, you’re not sure how to work your oven. How’re you supposed to cook healthy food if you can’t cook?

What you really mean is you love comfort food, you’re not afraid to eat, and you can’t do that and live a healthy lifestyle.

And then there’s exercise. You have to exercise to be healthy, right?

Exercise means “intense” and “sweaty” and “pain”. Which is terrifying, but you don’t know what else to do. So you go to the gym but you’re uncomfortable and everyone’s staring at you cause no one there looks like you. You don’t know what you’re doing and you feel like you’re stumbling around worse than a newborn giraffe on roller skates. The instructors and trainers pretend not to notice cause they don’t know how to help you. So you leave in a hurry, crying on your way to the car, and stop by Dairy Queen on the way home for some ice cream to help yourself feel better.

Your skinny friends don't understand what it's like to be a curvy lady and trying to get healthy.

Your family doesn't understand.

Even your doctor doesn't understand.

But I do. Who am I?

Body Positive

I'm Lindsay

A curvy women’s health coach and fitness trainer. I help curvy women reverse their pain and learn to live unapologetically in their bodies.

I've taught over 10,000 classes teaching women who don't look like Aerobics Barbie how to live healthy lifestyles.

I’ve been a certified health coach and fitness instructor for over a decade. I’m also a certified senior fitness specialist and an orthopedic (joint pain) specialist.

I get my biggest kicks out of working with women who are complete beginners to the world of health and fitness. Women who have medical stuff to work around. Who can’t get on or off the floor. Or who’re just scared by most fitness brands that want you to run, jump, and do burpees to see any results. (Newsflash: you don’t have to do any of that if you don’t want to.)

Let me tell you right now, my classes and programs will not be too hard for you. I’m a master at providing options and levels for everyone to feel comfortable at. Most fitness instructors have no idea how to work with curvy women who can’t put weight in their hands and wrists. Or women who have to exercise in a chair cause standing for long period of time hurts. Or how to modify exercise if you have high blood pressure.

I know how to work with all of that and more.

That's what sets me apart from every other health and fitness brand out there. I'm a "real women, real problems" specialist.

Why should you trust me? Because I've been there and back again.

I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes and arthritis at 19 - but I reversed all of it.

If you can believe it, my doctor wouldn’t help. She told me I’d be fine and didn’t tell me how to manage any of it. The day I was diagnosed she said, “Alright, you’ll have to be careful about exercise. And the pain’ll probably be worst first thing in the morning before you start moving. Here’s some samples of a prescription med we just got in and here’s a prescription to get more from the pharmacy.”

That’s it.

My doctor acted like the diagnosis was no big deal, but my arthritis pain in my feet and hips was so bad on some days I had to use a cane to walk. I had to cancel plans and rearrange my life based on how I was feeling. It sucked!

And it gets worse. Because I was so young no one believed I was sick. Everyone I knew brushed it off and said “arthritis is a disease you get when you age”. (Complete crap, by the way. You can get it at any age.)

It was up to me to learn how to live with it.

Mind you, this was before blogs were popular, before YouTube or Google (as it exists today). I had to read library books to figure out how to heal myself. And it took a LOT of trial and error, years of it.

What I found was incredible: most chronic diseases are easily manageable once you learn how – and many are reversible.

Within a few years, I’d reversed both my pre-diabetes and arthritis. It took a bit of time and effort, but it wasn’t hard.

At the time I was living on food stamps. I worked 7 jobs (not an exaggeration) while putting myself through college, including 5:00AM shifts at the campus gym selling memberships. But I found time to exercise and meal prep, and bonus: it was affordable on poverty wages.

All that trial and error made me realize I loved fixing my health and I made a career out of it.

If I can do it, you can do it too.

Ready to get started?

From revved up to wound down in 10 minutes. Every other Monday.

Still want to know more about me?

1) I make wine as a hobby. I have two closets in my house full of bottles of wine. When I say you won’t have to give up chocolate or wine to live a healthy lifestyle, I mean it.

2) I got my undergrad degree in Building Construction and my Masters in Real Estate, focusing on real estate development. I love historic houses and old buildings and bringing new life to them instead of tearing them down.

3) I talk through movies and TV. Yeah yeah I know, boo all you want! But it adds an extra layer of spice that didn’t exist before. When I watch HGTV, I (apparently) give hilarious commentary and rip into people’s design aesthetics. Shiplap belongs on a boat in the Mediterranean Sea, not on your living room walls. Damn you, Joanna Gaines!

4) I volunteer at cat shelters, and have for years. Fun story, when I was little I used to dress our farm cats up in bonnets and carry them behind me in my little red wagon and push them on the swings. And they let me. I have yet to meet a cat that didn’t warm up to me.

5) I read around 100 books a year, not including the medical journals I read to stay up on the latest research.

6) I’m a super dork and a gamer: I play Dungeons and Dragons, Quelf is my favorite table top game, I play by the pseudonym Lady Aislyn in online games, and I will kick your butt in Mario Kart.

7) I’m a burlesque dancer. I have no problem prancing around in my (sexy) underwear on stage in front of a large crowd of people. It’s seriously awesome for your confidence.

8) I practice axe throwing, archery, and German long-sword fighting. Basically when the apocalypse comes, hide behind me.

9) My dream vacation is to go to New Zealand for a month and hike across the country seeing all the film sites from Lord of the Rings… in full cinematic quality costume as the Lady Galadriel.

10) I rock climb, kayak, hike, and just about every other outdoors-y thing you can think of. Except camping. I love my memory foam mattress too much to give it up.

Ready to see what you're capable of?

From revved up to wound down in 10 minutes. Every other Monday.

Want to learn how to be healthy without giving up wine or chocolate? Sign up for my emails here. They're better than your grandma's bourbon caramel crunch cake. (Sorry, Grandma.)