I grew up in Wisconsin playing competitive sports, and I was fast enough that by the end of high school I had scholarship offers from nearly every D1 track program in the country.

What nobody saw was that I was struggling badly with body dysmorphia. I went to TCU, became one of the fastest freshmen in the country, and earned invitations to NCAAs and the USA Track and Field National Championships. I was also barely holding it together. At the peak of my racing career, my relationship with food and my body caught up with me and my body gave out.

That ended my career, and it forced me to figure out who I was without it. Rebuilding my relationship with movement took years, and I did it by pulling from every approach I could find and keeping only what actually worked.

Later, working in the modeling industry, I trained women of every age and size toward very specific goals. What I kept seeing was that the workouts were only half of it. Chasing a look, on its own, doesn’t build confidence and it doesn’t last. If anything the industry was manufacturing the feeling of never being enough.

That’s what I’ve spent my career since trying to change.