I remember working out ever since I was little. My mom did exercise videos daily and I would join in with her regularly; our favorites were the Sweatin’ to the Oldies videos. I have always enjoyed working out from a young age.

It did become harder once I had my daughter. When I was three months pregnant, my husband left for a two-year deployment and I had no family around to help. Between having a newborn in a city a few hours away from family, working, and going to college I did not have much time for exercise other than walks with my daughter in the stroller. Needless to say my fitness routine started to go downhill because I couldn’t find the time to fit it into my schedule regularly.

My husband returned from his deployment when our daughter was 18 months and then I was able to squeeze in a 20 to 30 minute workout in after she went to bed. But a year later when he was on another deployment I was in a car accident. I was rear-ended by a car on 494 which turned me sideways and then I was t-boned by a semi at interstate speeds. Miraculously, I walked away unharmed on the outside of my body but I had a lot of internal damage to my neck, back, and shoulder and 16 years later I am still dealing with the after effects. This of course derailed my fitness for quite some time.

Eventually, I was able to start taking performance dance classes at a dance studio while my daughter was taking dance classes at the same place. I did this for a few years. This eventually reignited my passion for fitness and I decided to join a gym. Once I joined the gym, that’s when I found Oula and began strength training, not for toning but for building muscle. I also made it a priority to workout before going to work everyday even though it required me to wake up at 4am.

Before COVID, I was at my strongest and had my most muscular post-baby body (14 years after the fact). I had decided I wanted to try competing in a body building competition with the hope of it happening in 2021. Once everything shut down due to the pandemic I still tried training with what I had at home but my carpel tunnel in both wrists was getting to be too much and I ended up having surgery so I focused more on cardio, specifically Oula.

Once gyms started to open up permanently, the gym I went to pre-pandemic no longer offered Oula and my wrists were not strong enough for extreme weight training but by that point Lori and Sandy were teaching Oula at The Warehouse so I decided to join The Warehouse for the Oula classes.