My FELLosophyI work with all levels of fitness and nutrition experience. We can work one on one, or in a group of your friends, family, or coworkers. The variety of clients I have worked with has ranged from people asking me if they can “see or feel a carbohydrate”, all the way up to “there’s nothing more you can teach me, I just really need to know someone is there to tell me I’m doing a good job". Neither is wrong! And it is important to acknowledge both where you are, what you need, and what works best for you. My promise is to meet you right there and be that person.
Regardless of my client’s goals, rapport building and communication set the stage for our relationship. I cherish our actual face-time together and respect your financial and time investments with undivided attention to you. My attentiveness to meet you where you are during our interactions is paramount to me, as that sets you up for success for the other 23 hours per day when we are not interacting. After all, this is about creating healthy habits to set you up for life, not a quick fix which can be addressed in an hour or two per week. As silly as it is to say, my success is graded on the ability to make myself obsolete by building up your education, ability to make healthy decisions, and confidence to ultimately decide my support is no longer needed! |
My Background
I grew up happily immersed in health and wellness, with a father as CEO of a YMCA and a mother who was a registered nurse at a cancer hospital. So naturally I did what most college freshmen did and threw a dart at the list of majors offered and carried on, never sincerely asking myself what might make me tick professionally. After graduating with a business degree from Penn State, I worked in transportation and logistics fields (generally with a blasé attitude) but with a growing awareness and affinity in simply connecting with people. One day, it hit me that my success was dictated by whether some chain restaurant received their frozen french fries on time – and I just knew there had to be more for me.
I made the agonizing yet exciting decision to go back to school to become a dietitian at San Francisco State University, working before, between, and after classes as a personal trainer in San Francisco. Learning more about nutrition while working daily with clients turned friends was a sense of pride and professional elation that I wish upon everyone. Unfortunately, the path to becoming a registered dietitian requires a lengthy (9 month) and competitive internship before being eligible to sit for the RD exam, which I successfully secured at Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. (I say ‘unfortunately’ only because I had to leave behind all those people which meant so much to me).
I completed the internship with one particularly intriguing rotation in the lab of Dr. Jeff Volek. The cutting-edge research Dr. Volek has been doing for decades, coupled with the camaraderie and intellect of his team made it a no-brainer to continue learning about human metabolism – specifically low-carbohydrate and ketogenic diets. About 2.5 years longer than we’d planned to stay in Ohio, I completed my masters in exercise physiology from Ohio State.
Never in a million years would I have thought my decision to return to school 8 years ago would have me spending half of my adult life in CA and OH. But it did, and I am so grateful to have been immersed in a challenging and rewarding environment with the smartest people I have ever met. Their dedication and belief to the nationwide need for scientifically sound nutrition research is contagious, and it would feel criminal if I didn’t seize the opportunity to share and educate others.
I made the agonizing yet exciting decision to go back to school to become a dietitian at San Francisco State University, working before, between, and after classes as a personal trainer in San Francisco. Learning more about nutrition while working daily with clients turned friends was a sense of pride and professional elation that I wish upon everyone. Unfortunately, the path to becoming a registered dietitian requires a lengthy (9 month) and competitive internship before being eligible to sit for the RD exam, which I successfully secured at Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. (I say ‘unfortunately’ only because I had to leave behind all those people which meant so much to me).
I completed the internship with one particularly intriguing rotation in the lab of Dr. Jeff Volek. The cutting-edge research Dr. Volek has been doing for decades, coupled with the camaraderie and intellect of his team made it a no-brainer to continue learning about human metabolism – specifically low-carbohydrate and ketogenic diets. About 2.5 years longer than we’d planned to stay in Ohio, I completed my masters in exercise physiology from Ohio State.
Never in a million years would I have thought my decision to return to school 8 years ago would have me spending half of my adult life in CA and OH. But it did, and I am so grateful to have been immersed in a challenging and rewarding environment with the smartest people I have ever met. Their dedication and belief to the nationwide need for scientifically sound nutrition research is contagious, and it would feel criminal if I didn’t seize the opportunity to share and educate others.