When our PE teacher in third grade introduced us to the Presidential Fitness Challenge was my first memory that I cared about performance and wanted to improve mine.  I didn't grasp the importance of nutrition and recovery at that time, but I did know I needed my parents to practice pacing me for the mile and a pull-up bar at home.  During high school, I suspected nutrition might play a role in body composition, so like any well-researched teenager would do, I sought out advice from Shape magazine and followed all the low-fat/no-fat, more cardio is better rules we heard in the 90's only to find myself blacking out when I'd stand up (who knew water was important?), missing my period for months (must mean I'm training hard enough?), and passing out in public before it (that's awkward).  Yet, I lacked insight and never acknowledged how perfectly following the wrong rules could possibly negatively impact my health and performance.       

After graduating from the University of Iowa, I moved to Denver and joined “Corporate America.”  During my office stint, I not only witnessed but also engaged in the common self-destructive behaviors like sitting miserably at a computer for long hours, eating processed foods marketed as healthy, thinking I was doing myself a favor, drinking alcohol to celebrate, avoid real things, or just because it's Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or really anyday just for making it through it, taking either extreme of too little or too much time for physical activity depending on the season, and definitely no time for restoration - all of which took place at the expense of health, balance, and happiness. 

Finally realizing I had zero interest in climbing that corporate ladder, I re-engaged in my core value of continual growth and learning so I attained personal training, strength and conditioning, and wellness coaching certifications plus an MBA and Master’s in Sport & Performance Psychology from the University of Denver before establishing Hardie Peak Performance. The life plan seemed to fall into place after checking off the Ironman bucket list item and having a healthy son, but a month out from my due date with Baby #2, my well-laid plans and expectations abruptly flipped upside down when she was stillborn via emergency surgery, which meant I couldn't just numb out with high intensity exercise and had to instead sit in the discomfort.  Shifting from performance goals to recovering, I opened up to other ways of living that my former self ignorantly dismissed, like the impact food plays physically and mentally. For the first time in my life, I tuned in and actually listened to the feedback my body had provided all along with how food converts to usable energy to fuel physical, mental, and emotional tasks - in both positive or negative ways. 

This increased awareness reinvigorated my nutrition interest, and this time in a more holistic way.  Given my competitive nature, I welcomed a new type of training program - to learn and do whatever it would take to completely heal - and be better off because of it.  Opening up my mind to alternative ways of living and being has allowed me to grow and heal, leaving me feeling even better than I did before life threw that curve ball.  I had always considered myself healthy prior to all of these events, but at that point I also had no idea how much I didn’t know what I didn’t know.  Sometimes all we know is mediocre and never consider that we might be able to feel great with just a few adjustments given the proper guidance.  

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Because I didn't know how to cook, I wanted to understand how to make the components our bodies need taste great so I completed Cook Street School of Culinary Arts Professional Program.  I learned from a chef perspective the importance of how food is sourced, the chemistry behind the techniques that make it look and taste good, and how to marry those culinary concepts to effective nutrition so that we can optimally grow, minimize or even prevent damage and disease, heal from injuries or trauma, and perform to fulfill our purpose and achieve our goals.  I combine these concepts with what I learned in The Nutrition Therapist Master program at the Nutrition Therapy Institute in Denver and becoming Board Certified in Holistic Nutrition® to design and teach people how to make quick, nutrient dense, flavorful meals to serve their body's demands. 

Becoming a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner (FDN-P) equipped me with the tools to understand what's going on inside us through functional labs to discover hidden stressors.  From these labs, people can understand their unique physiology and the optimal ranges to be within to avoid dysfunction and disease.  It wasn't even until I saw my own lab numbers on paper from the week before I blew out my ACL that I finally realized how with even following all the "right" training and nutrition programs, a lack of strategic recovery can be the variable that takes you out of your game.  Despite serving such a critical piece of the puzzle for optimizing both health and performance, I neglected effective recovery in exchange for more time on the workout, the diet, the emails, the kids, the next accomplishment, checking every box on the list that recovery wasn't on.  And it caught up.  It always does.  

Now, I help people who feel like they're following the rules yet aren't seeing the results they want and know there's got to be a different way.  I help people who and are overwhelmed with all of the information out there to integrate all of the data into a personalized plan unique to them.  I help people who are dedicated to learning new paradigms and doing the work when given the right rules for them.  I do it by identifying what foods best fuel each unique body for optimal energy and body composition, using functional labs to understand what's working and what's stressed on inside, and teaching a self-care model integrating functional nutrition, appropriate movement, strategic recovery, and stress management so people can boost their energy to feel and perform their best.