How Fitness Saved My Life

I’ve always felt different. I’m not talking three arms, or four nipples type different… just different. For pretty much the entirety of my life, I had this ridiculous underbite that people made fun of me for. In a way, I was, “different,” but only because I looked different. The whole underbite thing may not seem like a big deal, but for me this was pretty much the basis of what I believed to be my miserable existence at the time. Don’t worry though, this isn’t just some pessimistic, pity me, sob story—it gets better.

Here’s a quick little story that really sheds some light on my childhood. I was born with a cleft palate and underwent my first plastic surgery at eight months old. I guess I’ll never be able to say I haven’t “gone under the knife.” I didn't really have much of choice, I was a baby. For those of you who are unsure about what a cleft palate is, it’s essentially a birth defect. A cleft palate creates a gap in the roof of the mouth, and sometimes a split in the lip that goes right up into the nose. This happens because the connective tissues of the face are not properly forming together. Now you may think this is not a big deal, but let me tell how this very little biological incidence, marked me with a physical flaw that I carried on my shoulders for the next 18 years. This birth defect affected my entire life right from when I was a baby up until now. Present day, I am still struggling to cope with the psychological affects of having been bullied for being "different." The struggle began with eating problems, speech problems, and frequent ear infections, and then led into self-esteem, lack of social skills, behavioural issues, and suicidal tendencies.

I always kept a competitive athletic lifestyle. I was used to keeping a busy schedule, beginning in my childhood right up to high school. I even hit the gym religiously after my soccer career ended. This was after committing to 13 years in hopes of getting a free education. It wasn't until my second year of university that I started to notice I was developing a lot of bad habits. In my second and third years of university I started to party a lot. I spent four to six days a week, either working in a club environment or going out to the club with friends. I was drinking way too much, barely sleeping, and eating one meal on average a day. One thing that I did notice was that I had not been to the gym for a very long time. After I graduated, I went on to work full time. This was when shit really hit the fan. I was worked myself into the ground day in day out for about six months before my life took a turn. My lifestyle was out of control, I was out of control and I had three near death experiences in one year. All three accidents coincidentally involved falling asleep at the wheel late at night after working ridiculously long 14-hour shifts. I remember in one instance I worked five shifts back to back in three days with no sleep at all. Talk about a death sentence.

My eyes filled with tears as I reminisced on the state of my life. I wanted to get away from all the bad influences in my life, and felt like I was slowly dying. Did I want my legacy to be that of a drunk party girl who was the life of the party, until ending her life in a fatal car accident? The nightclub environment was toxic, and a lot of my friends were industry people who didn't share the same desires as me. There was only one thing keeping me going at that point; the chance to start over. During the course of the six months, I planned ahead and saved up as much as I could. After countless Skype, Facebook, FaceTime conversations, Whatsapp messages, pictures, and voice notes, a special someone and I came up with a plan for my escape to America. We came up with a plan and decided we were going to chase our dreams together and starting fresh doing the things we wanted to do. It was a blind leap of faith really, and it was a temporary solution to an even bigger problem.

Three months after my transition to Texas, I was sitting in my girlfriend’s sister's living room in LA, when I realized I was soo unhappy. I mean, here I was locked up in the house all day, looking for the next opportunity to make a quick dollar. I spent so much of my time surfing the internet looking for modelling gigs, acting gigs, serving gigs, bartending gigs, pretty much anything to stay afloat. I hadn’t even realized that two months had gone by, and I had barely left the house. Ironically enough, the whole purpose of being in LA was to get away, kickstart a new lifestyle, and leave all the garbage behind. I felt my life was a rollercoaster prior to moving out to LA, so it seemed like exactly the thing I needed at the time. I was 22 years old with no real obligations other than a phone bill, car insurance and student debts, I figured why not take off for a bit. Who turns down palm trees and a foreign love affair?

Let’s rewind a bit, nine months prior to leaving for Texas I graduated from York University with a Honours Bachelor in Psychology. That’s when I had my first life crisis, and it all hit me. I was no longer in school, no longer had scheduled assignments, no longer had to attend lectures, and would never have to write an exam again! I was an adult now, and I could do whatever I wanted. Yet I felt like I had jut been thrown to the wolves, that is into the “real world” to fend for myself. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I was ready. Here I was with all the time and the world and no direction to head in.

Naturally, not knowing what to do, I decided to just keep busy until I figured it all out. It was a rough couple of months leading into my move to Texas. I was working four jobs, barely eating, and I was always in a rush due to poor time management. I was always tired, because I never slept, and eating wasn’t a priority. I remember being so exhausted I started to ritually fall asleep at the wheel. It wasn’t until my mother came in my room one day and told me she was concerned about my well-being that I stopped to take a look at what I was doing. She refused let me go in to work a double that day; she made me call off my shift to sleep. It was then that I realized what I had been doing to myself. I was an adult, one who didn’t know how to take care of themselves anymore. It hit me, I had gone so far off track that I was addicted to drugs, sex, and alcohol. It was like my impulse control was non-existent.

So there I was sitting on the floor sobbing in LA when I came to realize I was actually coping with addiction. My addiction to all things that brought me joy and hope of becoming becoming successful over night. Too bad no one warned me these things don’t happen over night. I thought the move was going to be everything I wanted and needed, instead I was at the lowest low I had ever been through. This also wasn’t the first time my life was in shambles. I really started to reflect on my lifestyle, and where I had gone wrong. I had always had ups and downs, and struggled with my overall happiness. However, this was the first time I took a look in the mirror, and felt really sad and empty.

I took a moment and really reflected on myself, what is something I was doing right in the past when my life seemed more together. Soccer had been a part of my life for 13 years. I could eat a horse and not gain a pound back in those days. Plus, I never drank or smoked for fear of it ruining my career in sports. Now I was lucky if I even got a meal in. So I figured with all this free time, I need to find a way to be active, stay healthy, and make money. I wanted a lifestyle change, but I needed something that would keep me motivated. I can honestly say I thank Instagram for all the hype about fitness, and its respective industry. That day I decided I was going to get into fitness modelling, weightlifting, and maybe even compete in a fitness competitions. I had seen so many girls on Instagram out and about in workout gear. Not to mention girls who probably had no fitness background at all. In the last couple of years the trend towards a fit lifestyle has skyrocketed, and employed many young entrepreneurs, myself included.