A little over four years ago, someone called me worthless. It was one of the worst insults I ever got and that is saying a lot. At 420 pounds, I had a lot of things to work on. I was 200+ pounds overweight, a food addict, and I did not think I could do anything substantial with my life.

So I took every bit of courage and drive I had and I worked on it. I lost weight. A lot of weight. I lost 221 pounds. I went to the gym and gained muscle. A lot of muscle.

Funny thing is some people call me an inspiration...

Take it from someone who has done it – weight loss is no easy task. But in the end, it’s SO worth it. I bet you want my secret, huh? Well, I didn’t take any pills, I rarely used protein powder, and there wasn’t any “dieting.”

I simply used Anytime Health.

I recently started my Dietetic Internship and my first rotation is community nutrition. One of my first projects involved putting together materials to send to in-home childcare providers and after-school sites to help raise awareness about childhood obesity. 

The childhood obesity epidemic is something I’m very passionate about and it was one of the main reasons I decided to go back to school to become an RD. You should know, I’m all about passing along knowledge and resources to help educate people who can then take that knowledge and teach the children around them.

Don't you wish…

You really could blame McDonald's for your weight gain.

You could gain muscle without working out.

Your annual appointment is in a week, and you are fervently eating healthy, getting some activity in your busy day, and trying to make it look like you lead a healthy lifestyle. And dang, it’s exhausting. But if you actually get healthy…it will guarantee you never hear these words from your doc…

Western medicine has done it again. We live in a place where there’s a pill, cream, shot, or inhalant for virtually every disease. And now we’re on the cutting edge of the next “best” thing – the obesity vaccination.

Many people are capitalizing on the Olympic Games as a way to encourage more physical activity and sports participation, but researchers are taking it one step further. A new paper in the Lancet, U.S. and Australian scientists argue that exercise, or more specifically physical activity, should be designated as the fifth vital sign, along with blood pressure, pulse, temperature, and respiratory rate. The idea has merit, especially given the fact that fitness level is a strong predictor of morbidity and mortality. In fact, the World Health Organization freely acknowledges that physical inactivity kills more people worldwide than overweight and obesity. Shocking, but true…