Everything happens for a reason. Pardon the cliché, but there is something very important that I need to share with you. It is a story of the accident that changed my life and how I am on my way to accomplish the supposed impossible. In February of 2000 I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, a disease that western medicine claims is unbeatable. Because of simple lifestyle changes I have made I am now almost insulin free. My mission is to motivate and encourage people to make smarter lifestyle choices. Being good to your body with daily physical activity and healthy food will improve your quality of life. Living this way has improved every aspect of my life, and I want to help others experience the same benefits. It’s never too late to make the choice to make the change.

I was born and raised in a small ski village in northern California called Bear Valley.  My family moved to Lake Tahoe just as I was entering middle school and then relocated again to Carmel the day before my freshman year of high school.  Growing up in such pristine surroundings was something that I will always be grateful for. My childhood was amazing with an endless amount of activity.  I started skiing when I was two years old and continued my love for sports with softball, soccer, basketball and volleyball until high school.  It was then that I discovered water polo and became dedicated to that when I wasn’t playing basketball.

I never thought that I would stop being active because it had always been such a great part of my childhood. During my junior year of high school my parents divorced and it definitely affected me. I lost interest in something that had always been important in my life.  I didn’t try out for basketball or water polo that year.  I started to spend all of my free time with my friends.  Some of our after school activities included going to the beach, eating, cruising in the car, and watching our favorite TV shows.

Although my family prepared healthy and nutritional meals at home my friends and I ate whatever, whenever, and however much we wanted to.  We never counted calories or thought about the saturated fat content.  We definitely didn’t know what trans fat was.  High fructose corn syrup was not something we avoided.  We casually ate fast food, and some of my favorite snacks included Diet Coke, Pringles, Sour Straws, Starbursts, and glazed donuts. I didn’t understand the importance of fiber, nor did I make sure that I got enough fruit and vegetables.  Like most teenagers, we loved sweets and junk food.  To this day, I will never understand why nutrition was not a graduation requirement.

Eating carelessly and not getting enough physical activity started to catch up with me.  It was almost impossible for me to get out of bed in the morning.  I started to fall asleep in class and my grades showed it. I was sick all the time and missed classes. I started to feel extremely depressed.  I even tried weekly therapy and antidepressants but that did not help.  What I was doing to my body (or lack thereof) was the root of the problem, not my depression. I was miserable, but didn’t understand why. On a fundamental level, I was making very poor lifestyle choices. I wanted out of the hole that I had dug for myself and knew the solution would have to be something drastic. I thought about it every night before I went to sleep.  Sure enough, my thoughts became a reality in February of 2000.

The accident that would change my life forever was about to happen.  I had just a semester left of high school and decided to be the host for the Winter Ball after party. With a handful of my closest friends I was decorating the hayloft of the barn on my property.  We were almost done and I had just one more sheet to hang on the ceiling. As I walked backwards I lost my footing and fell through the opening in the floor. I fell 15 feet onto my head on the concrete below. Immediately unconscious, I have no memory of falling.  Nor do I remember waking up from my coma in the ICU later that week.  I also have no recollection of when the doctors told my parents I was in the early stages of type 1 diabetes.

All things considered, I was lucky… very lucky.  The fall had only caused two brain contusions and a fractured skull.  It could have been a lot worse, but I had suffered some brain damage. I began intense cognitive therapy because I had forgotten how to do a lot of simple tasks that many of us take for granted. I lost over half of my vocabulary, had no short-term memory, no sense of direction nor concept of time. I also had to relearn how to read. This was truly traumatic for me as I was the editor in chief of my high school’s yearbook staff.

My neurologists suggested that I shouldn’t attempt to finish my last semester of high school because it would be too difficult for me. That was not an option for me. I returned to my classes after missing just 3 weeks because I was on a serious mission.  I didn’t miss one day of school the rest of the year.  I wanted to prove to them that it was possible to graduate that year of 2000 as planned.  I surpassed everyone’s expectations when I graduated on time with a 3.6 GPA.  However, I still had a long road ahead of me. At least a year went by before I felt like I could do things on my own again. This process required a lot of patience, hard work, and determination.  

Beyond what I had to relearn, I also had to discover a lot about what it meant to be diabetic. My diabetes counselor told me that I had to be more active.  She also said that eating balanced meals more regularly would make being diabetic more manageable. I asked her if I could ever heal myself of diabetes.  She said that there wasn’t a cure for type 1 diabetes and that I would be dependent on insulin for the rest of my life.  The reality of being diabetic forever was also not an option for me. From that point on I have been on a mission to become insulin free.

This disease was still new to me and learning about it was a struggle because retaining new information was really challenging. I didn’t understand the relationship between portion sizes and insulin yet. I was eating more regularly, but the amount of insulin they prescribed to me meant that I had to eat bigger portions.  My blood sugar kept crashing all the time so I had to eat more food to bring my glucose back to a normal level. I was taking so much insulin, per doctors' orders, that I gained 30 pounds in just 18 months.   I went from being a size two to a ten in a very short amount of time. 

I was frustrated, but didn't give up. I began my studies of Nutrition at Santa Monica College in the spring of 2002 and it became my passion. Not only did I want to heal myself, I wanted to learn how I could help others. This is when I realized that my purpose in life was to motivate and inspire the people around me.  That same year I studied bodywork and became certified as a Reiki practitioner.  I soon discovered the benefits of holistic healing and nutrition and started practicing yoga.  I joined the swim team at my school and my blood sugar levels improved a bit. It wasn’t until I lived abroad that my weight and glucose levels improved dramatically.

I realized the significance of portion sizes and constant physical activity when I moved to the Basque Country in Spain in 2004.  I lived there for 7 months to study Spanish and very quickly fell in love with the culture, the people, the food, and the lifestyle.  I walked everywhere all day, swam in the ocean, went dancing a few nights a week, and ate small portions throughout the day.  I started needing less and less insulin and made the choice to start weaning my body off of insulin. I was a size 10 when I moved there and returned to the States as a size 4. 

Once I was back in Los Angeles I realized that walking everywhere was not feasible. I started to get back into my old habits of eating larger portions and not being active throughout the day. My blood sugar levels began to rise substantially so I had to start taking more insulin again.  I also put on a few pounds.  I realized how much harder I had to work to keep my blood sugar at a normal level. But I was eager to take on the challenge.  I wanted to accomplish my mission of being insulin free.

I began my own research and doing my own experiments with Tibetan, Ayurvedic and Chinese herbs. I started eating better foods and made exercise an everyday part of my life.  I discovered Spinning and loved it so much that I became a certified instructor and begn teaching at Bodies in Motion in West Los Angeles.  In the summer of 2005, Sebastien Lagree recruited me to teach his System Dinamique™ method at Sebastien's Pilates Plus® in West Hollywood. Spinning and Pilates helped my glucose levels get back in balance again and I became dedicated to doing one of these classes six days a week, not including the times I was teaching.

Just a few months after I started at Sebastien’s studio I was hired as Ben Stiller’s personal trainer. For almost four months we were on location in New York and Vancouver for the movie A Night At The Museum.  Once I returned to Los Angeles, I was excited to get back in the studio and train with my students and clients again. Word was getting around about my classes and personal training methods.  I then started personally training Jeremy Piven and Jackie Warner of the show Workout on Bravo.  I still train Ben Stiller with a regular workout regimen when he is in LA.  Jackie, Jeremy, and Ben are just a few of my strongest and most dedicated clients. Watching my students’ and clients’ bodies transform is incredible and seeing the smiles on their faces is always so rewarding.  I love my job!

I believe that almost every disease and ailment is preventable (or the symptoms can be less severe) with holistic care.  I do not have a medicine cabinet in my home.  Instead I have a cabinet filled with vitamins, minerals, and herbs. I do not take antibiotics.  I do not use caffeine at all.  I do not own any pain relievers, fever reducers, upset stomach relievers, or over-the-counter cold medicine. I never get headaches.  I don’t remember the last time I had a flu shot.   I’ve only been sick with a cold once since my accident. After seven years of determination I am now almost insulin free.  I used to take about 50 units and two different types of insulin everyday.  I now only take about five units and one type of insulin a day and have lost all the unnecessary weight that I had gained post diagnosis.  I owe my health to eating consciously, exercising everyday, and searching alternative medicine.

It is never too late to start making smarter choices about the foods you eat.  There is no better time than now to add physical activity into your life.  The complete wellness of your mind, body, and soul is up to you. I will do whatever it takes to help people realize that they hold the key to overall wellness in their own hands.