Alicia

I was born with a passion for health and fitness always searching for new information to help me feel my best and perform my best whether in sports, academics, or overcoming sports injuries. I struggled learning to stand as a baby because my foot was facing backward, so I had to wear a metal brace with attached shoes 24/7 causing blisters, pain, bleeding, and lots of pain for me and my parents, but my parents built in me a great resilience transforming this struggle with so much love, perseverance, and creativity. My dad began carrying me around by the bar swinging me which made me giggle and smile, also creating a future gymnast. I feel blessed to have grown up on a farm in central Illinois, raising sheep, helping on my grandparent’s farm, and showing sheep at the county fair. During my transition from training as a young competitive gymnast to a high school track and basketball athlete, I also began coaching gymnastics. I was a collegiate gymnast at ISU my freshman year, then moved and completed a B.S. in Exercise & Sport Science graduating with high distinction and as Student Marshal of the Exercise & Sport Science Department at Penn State with a great deal of time spent in the Motor Learning Research Lab and continuing to coach competitive gymnasts.

After a surgical mistake almost took my life at age 26 and overcoming many struggles to get my life and my health back, I refocused my passion for health and fitness becoming certified through the National Academy of Sports Medicine as a Personal Trainer along with specialized certifications in Weight Loss, Senior Fitness, and Women’s Fitness to help others on their journeys back to health and to living their best lives. Along the way, even with our healthy lifestyle, my children and I were faced with more surgeries, asthma, severe food allergies – including anaphylaxis, life-threatening illnesses and auto-immune disease. I worked with our doctors, holistic nutritionists, and medicinal herbalists while devoting any extra time I had to reading as much research as possible about the causes and development of allergies, asthma, and auto-immune disease. We modified our living environment and our nutrition which greatly improved our health, our immune systems, and our healing after surgeries and illnesses.

A perfect day for me would be spending time with my family and friends, especially my two children who are young adults now, enjoying nature whether it be hiking, kayaking, paddle boarding, working in perennial flower gardens, or sitting outside, preferably a beach, sharing what is on our hearts while drinking herbal teas and eating our favorite healthy chocolate treats that we created together in the kitchen.