Tuesday 11.3.15

      In 2003 I was out for an evening of swing and lindy hop dancing, we were doing a performance at a yearly event that our club held to help entice new members to join and out of the blue, before we even started warming up, my back started hurting me.  I wasn’t able to continue, I went home and by the end of the week I could barely push a grocery cart around the store. This was the beginning of 10 years of pain and a ridiculous amount of weight gain to the tune of 80+lbs. No doctor could figure it out, physical therapy and chiropractic care helped but I never got to 100% and was in constant pain.  I never went back to swing dancing and stop doing all the other physical activities I enjoed.

      Fast forward to January 2013; tired of being overweight, weak and having no energy while trying to work a full time demanding career, be a good wife and a mother to two young children, I decided to drastically change my diet.  I heard certain foods can cause inflammation and wondered if this was why I had chronic pain so I eliminated all allergen foods and by process of elimination and reintroduction I found out I had several intolerances.  After one week on an elimination plan my pain was gone. Doing this not only resolved my pain but I lost 65lbs in 10 months from changing the quality of food I ate and by eliminating Gluten, Corn, Sugar/artificial sweeteners, Dairy, Eggs, Peanuts and Soy. I never counted a single calorie, gram of fat or gram of carb. (My intolerances are Eggs, Corn and Gluten). Then come March this year I let stress get the better of me at work, fell back into some old bad eating habits and gained 30lbs.

      I knew it was time to make some big changes. I not only needed to get my nutrition back on track but I knew years of being sedentary had taken a toll, my body was so weak.  It was time to get my strength back. The first time I heard about Crossfit was in 2012 when I was working for an Apparel Manufacturer who contracted for Reebok.  We made all types of athletic apparel and as an apparel product developer I decided to do a little research on the Crossfit athlete, to understand that type of customer better, plus, I wanted to know what it was that had our Designer so captivated, she loved Crossfit and always talked about it.  I remember being in awe when I walked into the Franklin Box and watched as the athletes did box jumps and lifted loaded barbells. If someone had told me that 3 years later I would be taking a Crossfit class, I would have thought they were crazy but here I am.  Why I chose CFNE:  In recent years I have tried going to gyms and working out on my own.  It just never stuck with me, I needed something else, I needed more.

      My husband Jon, asked Brad Ebel one day what the CFNE on his shirt stood for.  He told him Crossfit New England and explained how it is the best.  Jon looked it up and told me CFNE has free classes two Thursdays every month.  I knew it was time. I remembered that day I walked in to the Franklin box, and as intimidated as I was, I knew I wanted to be able to do that.  So on Thursday June 4th, I walked through the doors at CFNE and never looked back, but that is because of the CFNE community and the instant level of support I received from day one.  Every person I have met at CFNE has impacted me, you all inspire me and you are what keep me going.

      I am lucky, right now my husband is a stay at home dad and this takes a lot of the pressure off me.  Typically my day starts at about 5:00am, get up, get ready for work and try like crazy to make it out the door by 6:30 to beat the Waltham bound traffic.  Often, I have to make it in time for 7:00am morning meetings where we are trying to collaborate with people all over the world.  I work in software R&D, so my days are spent among very intelligent engineering minded men, who are mostly from India.  I am the only woman on our team in Waltham.  I guess you can say I spend my day helping them understand the creative mind of the fashion designer.

      After a day of meetings with our teams and more meetings with our customers and defining the customer needs for our developers I try to leave work no later than 4:45 to make it in time for the 5:30 class.  After class I go home, see my family, eat dinner (which may or may not involve me preparing it), ask my kids about their day, look through there school paperwork, sometimes help with homework,  tuck my kids into bed around 8:30.  Say goodnight  to my husband around 9:30pm then I sometimes check my e-mails, do some work, spend time researching/reading on the web or watching a guilty pleasure show on TV.  I usually head to bed around 11:30 then it starts all over again at 5am (yes, next months goal should be more sleep) =)

      We are a two Golden Retriever and a 5 fish family (give or take a couple fish).  I am definitely a dog person but if I had to pick one dog out of all the dogs in the world, it would be my dog Jerry, he is such a good boy, he was my puppy in the window.  I gave him to Jon for Valentines day in February 2005,  he was our first baby – he is almost 11 now.  (sorry Newmie, I love you too, but Jerry was my first dog love)

      Hands down it is my mother.  My mom has a perpetual fire lit under her and so much drive, determination and generosity. She taught me to be an independent strong woman and that I could do or learn to do anything whether it was wiring a ceiling fan light in the baby nursery when I was 9 months pregnant or walking into a crossfit to become a member when being 100lbs overweight.

      I think it would have to be that epic party dance I did around the boxes in Heathers 11:30 class the beginning of October.

      I cant remember the exact ages but when i was a kid I wanted to be everything from a veterinarian to an astrophysicist or whatever it was Charlie did in Top Gun, but the one constant through my childhood was art, I always had a love for the art of creating.  Whether it was my love of painting as a child, designing and developing apparel for the first half of my career or now impacting the design of software for the Consumer goods industry.  I love to create!

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      I wouldn’t be by myself.  I would be with my mom, my aunt, my cousins, my nieces and my daughters and we would be making our family heirloom ravioli recipe, which traces back to small village in Italy called Poppoli, we have this every year at Christmas, it is special.

      Paris … I have worked in the apparel/fashion industry for nearly 20 years.  I now work for a French company.  I have traveled all over the world to various countries but have I ever actually made it to Paris? …. Nope