Clare's Story

I've always been an active and energetic person. If you've met me in person there's no denying that! I have memories of being 8 years old and playing with "Get in Shape Girl" and "Mousercize," so it's in my blood. In high school I played every sport our school offered.

Being the perfectionist, disciplined first born that I am, I knew that in order to be "the best," I needed to workout in my off season. I found a workout that coincided with volleyball and that is when I probably got the itch to be a REAL active person. My coach knew I had this workout and encouraged me to share it with the other members of the volleyball team. I was able to use my power of persuasion (haha) to get a few in the gym with me after school. I loved helping them. I remember a football coach say to me once, "If our football players worked out as hard as you, we'd have an all-star team!" I'm not sure at that time that I knew that motivating and encouraging others towards fitness would be a part of my adult life.

Fast forward to college. I didn't play sports in college, however I did continue "working out." However, I say this lightly as my routines weren't as strict and my diet definitely wasn't up to par. Unfortunately the lack of working out and increase in eating lead to the freshman 15. It was a gradual thing, but I do remember feeling horrible about my body and more importantly how I felt physically. The freshman 15 maybe moved to the sophomore 10 but even though I dropped 5 pounds, I still wasn't where I needed to be.

My life took a different direction the summer going into my junior year of college. A full time job fell into my lap (one I couldn't pass up) so in order for me to finish my degree, I had to go to school after I finished my 8-5 job. For about 3 months I was not able to work out to the degree that I knew I needed to. I again found myself gaining weight and was up to the highest I had ever weighed.

Thankfully there was a local YMCA that opened up and there was an aerobics class that was offered at 6:30am on Mon/Wed/Fri. I knew I needed to make a sacrifice if I wanted to get my body back into shape. So at a mere 20 years old, I was dragging myself into a gym at 6:15am to workout.

I loved the class and was inspired by the different age groups in the class. I found my clothes fitting looser and after a few months (and many compliments) decided to weigh myself (I was never a person obsessed with weight because I always weighed more then what people thought I did due to my muscle/fat ratio). I had lost about 7 pounds! I continued going to the class and just loved it. I was encouraged by my instructor to get certified in aerobics as she saw my interest and dedication to it. It was not good timing so I put that in the back of my mind.

Month by month, I saw my clothing fitting differently and the number on the scale moving. After about 2 years, I moved to a different gym and started running a lot. I found the numbers dropping once again--and all of this at no real attempt to lose weight. At this point, I had gotten married and earned my degree. My husband and I knew we were going to start a family in the near future. We always wanted me to stay at home with our kids. In my mind, teaching aerobics would be a perfect fit for me. We had begun praying about what our next step was as God orchestrated conversations with women at work and church about their workout routines and improving their bodies.

One day after our church building was built, a friend of mine asked if I had any interest in becoming certified to teach aerobics at the church. She told me to pray about it and my husband laughed and said that she wouldn't have to wait that long for an answer--we had already been praying about it!

The fall of 2004 was the first time I had ever taught a class as I stepped into our church's multipurpose room. I continued to lose even more inches and pounds after I started teaching classes. In December of 2006, our son was born and I was able to quit my job and stay at home allowing me to teach aerobics and pilates while also conducting personal training sessions.


I share this to say that this has been a process that has taken hard work and dedication. Life happens but it's important to remember that that doesn't have to keep you down. It is possible and with encouragement and support you can do the same. I hope you see that I have always had a passion for fitness and motivating and encouraging people towards improving not only their bodies, but also their self-esteem. More importantly, I hope that we all see how we can honor God with our physical bodies. I leave you with one of my favorite verses, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God- this is your spiritual act of worship." Romans 12:1

Clare