Barbell Shrugged - Feed Me Fuel Me  — Keep Moving Forward w/ Kelli Michelle  — 99

Episode Date: August 9, 2018

On this episode of Feed Me Fuel Me we are joined by Nutrition Coach and personal trainer, Kelli Michelle.. Kelli began her athletic career as a soccer player at Arizona State. Shortly after graduation, she found herself real estate, not fulfilling her life's potential and engaging in long stints of cardio in a caloric deficit to maintain what she thought was fitness. She would later discover that her habits and lifestyle were inline with symptoms associated with sports anorexia.   She was then introduced to resistance training for the stage in competitive bikini competitions. The regimen forced her to reexamine her relationship with food. She learned a lot about the good and the bad of competition nutrition regimens, dieting. Unfortunately, as a result of poor coaching and inattention to detail, Kelli would find herself hormonally imbalanced. A condition that can only be corrected with prescription medication or a drastic change in nutrition.   Since then, Kelli has been pivotal the last 3 years in the MACRO tracking community by educating coaches and clients on the BASICS of Macro tracking. She focuses on teaching people how to set up basic tracking skills and healthy objectives that directly impact their relationship with food. Kelli Coaches HIGH level fitness competitors, SPORT performance athletes & general population healthy living and weight loss. Kelli has a Sport Nutrition and Fitness Nutrition Endorsement, Nutrition Certification and completed her Masters level coursework at Arizona State University this past spring.   Join us this week as learn the details of Kelli's journey through the ups and downs of competitive performance only to finally figure out that everything she was looking for was inside. By changing her self-perception and attracting the right people into her circle, she has fostered a culture with a mission to change the world by helping people change their relationship with food.   Thanks for allowing us to be a part of your journey! - Jeff and Mycal ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/fmfm_michelle ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

This is episode number 99 of the Feed Me, Fuel Me podcast with our special guest, owner of KMF Keep Moving Forward, Kelly Michelle. Welcome to the Feed Me, Fuel Me podcast. My name is Jeff Thornton, alongside my co-host, Michael Anders. Each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message related to our three pillars of success, manifestation, business, fitness, and nutrition. Our intent is to enrich, educate, and empower our audience to take action, control, and accountability for their decisions. Thank you for allowing us to join you on your journey. Now let's get started. Hey, what's going on, fam?

Welcome to another episode of the Feed Me, Fuel Me podcast. There's Jeff coming to you from Scottsdale, Arizona. And our guest today is Kelly Michelle of Kelly Michelle Fitness, or as she's known on Instagram, Macro Coach Kelly. Hey. How are you, girl? I am great. So we go way back.

We go way back to Scott Keppel land. That's right. 2012, the W Hotel, Miss Arizona. Her send-off is where I met you for the first time. Officially. Officially. Yes. Yes.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. It's probably one of the last times I've ever been out. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, I'm glad I last times I've ever been out. Oh really? Yeah. Well, I'm glad I got to catch you at your peak. I had already gone over the hill at that point. You're doing amazing things in the nutrition coaching space.

Thank you. And while tackling entrepreneurship, you managed to knock out your PhD? Master's degree. Master's in nutrition and dietetics. The PhD, I think, is on the way. Is it on the way? Yeah. You're going to make that happen? I think so.

I'm big into sleep research now and hormones. And you guys may not know that I actually did the master's with a thesis. Yes. Like Alan Aragon. So you're ready to go. Yeah. I listened to one of Alan's conversations, Alan Aragon's conversations on why he decided to get a master's in nutrition science versus, you know, going into being a registered dietitian

and dietetics. And I really, I really wanted to go that path because what I was doing already was not writing meal plans for people, but moving them, you know, towards a lifestyle that would be sustainable and maintainable without restriction. So I felt like going the RD path was limiting in a lot of ways. I would say that. Yes. That's fair. And not very many people had heard about, you know, macro nutrition. And in fact, I hired a coach. Um, I tried to hire a coach here locally, but, um, we were both

personal trainers. And I think he thought he saw that as somewhat of a risk because I would quote unquote, take his information and use it. But you know, it's like, I always encourage people in, even in the field of, you know, nutrition and training, there's enough people out there. We have 40 million approximate people in the United States, 20 million of those are supposedly obese. Uh, that's half. Um, but I think the numbers are higher based off of what I see on my intake forms. It's about 60 to 65 percent obese by label. Again, I would never say that to them because, again, I try to keep labels off of people instead of putting them on them.

But nonetheless, yeah, it was the way that things kind of went. And, um, I decided in order to have credibility, you know, I needed to go back and be able to write and have credentials behind what I write. And now after doing that, I would say there are a lot of very intelligent people out there that write that don't have credentials, quote unquote. Um, but they're realizing that they can only get so far without them. So, you know, it only helps. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt. Yeah. So I might go back. Um, I'm not itching to do it right now. Cause I'm, you know, well into year six of KMF and we changed, we rebranded it to keep moving forward because it's not about me it's about we that way um and that's what i kept saying in a lot of the emails yeah don't worry about yesterday

just keep moving forward did a did a coach help you with that rebranding no no a coach didn't um i it was weighing heavily on my heart that I didn't like the name Kelly Michelle Fitness because it's Kelly Michelle and it's the I, I, I, me, me, me game. And all I could tell people was about my population. And I just thought the initials are the same. Right. I've saying it, everyone's saying it out on the internet. Why don't we rebrand and go that direction?

Because now it's not the Kelly Michelle show. It's the keep moving forward system that works for everybody. Well, it's interesting that you say that. And the only reason I asked that question that way is because when I started my entrepreneurial journey, my first business coaches told me to as soon as I could to remove my name from the branding from the brand yeah so people show up to CrossFit PHX yes next level performance fitness consulting they're not looking for Michael right they want the system and the experience and all the things that come yes they want the team right they want the we not the I correct and, you know, if you look at Instagram too, there are a lot of people following I people.

Oh, sure. But there are a lot of people following we. More people, I think, need a group, a support group than just a coach. One coach that sees things one way. Right. I always encourage all of my coaches to comment. And again, not very many do. I don't know if that's because a lot of my coaches are more in a beginning phase of training and nutrition.

And they're still in a learning phase themselves. But to comment and to critique. And I allow my clients to do the same thing. No feedback is ever taken by me personally. In fact, I had a girl quit, um, macro tracking a couple of weeks ago and, um, she was frustrated the entire time and I knew it wasn't me. I knew it was, she was frustrated with herself. You know, some people are just not ready yet and they have to experience it and say, you know what, this is going on, this is going on. These things are priorities more than my fitness

um macro tracking and my fitness journey right now that's okay it is a trial and error thing for some people and she wrote me and i wrote her back and said is there are there a few things that you could um tell me that we could do better as a system at kmf yeah and she gave me two or three ideas and i wrote her back and i said you know i so much appreciate that feedback it do better as a system at KMF. Yeah. And she gave me two or three ideas and I wrote her back and I said, you know, I so much appreciate that feedback. It was, it took a lot of courage for you to tell me that. And, um, lo and behold, two weeks go by and she's writes me another email and says, I feel really bad about what I said. Um, I was actually manifesting some of those things. And I don't think that this is an area that you're weak in.

I think it's an area that I'm weak in. And so that was really, really cool. But, you know, it allows them the opportunity to say whatever and to know that we can only get better if we're told where we're not great. For sure. And if we hear that common feedback more than two or three times, we have to think that there's some legitimacy to what people are saying or their experience. It's if people come to your gym, you know, Michael, and they say, we wish we had coffee here in the morning for 5 a.m. And you hear that and you hear it over and over. Are you going to get coffee? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Right. I'm definitely going to entertain. I've been fighting for this for years, Kelly. And I use that analogy because it was, uh, the owner from mountainside that talked about that, you know, and I went into my little mountainside and I was like, Hey, you guys don't have coffee here yet. You know, but you know, it's really true. Like if you do hear about something being more of an experience and you can cater your business toward that

population, we're not going to please everybody. No. But we can do a pretty good job of having a system that really covers almost everything, you know, and we got the opportunity to talk a little bit when I arrived today about Michael's programming and what he's doing with his CrossFit gym. And, you know, you hear that feedback and you got feedback from people saying, I wish we had this and I wish we had that. And you're like, is this affordable for me to do this?

Yes. Right. Is it benefiting our community? Yes. Why wouldn't we do it? You know, I get coaches all the time that go i would never ever allow my clients to voice text me and i'm like really well that works for me and it doesn't work for you right you know and it really works for my 20 to 40 year old clients um email works great for my older population

but let's face it my millennials are text messengers so i had to develop a system that appealed to everybody yeah you know right wow so as we continue to sort of just dive into your story yeah could you take me back because i'm still back yeah let's go back to let's go back to michael and how how you got to this point here from like your evolution of your life so when we were at the w um Michael was like, oh my gosh, are you still competing? And how's that going? And he was fired up about it, you know? And if I remember correctly, you were doing a show.

Yeah. Like. That was 2012. In September of that year, maybe? June. Yeah. Okay. I just got out of the Marine Corps.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And you were natural and I felt like, how can I tell this guy in a nice way that what I'm seeing is horrifying and that I may not ever do a show again. Um, and you know what? I'll be honest at that point in time, even back in 2012,

I really was in a much better place than I was in, in 2007 and eight and nine. And that was, those were rough years for a lot of people for various reasons. I mean, we were in a recession. Um, I was in real estate at the time. I was not, you know, I didn't, I had not embarked on a fitness journey yet. I really had not started lifting weights at all in my 20s until I hit about 30. So again, that's 10 years ago. I'm 40 now. I've been lifting for 10 years. I finally have seen what I like in the mirror the last three years a lot. But going back to 2012, I wasn't really sure that I liked the fitness industry at all because Scott and I were just grinding. That's all we did. We would, it was like a crankshaft. We would put all these

people on stage. They would win and they would leave us. There was, yeah, because we, Scott and I were only willing to go to a certain level. Do you know what I mean? Sure. Absolutely. So you know what I mean? And the other thing was I had to switch over from figure, which I really liked to bikini because my body style was more in line with bikini than it was with figure. And my level of comfort was not to get bigger as a girl. It was to be like I was the best version of how I was. And so I was very torn at that time, Michael, when I met you, because people kept saying, you know, and I was listening to people.

That was the problem. I wasn't listening to my heart. I wasn't listening to myself. I wasn't listening to my good friends who were wonderful people who said, you look beautiful and you're so impactful. Why don't you use your gift of teaching instead of leading by body example? You know, I wasn They wanted to use me to get what they needed. And then they were on to the next thing. And so I'm not saying that all fitness competitors are that way or were that way, but a lot of them were, and they would treat Scott and I so disposable here today. Thanks for taking good care of me and making sure I didn't break myself. And then you would give them off to the next trainer or they would leave you

for the next trainer that was next level, quote unquote. And that's where the damage would begin. And three years later you're getting them back and they're like, hi, I'm, I'm this hormone wrecked person. Um,

and so we were talking a little bit about girls who do show after show after show. Oh, it's crazy. And you know, I just couldn't watch that anymore. So when I ran into you, I wanted to be like, Girls yeah who do show after show after show. Oh, it's crazy. Mm-hmm And you know, I just couldn't watch that anymore. So when I ran into you I wanted to be like Michael run for the hills do this show and then Build and then do another show whenever you're ready and then build but really what it is is, you know

I just kept watching all of these women hurt themselves By doing things they didn't need to do. And trust me, I was there for 10 years. I listened or not, you know, maybe just under 10 years. I listened to coaches who had no business telling me what I should eat on a meal plan. Um, there was no individualism with my nutrition. I had the same diet as everybody else on my quote-unquote team. We all starved together. We all did cardio together. It was a fellowship.

To me, that's pretty sick. It's sick. It was hard to watch. So I communicated that a lot with Scott. And he was like, follow your passion. If you love powerlifting and this is what you love, then maybe you should take some time off of competing and just become a powerlifter and do that for a while.

It was the best thing I ever did. It taught me how to lift, to really lift, to do very difficult accessory work, to be diligent, to be able to get my calories double what they were you know we talked about when I presented at CrossFit PHX and when I started even tracking macros or tracking my calories to figure out where I would need to be to track macros I was what I would call girl one and I was was eating 1150 calories. Oh my God. Yes.

Poverty macros. Poverty macros and a half. I do that at a meal. Now I do. Yeah, I know. It's crazy. That's the damn truth. Yes.

That's the damn truth. You're doing it right. And you know, the mental torture of reading all the information online that is just so counter intuitive, you know, it's, you know, do more, eat less, do more, eat less. But really what it is, is, you know, at that point when I was 32, like when I met you, um, or even 34, I already was dealing with such issues with my hormones,

but I hadn't dealt with them because I had not gone to the doctor. I didn't know what was going on underneath my hood. The check engine light had been on for years and I kept driving the car without oil. I also drove it without gasoline. So as you know, usually a car will drop its transmission. So walk us through that process because you have you have a pretty evolutionary journey yeah on the fitness spectrum going from collegiate soccer player at asu to uh the the quote-unquote cardio bunny just putting yeah putting into miles and eating next to nothing true and then you found competition yes rode that way for a while and and, and so walk us through. Yeah. So, you know, even back in college, they ran us really hard. Um, we were lifting and doing cardio here in the desert and it was 120 degrees when I moved to Arizona every single day for June and July in

1996. Um, so you guys can do the math. I'm not a young spring chicken anymore. But at that time, I just thought that's what it took to be next level. And we've seen such an awesome evolution with nutrition, sports science, sport nutrition, muscle protein synthesis research. The science is just amazing, especially the last five years. Unbelievable. And we knew really only what we knew back then. So, you know, my coach had me on a running schedule and running was my life because when I quit playing soccer, um, I felt like I still needed to do all of those activities to maintain the way that I looked. And I was very much criticized as a midfielder. Um, if I put any extra weight on and you know, I was running a hundred to 115 pounds, um, my freshman year through my senior

year. So I'd, I'd try to stay always at this magical number of one Oh eight. Holy shit. What my coaches didn't know is that I was an anorexic. Yeah. You know, I had struggled with anorexia from the time I was 11 years old. Um, I can remember the day that it started. Um, I remember exactly where I was, what I was wearing, um, how I felt. And you know, you get to this place where you, you, you just go there every time someone tells you, gives you this similar feedback. So my coaches would give me feedback and they weren't criticizing me and they weren't abusing me. But they were saying, we need you at this weight because this is where you perform best. I felt that 108 was where I needed to be for the rest of my life.

It was my point of identity. A number on the scale was my point of identity. And it just manifested into twenties and 21. And I can remember being a young educator at a high school and, um, I would eat my food and go into the bathroom and try to throw up. Wow. Yes. And I'm here and I'm trying to lead these kids and, you know, I had a great job and I was keeping all of this from my family. None of my friends knew. Nobody knew.

I would go home and I'd run 11 miles almost every single day after work in this heat. And so I would run and run and run. I was an exercise anorexic. Some days I would eat. Some days I wouldn't eat. It just depended on the number on the scale in the morning. Sure. This is really, really rough.

So I told Michael, one day I went to a club and this gentleman pulled me aside and he was like, I don't mean to be disrespectful to you. You're beautiful, but I think you've got this all wrong. Um, and he seriously set me straight and he said, you know, your face is so gorgeous, but this isn't going to take you anywhere. Go get an education. I said, I do have one. He said, go get more education, you know, and go find a personal trainer and go work out and do what is going to make your body healthy. This is not healthy. Um, he just straight called me out the next day. I went shopping for clothing and I was, I remember this, I was in the dressing room and I looked into the mirror and I saw exactly what he was Talking about for the first time so I went and signed up at a quote-unquote gym a commercial gym. It was a bad idea

Do my research because I was still very young and impressionable and you know 24 years old and I still had not dealt with the demons of Where did these body image images come from? Uh, what am I chasing? Am I chasing this untangible thing that I see? Why am I comparing myself to girls? I don't even want to look like, wow. Yes. That's a very hard question to ask, let alone answer. And I just kept journaling and I talked about it with my trainer who was a competitive women's national level NPC bodybuilder. She was placing second and third in USA's and I one day spoke to her after I competed for the first time. I was telling Michael I literally had no muscle my first show. I could pose like nobody's business because I had the best posing coach in, I felt in the country. I literally thank my coach, uh, Tricia Travis so much for teaching me

that art. And she said to me, you have a gift. You see things that people don't see. Um, you're an artist. And I said, I kind of am. Um, and I've always been able to kind of structurally see and feel things that you know when you're teaching people movement patterns and such it can be very discouraging because you're like why can't this person get this sure I just got it okay posing to me came naturally the soccer that way yes okay I'm gonna honest. Most anything that I do athletically is that way, except golf. Yeah, that's a dog's breakfast. Um, but it's just, and weightlifting, when I started learning to power lift, every single thing came together.

I started being able to see all these movement patterns in my clients. Yeah. And I just realized that this was the way that the puzzle was supposed to come together. So if we go back to, you know, before I even went to eating disorder treatment, I was still teaching high school, still working at this high school. There's a lot of my students still live in the South Scottsdale area. So when I run into them, they're like, Miss G. And I'm like, oh, Miss G. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm only like three years older than you. They're like, yeah, I'm 37. I'm like, yeah, I'm 40. You were that young when you taught us. I'm like, yes. I realized, Oh my gosh,

I was so hard on myself. Didn't think that I was successful at 2021, 22, 23. I had a great career. Um, I had all these things going for me. I had a, um, set of friends that were not the best set of friends. And that was truly one of the things that I had to recognize in order to move from the place that I was in to a better place. Um, so from 23 to 26, they were really hard, bad years. Okay. Bad years. I went into eating disorder treatment at 24. I went and got my real estate license at 24. I didn't stay in eating disorder treatment. It didn't work for me.

I had a different battle than a lot of people who were there. Anorexia is not an easy thing to battle through. I was in with a lot of people who were bul. Anorexia is not an easy thing to battle through. I was in with a lot of people who were bulimics and I couldn't identify with the overeating aspect of things and the purging, but I could identify with the purging in a different respect because I was an exercise anorexic. So I was purging every day and thank God I couldn't make myself purge or I probably would have been dead. Sure. I would say dead because the extreme, you know, that I was the extreme fire that I was playing with.

I'm surprised I didn't kill myself. Yeah. I'm surprised that when my my last coach that I went to who very much damaged my metabolism, this is when I started seeing everything really just hit me like a ton of bricks. You know, I was eating under 800 calories, doing three hours of cardio a day to get ready for a show. And I just collapsed. I stopped.

I quit. I didn't finish. This is the first time I didn't finish the goal. Yeah. I said, I can't do this show. I'm not getting leaner. Something is the first time I didn't finish the goal. I said, I can't do this show. I'm not getting leaner. Something is broken. I didn't make the correlation between my hormones because I thought I'm young. I'm young. This can't happen to a young person. I was a train wreck. So I

started going to counseling, got in with a registered dietitian. Started working on my nutrition. She said, you need more than just me. You are going to need to go through some behavioral counseling. And of course, they didn't have EMDR then. I wish they would have had EMDR back then. What is that? It's an eye movement therapy. And it basically works with brain patterns. It allows you to go back into your past and connect with things and then get them out of your body. Basically get rid of them.

Interesting. Yeah. So you make really interesting connections with people in your past, significant events, trauma, things that have gone on that you have actually compartmentalized and buried. There were things that I literally didn't even remember, but when they came out in EMDR, I was vomiting in the corner, you know, or no way. Yeah. And again, I was doing cognitive behavioral therapy and these things were coming out like that. So for some people, they need to have do EMDR. Some people need to do biofeedback. Some people need to do cognitive behavioral therapy. Um, if you don't work it, you're not going to get better. Sure. It was so much work. There were many, many nights I would get on my knees and just pray that

if there is a God out there, can you direct me, push me in the right direction? And then what I had to do was stop listening to the people around me that were directing my path and pump the brakes and do what Kelly wants to do. Sure. You know, it was largely an issue with my upbringing. It was largely an issue with my, my expectations of being, you know, the type A OCD, uh, older child has to do everything right because so-and-so didn't do these things right. And, you know, my parents are upset with my sister because she's not this or that. And so I have to be this or that. And, you know, chasing that lifestyle that other people wanted, but that I didn't really want. So I was always fighting that. Yeah. Was there a moment

where that there was a moment? So this is pretty deep and I'll go ahead and share this with you. That's a deep show. I was in my fifth year of real estate and I was training with a new trainer. Now, Scott Keppel. I had met him before backstage. Many times he appeared to be one of the most peaceful, wonderful people. That's who he is. That's a very accurate description. Isn't he wonderful? He's got a light about him. Yeah, absolutely. Have I ever heard Scott Keppel say a bad thing about anyone? Never. I was drawn to him because I felt safe with him. Sure. I called him. We started just kind of training. He was just training me. We weren't training for any particular reason other

than health. And I needed somebody who I felt safe with to share the things that were going on. And it was great because he served the role of trainer and counselor. Sure. And he wanted that role. And I asked him, are you okay that you're in that role? Yes. And we became friends and we became very close friends. And, um, Scott was just then, you know, only a couple of years married and it was really neat to be watching his life change tremendously. One day I was fed up. I had just basically gone through the recession in 2009. I was broke to an MLS training and I had to listen to this three hour speaker and I left and I just remember feeling so angry. I walked out of the building and this man stopped me and he said, ma'am, you left your binder upstairs. And I went to grab the binder and he grabbed my hand and I instantly started to cry and a warmth came across my body

and he said listen everything's going to be okay you know why I'm here today right and I said yes I know why you're here and I'm crying but I'm not crying I'm just looking at him and there was this just and it was like peace and he said listen you know I want to talk to you about some of the things that you've got going on in your life and I want you to know that you're going to be okay, but you need to handle this. And it was very specific and it was not things that anyone knew about me. It was secrets that I still had. It was things that were still manifesting. It was unfinished business. It was People that I had not made amends with that I needed to make amends with to bring peace into my life And I basically decided the next day when I got a phone call from my very good friend Scott Keppel He said can I meet you and let's talk, okay?

Specifically the man that I met at the MLS training told me when doors open for you, stop closing them. Wow. Scott Keppel met with me. We had, um, we had a drink at Starbucks and he said, I want you to come to work for me and I want you to leave real estate. And I said, I am $70,000 in debt. And it was the first time I had ever said that to anybody. Out loud. I was so embarrassed. And he goes, I know. It's okay. Do you trust me?

And I said, yes. And I don't know why I even said yes. But it was because I met this guy. And he spoke truth into me. And when he left me, I felt like, you know what? You got this opportunity. You were either visited by an angel today or you were visited by somebody on this earth that cares so much about people that they took time out of their day to listen to you

and to give you feedback. And I'm telling you that the feedback that this man gave me, no one knew. So that's interesting. So when I tell this testimony, people are like, oh my gosh, you know, and there are some more things that were really pivotal about that conversation, but nonetheless, it propelled me and moved me forward. And I had courage to leave the job that I hated, absolutely hated it. I hated every day, every day I was borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. I was living this life that I didn't even

want to live because I was trying to make my mom so proud of me because she was my boss. I had to walk in and I had to tell my mom, I'm not going to work for you anymore. I'm going to become a personal trainer. Oh man. I already know how that conversation goes. Did you know how that went? Not very good. Well, it did not go very well. It didn't. And, um, I had to take a leap of faith. My mom didn't speak to me for almost six months. Um, we have a great relationship to this day, but there has been a lot of things that have happened along the way with her realization, my self-acceptance, her acceptance of, you know, things that were really difficult for her to confront. There were things that I had to confront and I started working for Scott and we started cranking out competitors. It's what we did. It's all I did was pose and work 80 to a 100 hours a week. And the next person came into my life in 2014

named Susan Bailey. I was about $55,000 in debt. I had just consulted with a bankruptcy attorney. I was going to take the quick way out, the easy American way out. Scott Keppel said, I'm going on vacation. I'm giving you this client. I need you to take very good care of her because she is a very high energy stress ball like you are. And I go, great.

Okay. I started talking to Susan. She is one of the smartest, most intelligent business women I've ever met. And she said, do these three things. You're going to be out of debt within a year and a half. Get started. You need to live off 10% of your income. So I moved into a studio apartment in Guadalupe, Arizona, out of Scottsdale, Arizona, into a $400 a month apartment. Yes. Paid my car off, which I didn't owe very much money on at the time, but paid my car off. I had a whiteboard. I call it like the board of glory. And every single thing that I owed on there was paid off within 18 months. And I was finally debt free in 2015, just near the end of 2015. And that is kind of why I decided it's time for me to move. I can

do all things. Yeah, I know I can now. So I did not file bankruptcy. Instead, I built a company from the ground up from my little $400 a month, 400 square foot studio in Guadalupe, Arizona. Very grateful for that studio. Yeah. I'm thankful for Scott Keppel. We moved out of our small studio into a larger studio. I kept training there until the end of 2015. And then I merged into nutrition full time. I had been doing nutrition. I was speaking at every CrossFit gym that would allow me to speak in 2013 and 2014. And, um, it was very much just an advocate of the information that I was given from my nutrition coach about macro nutrition, which basically set me free from food slavery. Um, so all of the counseling and everything that needed to happen happened in the perfect

order, even though I always felt like it wasn't fast enough. My results weren't quick enough. Um, I remember going from the 1150 calories in 2012 to 1800 calories in 2014. It took 18 months for me to get to 1800 calories. It was so hard mentally. Um, physically I had to put a little bit of weight on near the top of that reverse. And I decided at that time that I was going to do a competition again. And so I never really made it through a full reverse. I bet I could have probably been up around 2250 to 2500 calories had I kept going. So I dieted.

I looked the best I've ever looked on stage. I was in a place of peace. Um, I was just thinking about getting out of, you know, competing and competition prep completely. Um, I had that conversation with Scott. He was very, very proactive. I know it hurt him because it was a large part of our business and what we did. And it was big money maker for STS and I you know said I know this is gonna impact you a lot but I have to move on this isn't my passion anymore yeah and so I started powerlifting after my that competition in California I took second place it was a John Lindsay show and again you know the

big namers came up to me all Oh, you got to go IFBB. You got it. You got it. And it was not about that for me. It was never about being an IFBB pro for me where it's about that for so many people. I knew that I wasn't going to make any money. I had seen everything behind the scenes. I've seen all of the great. I've seen all of the bad. I've seen all of the glory. I've seen all of the sad. I've seen all of the glory. I've seen all of the sad. I've seen competitors go from being on top one year to being a no name two years later. I had to look at how am I going to help people and redirect them and work on the issue that we have in the U S and I mean really worldwide. Now we have a huge obesity epidemic.

I'm going to be far more impactful being a teacher than being an Instagram model. Yeah. I don't want to make money for two or three years. I want to make a great income and help a lot of people. Right. And I want to be able to speak to people, so I need to create a more educated platform to do that. So then I decided to go back to school.

It all kind of happened at once, too. I decided to get out of training and go into nutrition and create KMF. And I stayed in the little studio apartment until it was safe for me to move into something a little bit bigger that I could afford. Very thankful for, I mean, God just literally placed the right people in my life at the right time. Sure. My landlord was amazing. Um, I, I kept thinking to myself, my credit's so bad, you know, I just came out of this disaster, this mega debt crisis, you know, um, I had talked openly about it on several podcasts for, uh, my friend who has a leadership association and a group of leaders that he works with.

And they were just like, wow, that's a lot of debt. And I just had finally the realization, I can do anything as long as I keep my head in the right place. I need to get all these people that are causing me stress out of my life. And that didn't mean that I cut them off. It was just that I realized that, you know, they were only with me because of what I was doing for them. So now I just need to back off and I need to do more for the people who are there that are helping me. My fab five. And I didn't have five people at that time. I had like three, which was great, you know? And now I've got more than three.

And I just was very, I was at a place where I was not complacent, but just comfortable. Really comfortable. Just, you know, we talked about this a couple weeks back in church. Just being at a place where if you were happy and content, this is where you'd be. And what does that look like for you? And when you get there, would you still be content and comfortable? And I think that's, you know, what we see out there that is not real about social media is, you know, we see people posting pictures from years ago when they look like this and they look like that, you know, what we see out there that is not real about social media is, you know, we see people posting pictures from years ago when they look like this and they look like that, you know, or they were in this place or they were in this beautiful vacation that they were at. That's not real life, guys.

Real life is that we are going to have ups and downs. And, you know, the bottom line is I wanted my company to emulate my value system. Some people still work with me. Some people don't. Some people are chasing narcissism and they want to keep going that path. And that's okay. Yeah. Some people love my coaching system and some people think that it's not the right coaching

system for them. I really don't talk a lot about Jesus when I'm talking about, you know, in my coaching system, but the people who know my heart know exactly when I'm talking about, you know, in my coaching system, but the people who know my heart know exactly where I'm at. So, you know, I'm just saying people need to find this place of peace with their body, how they look, um, how they feel. I feel the best I've ever felt in my entire life at 40 years old. I have so much energy. I have so much knowledge. I follow the right people and I follow the right people with purpose. Like I think Brett Contreras is amazing at what he does with glute training. Brett and I don't think the same way. We have

different philosophies on a lot of things, but when I'm talking to somebody about glute training, I say, have you looked at this and this that you're doing is there's no purpose to it. Go follow Brett, you know, and, and really educate yourself to go also pick up some information from Stu McGill. Go also pick up some information from Brad Schoenfeld and go also pick up some information from this person or that person. So I never, I never make them think that I am the expert, but I follow the right people who have the up and coming and the very best science out there because all we have is what we know is science. Science is gray. Yeah. It's not black. It's not white. And there are so many people that live in these extremes of black and white,

but they have no gray. So they're either happy or they're not, they're never content. And the gray area very much is that area of content. You know, there's times to be black or extreme, and there's times to be less extreme. But I think that that's the problem is that Americans are all or nothing. Sure. We want everything right now. And that's not the way it is. Science shows that. Yeah.

As type A as you, as you are and have been, have you always been, have you always expressed that level of humility? Because what we experience, especially in the social media landscape of fitness personalities and influencers and whatnot, are these parents, right? That are very good at regurgitating information without context. And if you talk to James Fitzgerald, I just saw a post of his a couple of weeks ago where he said one of the most enlightened answers that are a sign or one of the, what is it? One of the most obvious signs of enlightenment when talking to somebody in our profession is. I don't know. I don't know.

Yes. Or it depends. Yes. Yes. And I agree with that a hundred percent. You know, um, the other thing that I think is huge is I hear this a lot. Uh, people will come back to me. Um, they'll leave my macro coaching system and they go off on their own and then, you know, they'll decide to embark on some other fitness journey and they come back and they go, well, this coach I was working with, and they said that you had me too low for this. And I said, well, they didn't know what your goals were at the time. Right. Your goals were different when you signed up with them. You also had two more years of nutrition under your belt and training. Right. Your goals were different. When you started with me, you had never lifted a weight before.

So I'm very offended that someone would actually talk negatively about another person, not knowing what their path was when they came to them. So early on, you are right. I was uneducated and I fell into talking about other coaches. I did. And I fell into listening to other people talk poorly and negatively about other people's methods. And it's really none of my business. Right. But you're right. I don't know everything.

I'm not going to know everything. I think part of what makes my job and my occupation so fun is that science is always changing. Yeah. Opinions differ. And I love listening to two very educated people, um, talk about a topic like insulin or, and they totally disagree. I was listening to a podcast of three scientists talking about insulin and not one of them was on the same page, but in, in the battle lied the truth because I was thinking about all of my test subjects and all my type two and, and all of

my clients that have autoimmune, which also, you know, can be associated with insulin resistance. I'm thinking there's merit to what he's saying. There's merit to what he's saying. There's not very much merit to what he's saying, but a little, you know, and so you can kind of draw your own conclusions through experience. Sure. You know, I had a medical doctor come in and shadow me the other day and she's like, Oh my gosh, like this is so above and beyond anything they've taught me in,

you know, medical school. And I was like, well, yeah, of course. Cause you don't, you get 24 hours of nutrition experience.

She goes, no, what you do is so psychological. And I said, Oh yes, the psychology of dieting is the number one issue that I have with almost everyone, including CrossFit athletes.

Oh sure. They think they've got to do this. They've got to reinvent the wheel. This person's doing this. They should do it. And I'm like, this person has different genetics. This person has different background.

This person has, you know, so many different variables. And they're like, Oh my gosh, you're right. And I'm like, this person has different genetics. This person has different background. This person has, you know, so many different variables. And they're like, oh my gosh, you're right. And I'm like, we're not robots. You guys were human beings. And so there isn't a right or wrong answer. I firmly believe there's a better way to do certain things, but different ways are okay. So I get clients that ask, why does my macro coach do it this way? And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know why. I can't explain somebody else's method. I can explain to you my method. Right.

And I can explain to you that my method with you is far different from my method would be with Michael. And it's far different than my method would be with somebody who's 300 pounds that has never touched a weight or a treadmill in their entire life. Are the, are they going to be more responsive? Oh yeah, for sure. You wouldn't think that though. You would think the athlete would be, but they're not. That's what a lot of this, a very common misconception when it comes to the, the grade of performance. Yes.

When you're working with the general population population you can do a little bit of work and make massive gains it's when you're talking when you're talking about a system that's already fine-tuned yes you have to do a shit ton of work to get yes the most small results fat loss is like that you know we talk about tangible fat loss and people are like yeah I lost five pounds the first week and I'm like it wasn't body fat water and if it was let me tell you what you are he man you are the exception to every rule out there fat loss is not fast it's never going to be and it's not linear yeah and everybody wants to see things from a linear standpoint. Fat loss is not linear. Sure. You know, dieting isn't linear. Nutrition and training are not linear. Like training should

not be linear either. It's got periods and you know, life happens, which is the messy part of it is when life happens, you have to be able to say, oh my gosh, this person just passed away or I'm getting a divorce now, or I'm doing this. Maybe right now is not the time for me to do a power lifting meet. Maybe right now would be a good time for me to go into maintenance with my macros, to not use my macro coach for a few months and just save some money and just maintain, pump the brakes and just cope with the real issues that are right there but what i see in the fitness industry and even in just american population is a lot of people take what they're faced with adversity and they compartmentalize it and they put it away and they don't understand why

now they can't have relationships with people because they've been chasing narcissism. They've been thinking that, you know, driving this car or making this much money is going to bring a good person to them. Right. You got to deal with all the stuff that you put in the compartments. Yeah. And you've got to deal with what's going on right now. And then you need to revisit if you still think that these things are going to bring this person into your life. So if we go there, you know, a lot of people ask me, why are you not married?

Well, there are quite a few reasons why I'm not married. One, I was not in a place to be a good wife in my late 20s. I was engaged. I'm not married to the person. There's a reason he was not in a place to be a good husband. I was not in a place to be a good wife. We went to counseling. We realized we were far too young, inexperienced and had too much compartmentalized that we needed to deal with before we could come together and be a force to be reckoned with. I knew I never wanted to be married twice.

I knew I've never wanted to be divorced and I wasn't sure that I really wanted to be married until I was in my mid thirties. So I'm like a guy, I'm not really sure. Right. I say that so loosely guys are awesome. Um, but everybody's got their own pattern, their own growth and their own experience. And I couldn't honestly say that I wanted to be married until probably the last three years. So I dated, but I really wasn't dating with the intention of like purposeful,

purposefully meeting someone that I would marry. And I didn't realize that until, you know, maybe five years ago when I was like, I shouldn't date until I'm in a place where I would be a good wife, one. Mentally, I'm so sound that I would never allow the issues from the past, eating disorder, body image, debt, not knowing, financially I would be secure. Not having a financially sound faith foundation, belief system. Kids was kind of out of the picture after 35 because I was like, well, I've kind of made it this far and I'm not married. So I'm pretty sure I'm not going to have kids.

But, you know, you just never know. But I can say without hesitation now, I'd be an amazing wife. I would be a great mom. If any of those things happened or that's what comes, I know I'll be able to tackle those and be really, really good as a wife and a mom or, you know, and I've never really thought of being a mom, but I'm a mom to 250 adults every day. You know, so it's awesome. No, that's massive. And they say that. And they're so encouraging. These people that I work with and even people that I don't work with that hit me up on Instagram and say, keep doing what you're doing.

You impacted my life today. What? You know, that's what I think fitness professionals really should be working toward. Not because, you know, they want to be this Hollywood star. Guys, there's no money to be made in competition. Is there, Mike? No. Michael, there's not?

No. There's no money? And, you know, when you're talking about the money in the deal, so like, for example, if you take first at the CrossFit Games. Yes. I think the purse is like 500 grand or something like that. But I mean, like comparatively speaking, when you're talking about making light,

you know, the hours put into that 500 grand, the supplements and yeah, all this stuff, you know, with compared to like athletes in the big four, you know, it's not,

that's not real money. It's short lived. You know, very. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, it's not, that's not real money. It's short lived. You know, and very, yeah. So, I mean, you know, at that level of competition, you know, everybody has a window of performance, you know, and that window is very, very short, you know, for every Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Kobe Bryant, uh, Dirk Nowitzki's 21 years in the NBA. Yes. As of this, he just signed a new contract.

Crazy. So awesome. For every one of them, there's hundreds of guys that don't make it out of the first season. Yes. First three years. Don't see the boneyard left behind. Yeah. Right.

That's so true. So, you know, I love the fact that, you know, on your journey, you've come full circle with the concept of this seems to be a very common theme as of late. Time with self. Purpose. Introspection. Yes. And figuring your own shit out before you can truly have a genuine impact on others. Yeah. can truly have a genuine impact on others. And you see so many people, and you know, it's, I think it's part of the human evolution

where, you know, you start out from the outside in, you know, trying to fix others before you fix yourself. And then at some point you, you run across the right person or you have this, this aha moment, this experience is like, holy shit. Maybe if I just work on me, then I can start helping other people. And the more I work on myself, the better coach I am. Absolutely. You know, and we actually just kind of met up at the GSD Get uh, get done, uh, conference up in North Scottsdale. And, um,

you know, I took something from that and it was just don't stop learning. Don't stop growing. Look at what the young guys are doing too. And it's no different from what they told us 15 to 20 years ago. We just didn't listen. Sure. You know what I mean? Robert Kiyosaki was saying the same thing. Get up in the morning, read, start making sure that you are fulfilling your greater gifts and purpose, whatever those might be.

And you might discover along the way that the gifts that you think you have are really not the gifts that you should be using for an occupation. Right. But that's okay. It's part of the journey. You're going to fall down. You'll get back up. Um, you know, Jonathan Maxwell has some great books. Failing forward was one of the best books I've read to date. And I've read a lot of books. Um, and I just think, you know, there are so many people out there that you can read their books and you get something from the book and you can share that with somebody that comes to you. You know, if you're really listening to people and if you want to coach people in particular, you have to shut up and you have to start listening.

Yeah. It's really funny. A mentor of mine in the Marine Corps actually gave me this nugget and I've carried it with me ever since. And he's like, if you want people to think that you're really, really smart, shut the fuck up. Yes, listen. Yeah. Be the one asking the questions,

not the one trying, not the one raising your hand, trying to give the answers. And, uh, it's so true. Um, you know, that, that has, that has stuck with me. And as I watch, you know, people interact and, you know, especially in the fitness space and, you know, these people out there are just trying to instead of facilitating conversation as a means to provide information they want to be the ones that are celebrated as the better the end all be all with all the answers the thought leader yeah the thought leader and i think that if you look at the people that are truly impactful from a thought leader perspective it's very authentic it's genuine and it's organic you know they they're doing they've done so much work on self and they're so genuinely interested in whatever it is you know elon musk and rocket ships right you know what i

mean they're either facilitating that drive forward yeah or they're so interested in it themselves they've run out of the the commonality of literature and started to think and been forced to think outside the box to become that thought leader but the people that are you know acting as if you know they eventually run out of answers they do yeah i like i love that idea that you're discussing because you you see all this stuff going on it's like instead of looking like how do i attract this how do i attract money how do i attract this girl or guy or whatever instead of thinking like that people who are thought leaders or you know scientists type of mindset is always testing it's like not how do i attract it who is the person i need to become to attract that yes and like true. Those are the ideas as you start thinking and going through your process.

Instead of saying, you know, come to me because I'm all knowing being. It's going out there, being that researcher, doing the test on yourselves. Yes. And getting feedback and developing that tough skin to be able to accept that feedback. Oh, and it is tough skin. Yeah, you know? Oh, yeah. You've got to have it.

People ask me all the time, oh, I wanted to be a macro coach, but I tried it. And, man, people just beat me up. And I said, that's life. That's normal. That's the process. Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, you're going to have people that hate you, that love you. Yeah.

You've got to put your blinders on, and you've got to stay focused on the road. When did you stop stepping outside your lane? It's, it's been a very interesting evolution in my own personal career. You know, when you launch and you're trying to wear all the hats, right? And now I've got the, the resources available to really maximize my client's experience and my time. So when people are like, Oh, you know, what do you, what do you think about food and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I sent them to two places. I sent them to Caitlin to talk about the nutrition. And when you want to get together on supplements, I sent them to first form, you know, everything's out there. Boom. And, uh, but

it took me, uh, a while to be humble enough to do that with confidence. Yes, yes. I don't think it was ever a question as to whether or not it was the right thing. But when you're battling the ego and you're like, I don't want to be seen as less than. Right. You know, that happened for me really the first year of KMF. And it probably was because I became a Christian. I had to be humbled. I was not all knowing. I was not the best at everything. And you know, coming out

of the fitness industry, I would have said I wasn't even near the best at that either. So when people would come to me and they want a competition prep, this was a rule I made right away. I said, I'm not going to work with competitors in the fitness industry. And I've stuck pretty true to this day. I have put a couple people on stage because they were my coaches and, uh, you know, and, or a very, very close friend or something of that matter. But I, I had to say, this is the person that you want to go to. If you want to win, I had to listen to the person say, I don't want to just go on stage. you want to win i had to listen to the person say i don't want to just go on stage i want to win okay you're going to go to az pro physiques okay i would send them so i still send people to different macro coaches all the time right i send um tnt almost all of my posing clients okay okay um it's tyler mayer isn't it yes i i send and uh leanne is one of his coaches

i taught her to pose. She's an amazing poser. She's taken it to the next level. She's very good and she loves people and she cares about them. So I want people to have the same experience that they would have with me with the person that I'm delegating. So I delegated Leanne. She is the posing coach I send people to. I send a lot of men's physique competitors to Matt Christianer and Rigo at Independence Gym. Um, why? Because when I meet with these people, Matt Christianer is equally

yoked like I am. He is funny. He is approachable. He has a heart of gold. So the people that I, and you know, I sometimes have to send people to a ketogenic macro coach because I want them to be taken care of because they have this health concern or this health concern. It's out of my scope. And so Dr. Dominic, you know, D'Agostino would be the best person for them. So I, I started doing that right away and, and no one questioned me. They weren't like, Oh, you can't take me. Why can't you take me if you're the best? What I realized is people were like, thank you very much. Absolutely. This person is awesome. They are expensive. So I'm going to keep doing my research. Okay. That's fine. I know it's a lot of money to pay to go to a doctor.

Dr. Joe Klemczewski is wonderful at what he's does. He's the pioneer of macro tracking. His book changed my life. life um the diet docs permanent guide to weight loss it was the very first book that i could give to a gen pop person and they would say wow this makes sense you know i give him a lot of accolades because he he speaks so eloquently to people he presents the information and allows them to think for themselves sure so you know anyone that i would send somebody to like a trainers personal trainers i don't just send somebody to a run-of-the-mill trainer right i send them to somebody who's a good fit for their personality um somebody that i know is going to take them from where they are to where they need to be in that progression of, you know, well, you don't do anything.

Okay, let's start with this. You live in Gilbert. Why don't you go to OTF on this or go ahead and go over and you're going to take basic CrossFit at Infernal. You're not going to do competitor CrossFit. You're going to take basic CrossFit because some people come to me and they want to do CrossFit. Yeah. And I'm not going to say, oh, you know, you shouldn't go to CrossFit when they want to

go to CrossFit. I would just say, this is a gym that I know will teach you from the ground up. Or this is a place you can go if you're in Scottsdale. And so I try to send the person to the best fit for them. Sure. Because I don't want to be all those people. Right. I want to let my network know that I care about them.

And it's really interesting how when you start scratching people's back, they scratch your back. They do. Um, you know, if you send referrals to people and they're never, ever returning referral business to you, you're not on the same page. You should probably stop sending referrals there. They don't care about you anymore. Interesting. Yeah. And as you've started to, you know, you've overcome your adversities through life, transitioned, and developed this abundance mindset and where you are today, how do you define your purpose, your current purpose in life? What do you see it as? up, this is part of my prayer routine, is just allow me to be impactful and help as many people as I can better their life, better their self-esteem, better their self-worth, and make them maybe discover who they truly are through me or, you know, through their higher power. I can't

make people discover who they are, but I can give them some tools and things that have helped me. And it's, those things aren't going to help everybody and that's okay. But just to be able to be impactful to as many people as I can before I go, you know, um, if you just smile at somebody in the grocery store or make the cashier laugh, that could have changed their entire day. So when I look at the big picture, I look at real world people. I don't look at just my clients. They're amazing people. They're just as amazing to me as they think I am to them. But go out and anybody that you can speak to, make sure, you know, even yesterday I got delivered some bad news

and it was really crappy the way it was delivered to me. And I pulled the girl aside and I said, so-and-so, I realize you're not in charge of telling people good news. I'm sorry that I didn't receive it the best way today. Please forgive me. And she was like, Kelly, we know you are the coolest person. You come in here, you make us laugh every week when you're here. And I got to thinking to myself, because I was really beating myself up,

I literally walked to my car and walked back in to apologize. Because I said, you know, instead of being like, gosh darn it, why is this $100 more, I should have just been like, okay, why is this $100 more? Okay, and accepted it and moved on. You know, every day, my goal is to be a better human being so that I can lead people and be impactful and not just with nutrition and not by looking at pictures of me on Instagram, but for what my, where my heart is, you know, and if you truly are out there wanting to better people

and to encourage people, my job is to be an encourager. That's one of my gifts. My other gift is to be a teacher and a leader and to bring out these things in people that they didn't know were there, you know, just to say, Hey, did you know that you are a really good organizer? I am. Yeah. Have you ever thought maybe you should, you don't like what you're doing for work. It's the same. It's paying back what Scott Keppel gave me, which was a gift of trust and the gift of believing in yourself. I can sincerely say, you know, that I think Scott believed in me more than I believed in myself back in 2010, when I decided to leave real estate and had literally no money to my name. And then my boyfriend at the time that I built KMF

believed in me so much. And he said, Kelly, you're missing the forest for the trees. You know what your gift is? It's this and this. Well, he had never told me anything that nice before. I mean, he was nice. I wouldn't have been dating him, but he really changed the way I truly looked at myself. And I said, wow, this is somebody that I chose to surround myself with. And I'm healthy.

My mind is healthy. I'm in a good place. He's telling me that I am these things and I've heard this over and over again. Why do I not believe these things from my fab five? Why? Yeah. Wait a minute. God placed all these people in my life. And basically I'm not choosing to trust anything that they say, which is all this good stuff, you know? So it's really important also to surround yourself with people who are your biggest fans or you will get nowhere. You'll be competing with them and they're competing with you. It's not healthy. It's not a good place. I don't believe

for a minute, you know, I listened to some of the most amazing multimillionaires talk about, you know, you got to do this and you amazing multimillionaires talk about, you know, you got to do this and you've got to be cutthroat and you've got it. I don't really think you need to do all that. I think that you, you've got to be authentic and you got to be willing to do things that other people are not willing to do. That's the bottom line. You know, you got to be willing to do some hard shit every day, you know, every day you've got to be willing to do it. Sometimes you've got to be willing to make sacrifices because a sacrifice without paying the price is not a sacrifice.

You not going out to a club so that you can grind and get your grind on is not a sacrifice, in my opinion. A sacrifice is a sacrifice when you pay the price and we know what that is. It's for you, Michael, it's probably family time a lot. It might also be, you sit there and you think, man, I had to do this for my business this week and I didn't get a chance to go out with my wife. I, and you know, those are things that if you communicate them, they don't have to be turmoil, right? They can be, they can be tough time periods that you go through where you have to

be open with your communication. You know, this is what I've got going on right now. I would love to come to California and celebrate our family reunion, but I can't come this year. I've had to make a lot of sacrifices with money, friends. Um, it's been, and my friends are so awesome. They're like, get there when you get there, you know, we would love to have you when you get there. Okay. Those are people that are, I mean, I know them. I, they're, they're lifers, you know, they're lifers. So speaking to the things that, you know, doing the things that others won't every day. Um, I want to leave you with these two questions. Uh, the first, and you can answer them at any level, mental, physical, spiritual, uh, whatever strikes you right now. Um, the first of which, what do you do each and every day to feed yourself and kickstart this,

this energy and this light that you have? And the follow onto that is what do you do every day to fuel yourself and stimulate that sustained motivation and energy across the longterm? Those are awesome. Awesome questions. Um, the first one, uh, I wasn't doing this for a long time and I was realizing that, uh, by the end of the day, my day felt pretty chaotic. So every morning I map out, like I got here and I forgot that I had told Michael that I would come at one 30 and I was scheduled for 1215. And, um, my time today to listen to, um to this podcast that I love to listen to that feeds me in the morning and I get fed from a couple different places but this one I needed to hear today I kind of cycle them when I'm I'm really good at identifying what I need in the morning

I said no problem I got here early went and I did my cardio, which is never. Uh, and I put that podcast on for 30 minutes and that's what I do every day is I will either get in the word. Um, I am a Christian, so I'll either read in my Bible. I've actually shared a lot of, uh, tips for how I started, like not feeling intimidated about reading scripture because it's very intimidating. You go into the old Testament and you never come out of it. You know what I mean? So, um, a lot of people send me DMS on, uh, Instagram. They're like, man, I'm, it's so nice that you're not afraid to talk about what you do. And I'm like, I'm still learning every single day. So I'll get in the word. And basically what I'll do in the

morning is I will pray. And the first word that pops into my head is what I will go to in the back of my Bible. So let's say it's forgiveness. I was praying and maybe I was praying, you know, Lord, please let this person forgive me. I've forgiven them, but, you know, I'm just still praying that this person will forgive me and give me an opportunity to, you know, to be a part of their life because I really want to be a part of their life. Or, you know, I'm just using an example or, um, squandering some has come to my mind. So I go back and then I just read scripture on squandering. And I feel like when I go to my email box for 12 hours that day, yeah, I can now say something that is different than what everybody else is saying, because maybe there's somebody that comes to me that day that needs to forgive somebody is saying, because maybe there's somebody that comes to me that day that needs to forgive somebody. Um, and then as far as staying motivated

and fueled, um, I love training, but I was using training to feed me before. Um, now what I use is my, not complacency, but my place of peace to say, if I don't fuel myself, I will not be able to stay at a place of peace. So I need to make sure that I look at my whiteboard every week and I have these four squares. It's really awesome visual faith, finance, fitness, and fellowship fund. Okay. Okay. It's kind of a balance board. Sure. If one of the

areas is not blank, I know that I haven't worked very hard in that area. Cause when I do those things, I erase them from the dry erase board as I finish them. So like fun has a lot of writing on it right now because I haven't had a lot of fun because I'm writing an ebook and time has been very tight. I feel you on that. Yeah. So fellowship I always have, cause if I don't have my girls and my, my meeting on Tuesdays that I go to, um, I'm a part of celebrate recovery, which is basically, um, my, my fuel. Okay. Um, I feel very unbalanced. Sure. So this group has really helped me in a lot of ways with coaching too, because we don't just have addicts in there. We have people with stress and trauma issues, people with depression, people have been struggling with divorce, anxiety, codependency.

And I'm just hearing like there are hurting people out there that are going out there and they're hurting other people. So make sure that you're aware of that. And being able to share that with my population kind of keeps me fueled in a sense, being able to, you know, to learn and to grow and to be able to be impactful. Um, I'm always very motivated when it comes to fitness. Cause I love the way I feel. Yeah. Like I love the way training feels. I love the way eating right feels. Um, when I eat like a jerk, I don't feel good. So I don't really eat like a jerk very often, you know? Um, and when I mean eat like a jerk, I just mean, you know, be very careless with what I'm consuming or under consuming in a sense. Um, because I still have that old bad

programming in there. Oh, right. So my biggest concern for myself is making sure that I do track my food every day. I've tracked it for 1400 days. Why? Because I have old bad programming and I need accountability. So for me to say, yes, I met my goal today or exceeded is better than the fall under when I come from that history

of, you know, prior eating disorder related behavior or restriction. Um, I've got to make sure that I self check. And so that's a method that fuels me. Right. I love that. Yeah. And then where can the community go follow you and support you and all the endeavors you have coming with your ebook and everything. So my website is, uh, kellymichelle.com and we're probably going to be changing that to keep moving forward. But right now I'm not doing that until the end of the year or early 2019. My Instagram is macro coach Kelly. Same thing with my Twitter, macro coach Kelly. And my Facebook is kellymichelle777, or you can just go to Kelly Michelle Kelly with an eye and You can find me there or at first form backslash Kelly Michelle

Legionnaire, so Yeah, I'm not a endorsed by any companies right now. I've chosen to stay away from that for various reasons Yeah, but I you know I'm always a huge advocate of diamond tiesatize for being an awesome company and First Form for being an awesome company. And there are other companies out there that I think do a great job. So, yeah, that is not my goal. My goal is not to sell supplements or things that people don't need to them. But I really appreciate the plugs. And I've done a couple recent podcasts, an eight-part series for Dr. Matthew Hernandez.

And he has a really great podcast. We've done a series on hormones and then obviously a four part series on nutrition. And, um, that is the ethos athletes podcast. So you can download that one. Um, I loved this opportunity. You guys, thank you so much for having me me i don't get the opportunity to speak about me or my journey very often and um i was so much more excited today knowing that i was going to get to share some things that people probably didn't know and didn't think i would talk about so no that's awesome thank you for being open yeah i appreciate you being uh vulnerable with us gotta be you know for for you know the the, the impact that Jeff and I want, feed me, feel me to have on our audience and the greater community. It's that authenticity that,

that really drives it home. And, you know, to a couple of points that you made, um, in our conversation, you hear what you need to hear when you need to hear it, you know, and, uh, it's not that any coach after you is that much better or, you know, whatever. They're ready. It's not the messenger. It's the message, you know. And we always find that as our guests come along, even our more than regular listeners hear what they need to hear when they need to hear it. Yes.

So we really appreciate you taking the time to be on that because there's somebody that's going to hear your message and it's going to resonate. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. Until next time, guys.

Yeah. Feed me, fuel me. And that'll do it for this episode with our guest, Kelly Michelle. If you want to check out everything that Kelly has going and her business, KMF, keep moving forward,

please go to the full show notes on theshrugcollective.com. Also, be sure to connect with us on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Feed Me Fuel Me. We would love to hear from each and every one of you. If you found this episode inspiring in any way, please leave a rating and a comment in iTunes so we can continue on this journey together. Thank you. we would love to hear your feedback on this episode as well as guests and topics for future episodes to end this episode we would love to leave you with a quote from maya angelou you may not control all the events that happen to you but you can decide not to be reduced by them thank you again for joining us and we'll catch you on the next episode episode. you