Why "Build Strength for Real Life" Means Everything to Me

I started CrossFit at 28 years old, and I want to talk to you about why and why it's still such a huge part of my life.

It wasn't because I wanted six-pack abs or a PR on my deadlift. It wasn't because I had some dramatic health scare or a doctor who sat me down and gave me a speech. Well — actually, it sort of started that way. But the reason I stayed, and the reason fitness eventually became the center of my life and my career, is a much longer story. One I think is worth telling, because if you've ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or like you've tried everything and nothing has really worked, some part of this might sound familiar.

Where It Started

When I was 26, I was over 300 pounds and newly engaged. My doctor was clear with me: if I wanted to have children, I needed to lose weight — at least 50 pounds, she said. That was my initial motivator. Not confidence, not longevity, not performance. Just the very real and specific goal of being able to start a family someday.

So I started working with a personal trainer. Boot camp style, an hour a day, a few times a week. And it worked — sort of. Over the next couple of years, I lost around 30 to 40 pounds. Enough that I felt better going into my wedding in 2011. But I also hit a wall. The boot camp eventually shut down (as small local fitness businesses sometimes do), and I found myself back at square one, looking for something that I could stick to.

That's when I drove past a sign that said CrossFit.

I called, did a free class, and then signed up for their two-week foundations course. And somewhere in those two weeks, something clicked that hadn't clicked before. I had always hated cardio — truly hated it. But CrossFit was weightlifting with cardio built in, and that distinction mattered more than I expected. I liked lifting. I liked feeling strong. For the first time, a workout felt like something I actually wanted to come back to, not something I was forcing myself to endure.

Within my first year of CrossFit, I lost another 70 pounds.

More Than the Weight

Here's the part that's harder to explain, but I think it's the most important part.

When I started losing weight, I thought I was doing it to have a baby. And eventually I did — but what I didn't expect was how much getting physically stronger was going to change everything else. My confidence. My sense of self. My understanding of what I actually wanted from my life.

My first marriage didn't survive that transformation, and I don't say that with bitterness. We went in different directions — which happens. But I do believe that if you find yourself moving toward a version of your life that feels more honest, more capable, more like you, you owe it to yourself to follow that. Staying somewhere out of comfort or fear is its own kind of cost. I learned that firsthand.

By the time I separated in 2013, I was strong, confident, and genuinely excited about my future in a way I hadn't been before. My divorce was finalized in 2014 — the day before I met my current husband, which still makes me smile. The timing felt like the universe tying things up neatly.

Functional Fitness and the Seasons of Life

I kept doing CrossFit. I met my husband, and in 2016 we had our first daughter. I worked out throughout that entire pregnancy, and I really believe it made a significant difference — in how I carried the pregnancy, how labor went, and how quickly I recovered afterward. My body knew how to work. It had been trained to do hard things.

Four years later, we had our second daughter. And then less than a year after that, our third — born in 2021. Back-to-back pregnancies are so hard on your body. But I leaned into specific postpartum training after each one, stayed consistent with functional movement throughout, and came back stronger each time. That third recovery was harder — more mentally than physically — and that experience is a big part of why mindset coaching became so important to me. Your body and your brain are not separate systems. What happens in one absolutely affects the other.

Then in December 2025, I had a hysterectomy.

My recovery was faster than most women experience after that procedure, and I'm not saying that to brag. I'm saying it because it's the clearest example I have of what years of functional fitness actually builds. It's not just muscle. It's resilience. It's a body that knows how to heal, how to adapt, how to come back. That's what "build strength for real life" actually means to me — not just being strong in the gym, but being strong for the things life throws at you. Pregnancies, surgeries, stress, change, hard seasons. All of it.

Why I Coach the Way I Do

I've been in CrossFit for nearly 14 years now. I'm a CrossFit Level 2 Trainer, a Precision Nutrition Certified Coach, a Certified Health Mindset Coach, and a Certified Pregnancy and Postpartum Coach. But more than the certifications, I've lived the experience of starting from a place of feeling stuck and overwhelmed, of trying things that didn't work, of finding something that finally did — and then watching it change every single area of my life.

That's what I bring to coaching. Not just the science (though I take the science seriously), but the real, ground-level understanding of what it feels like to be at the beginning. To not know where to start. To have lost and gained the same weight more than once. To be a busy adult with a family and a job and a thousand competing demands, trying to figure out how to make your health a priority without burning everything else down.

I coach because I know it's possible to build a version of health that actually fits your real life. Not a perfect version — a sustainable one.

TreanFit is where I share everything I've learned — about movement, nutrition, behavior change, mindset, and what it really takes to build strength that lasts. If any part of my story sounds like yours, I'm glad you're here.

— Coach Lisa