Pharmaphobic
Pharmaphobic is a bold and thought-provoking podcast that challenges the status quo of health and wellness in America. Hosted by Dan, a veteran-turned-fitness professional, and Janie, a physician assistant, this show dives into the deep-rooted issues within big pharma, big food, and the healthcare system. With a mission to uncover corruption and promote sustainable, long-term health solutions, Pharmaphobic is for those seeking better answers, curious minds ready to question the system, and anyone eager to take control of their well-being. Join Dan and Janie each week as they explore practical ways to thrive, share transformative health insights, and inspire change. Follow Pharmaphobic on your favorite podcast platform and be part of the movement toward real health and wellness.
Pharmaphobic
Ep. 73 - Challenge Accepted with Katie Guillory
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We started with sports, strength coaching, and why the best athletes aren’t always the stars. Katie Guillory shares what competing at LSU taught her about failure, emotional regulation, and learning to find value in adversity instead of running from it.
Then the conversation gets much more personal. After years of injuries and surgeries, Katie lost the lower half of her leg in a jet ski accident. We talk about what it means to keep showing up, adapt when your body changes, and take care of yourself without letting setbacks become excuses.
Now she’s coaching Division I athletes, navigating life as an amputee, and pursuing a Paralympic dream. When life changes everything without asking, how do we process it, accept it, and keep moving?
Contact Katie Guillory:
Email: kguil@lsu.edu
Instagram: @steel_guil
Contact Daniel and Janie:
Email: info@achievethelifestyle.com
Website: achievethelifestyle.com
Instagram: @achievethelifestyle
Pharmaphobic is powered by Achieve the Lifestyle, a company dedicated to helping you empower your health, redefine your lifestyle, and all for the health of it. You're listening to Pharmaphobic, where we challenge the state of health in America. I'm Janie, a physician assistant, and I've seen how healthcare keeps people dependent instead of truly healthy.
SPEAKER_00And I'm Dan, a veteran turned fitness pro here to uncover the truth and explore simple and sustainable health solutions. From big pharma to big food, we're exposing the conflicts of interest, keeping us fit, and finding better ways to take back our health.
SPEAKER_02No fluff, no gimmicks, just real talk, real solutions, and a little bit of fun along the way.
SPEAKER_00Hello there. Welcome to another episode of Pharmaphobic, where we help you become the strongest, healthiest, and most capable version of yourself. As always, I'm here with a very special guest in my life. It's my lovely wife, Miss Janie Brown.
SPEAKER_02I am not a special guest. I'm a co-and- but we do have a special guest today.
SPEAKER_00And we have a specialer guest, yes.
SPEAKER_02Specialer, okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. We have Maggie Moo is in the building as a special guest. And then we have a very more special guest, Miss Katie Gillary today. How are you doing, Katie?
SPEAKER_03What's up, y'all? We're good. It's uh well, I guess the weather's probably not far off. It's it's hot and muggy outside already. Yeah, it's early morning. So, but you know what? Sun's shining, it's gonna be a good day. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Summer in the southeast is definitely serious.
SPEAKER_02It is so Katie, you're in Louisiana. Yep, yeah. Where at in Louisiana? Okay.
SPEAKER_00So Katie is a strength coach, a division one strength coach at that guy. That matters. Um for LSU. How long have you been doing that, Katie?
SPEAKER_03In total, um, from GA to now, it's been 11 years, but I've been back at LSU full time uh for just over four years now.
SPEAKER_00You GA'd and LSU?
SPEAKER_03Say again.
SPEAKER_00Did you do your GA time at LSU?
SPEAKER_03No, I actually was at Liberty University in Virginia at the GA and then got hired on um full time midway through. So it was just such a chaotic time in my life. Uh a lot of growth in a short period of time, and then was at the University of Illinois for about three and a half years, and then have been back here.
SPEAKER_00So for those listening that don't, because I think Katie, you're the first strength coach that we have on that's in the field. Like I'm a private in the private sector. So GA is graduate assistant and it's like an internship that all strength coaches go through, where you kind of earn your place at the table to be called coach, basically.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's it's a partnership. So basically, the the school says, hey, we if you want to further your education, we will offer you kind of a scholarship and a stipend. But to do that, instead of playing a sport, you are now on staff with us. So you have full-time responsibilities, but you're still in school and you're really not getting paid full-time, um, but you are kind of collecting a stipend. So it is a level up from internship, but it's all with a greater goal of normally getting a master's degree.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And it's, I mean, it's cutting your teeth, right? Like you're really earning your your place at the table. There's a lot of work and a lot of like, I mean, I don't want to say it's like hazing, but it's, you know, you're you're earning a spot on the team, right?
SPEAKER_03You are. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So the reason we have Katie on, not only to talk about this strength coach journey, you know, and and how that pertains to like general population health, right? Like she works with some of the top athletes in the country. If you live under Iraq and you haven't heard of LSU, uh, they're pretty good at sports. I'm don't go in and say that. They got some pretty good athletes, right? Um in all sports, not just football. Um, but it also you have a very personal journey that's super inspirational, super, and you're you're in the throes of it, right? Where you know, adversity has become the reason to double down and keep going, right? Whereas most people would get a little bit of resistance and be like, eh, I'm done with it. So we're kind of up. I want the the our listeners that are generally more health-oriented to really, you know, lean in, listen to what she's saying, and apply that to your life, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I appreciate that. I'm a firm believer that adversity is a uh a difference maker and it's a separator. So um you're gonna really find out if you are um what you want to be about when true adversity hits.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I I don't believe that anything that comes without it, and I've been having this conversation a lot this week. So this, I think this is very fitting. We're talking about things that you receive with little resistance and how we naturally don't appreciate it. You know, very few people, as valuable as it could be. Like I'm talking about like I could give you thousands of dollars right now, just hand them to you, and you won't treat them the same as when you earn them. Right. Most people do like, oh, I got free money, I'm gonna go spend it. Maybe one out of a hundred will be like, I'll invest it, you know? So it's that there's a natural thing there to our lives that we need to have adversity to actually appreciate and to actually do our best, right?
SPEAKER_03Uh yeah. Nothing, nothing um that's easy, teaches you the same things that hard things do, you know. So that's very well said, and so where where does this journey start for you?
SPEAKER_00Like, take us back. Where uh how did you end up as a Division I strength coach at LSU, going through GAs and going through all these other universities and multiple states to be to do what you do?
SPEAKER_03I really think that it started that for independently, unbeknownst to me, very early on. When I say early on, I think I was like five or six years old. Nice. And I realized like I loved LSU once I understood kind of magnitude that it was like our state university. Um, and then I loved sports, you know, and my grandfather, I think I got the love from LSU from my mom's dad. So my um, we'll call him pop off. Um, my my grandfather, he was a huge LSU fan. So I think just growing up around their house, they had LSU stuff, so it just kind of became ingrained. And then I, you know, just wanted to had big dreams and aspirations to play a sport there. Um, and as I got older, you know, you you started to realize life and you become a teenager and responsibility and you know, all the hormones and emotions. And um I played a lot of sports, but I never thought that I would actually go to LSU to play softball. Softball wounded up being the sport that I was the most successful at. I love the most. Um my family and I put the most investment in our time and money in. Um, and I just I love to play it. I played a bunch of other sports. I had one track, I had played soccer at some point. I tried into volleyball. Um, I swam. Um I think that's about it. Never played basketball. But I just I mean, backyard baseball. We had, you know, the normal neighborhood. We had a lot in the middle of the neighborhood that's open. All the neighborhood kids would go and we play um, you know, waffle ball there or whatever. And we're just always active. So falling in love with sports um was not hard for me to do. I was just immersed in it in all aspects. And then um finally my senior year of high school came around. My summer ball coach, and this was like senior year was late in the recruiting process. I understand that. I am I never thought I was good enough, to be honest with you. And then my summer ball coach kept telling, or my travel ball coach kept telling my dad, like she's good enough to go play. So we wound up going on a few visits, and then LSU was originally not one of them. I almost committed to ULL, which I am so glad I did not. I couldn't stand the coach. I just like I really didn't want to be close at home, but it was, I didn't want to go play for a school that I knew wouldn't challenge me. I can go to these lower level schools or JUCOs potentially. And I didn't necessarily want to be the best. I wanted to be challenged more than I wanted to stand out. And um, I think late in the game, now understanding how all the recruiting and things work, I think they had an um outfielder for LSU that had decommitted and they had an opening spot. My high school swap off coach was college roommates with LSU's head coach at the time. So she reached out to my high school coach, just like spreading the word. Hey, we have an outfielder spot open. Do you know anyone who, you know, like short notice, doesn't have to be local, just anyone who would be a great contributor to our team and to the outfield. And my high school coach was like, I know a girl, and really the rest is history. So uh really got to live a very surreal dream, and it has really projected me into so many great things in my life, not only just a brand of LSU, but the person that it left me, you know. I I tell our athletes like if we're gonna lift in a weight room, you leave the weight room better than you found it. And I I hope that every athlete that comes through this program now can leave LSU better than LSU found in him, because that's what happened for me. And I'm very blessed by that. Um, and and I I think it takes my job to a whole nother level in like the impact I want to make and and the passion that's truly behind everything that I do.
SPEAKER_00I uh a couple things there that you mentioned. First of all, that multi-sport background, I like to pause on that because I'm I'm in the baseball trenches right now, and the amount of people that just want to play baseball because they think that's the only way to get be a good quote unquote athlete, baseball athlete, blows my mind where I'm like, yo, your kid needs an offseason and you should be playing another sport when there's an offseason. Yeah. Like, what are you doing? So you became a division one athlete at one of the best schools in the country at athletics, and you played all sorts of sports, and then you ended up committing late, if you will, but you got in, you know? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So I I Yeah, not every year is the same, dude. And I and to that point, I will tell all listeners right now if you were a parent, if you are if you know somebody that is trying to silo into one sport too early. The best, most resilient, physically resilient athletes that we have year in and year out, hands down, best correlation. Majority, if not all of them, have played multiple sports growing up.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. I mean, amen. Yeah, like that should be like loudspeaker. Listen, listen, listen.
SPEAKER_02For the people in the bat. Yeah. Or Dan's had some clients where they'll play baseball, they're a pitcher, and then they're like, but then they're also a quarterback or javelin. So it's just the same thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like they'll just wear themselves out, right? And and they they then end up not making it. So it's good to always reiterate that. And I know you being a strength coach, not only you have that appreciation, and me saying as a strength coach, that's not a good idea, but I didn't play division one sports, so they don't want to listen to me. Now you have both sides of the coin. Be like, this is what it took to make it, and this is what I see with the athletes I work with now, right? Multi-sport background is usually the best. Um, I also see here you you're seeking challenge versus being the best. What what sparked that? What brought that on? Why were you like, I'd rather be challenged than uh be the number one player fish in a little pond.
SPEAKER_03I don't know. I I I just think that like I love to compete.
SPEAKER_02I also yeah, I love you love to compete, but I also think you just you love the whether it's specifically softball or you just love the sport, right? It's not necessarily I love me being the best, I just love to play.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Right. Cause because I I growing up honestly, like talent-wise, I I knew I wasn't the best. Like I was a person who had to work my tail off to be able to compete and keep up with the others. So if personally I was successful because of that great, I really value the the team camaraderie and just the team aspect of sports. I would rather win together, even though it is not me being successful in that, you know, all the time. Or like, I don't need to be the star. I understand that multiple people shine in multiple times, and you can win a softball game a thousand different ways. So um I didn't, I didn't necessarily want or need the attention. Um, and I still don't to this day, you know. I just I love I love to compete and I love to see other members of my team be successful as well, even though that doesn't mean that I am successful all the time. And that's that's really hard for me to grasp even now, but I I understand, you know, the the way to impact and um kind of leave a legacy now, it's goes way beyond just your individual success. I think early on I didn't really know how to label it or fully understand what I was going through. But now in hindsight, retrospectively, I can do that.
SPEAKER_02And do you see now as a coach, because you're you know, you're not an athlete, a player, but now being able to kind of look from the outside looking in, do you see how maybe the kids who aren't the stars are actually very influential in the team, whether it's with morale or just other things? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. Um just because you are not in the starting lineup every single time does not mean you can't be impactful. And I think I I feel like I'm a testament to that. You know, I was not an all-American, I was not all SEC, I did not start every game. Um, I had my fair share of injuries and and adversities through uh my college career, but it was never not enjoyable to me. And I think if because I knew my role, no matter what, you know, and it wasn't always dependent on my success or the team's success for me to continue to strive for said goal in my role, you know. Um, and I think if I can help the kids understand um different leadership roles and like where they sit, like, hey, you're on the bus, but where you sit on the bus, like I gotta make sure you're in the right seat to make sure that as a team and as a culture, we're firing on all cylinders. And if I can help them, they don't know what they don't know. So if I can bring that to their awareness and then help them zoom out and maybe see a little bit of a bigger picture in how everything is evolving and how everything will play a part in in true team success um in team sport, I think I can, you know, resonate with that and hopefully help them understand. And, you know, that's a ripple effect. Maybe 10 years, 15 years down the road, they're having a conversation with someone they were coaching or their own sons or daughters, you know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You also mentioned some uh integration of experience. Like I'm kind of obsessed with the transcendent include model, where you could have an experience that is completely unrelated to something you find yourself doing maybe 10, 20 years down the road, but you're drawing from that thing that's is seemingly unrelated to be successful at where you are now. So you said that all these things that when you were, you know, playing all these other sports and when you were a kid kind of helped you when you were an athlete, and now as a coach, like from drawing from that, what do you think is the most marked thing from your childhood, maybe, or from your years playing in college that you're like that now is foundational to who you are as a coach?
SPEAKER_03And emotional regulation. Hands down. I was terrible at it. I when I was younger, I most people I think I developed an anger issue because of this. I could not understand how someone could not catch or throw a ball. I couldn't wrap my head around it. And if I was playing shortstop and a fly ball was hit to right field, I would fly to right field, I sprint to right field and I would try and shut the right fielder out of the way to catch the ball because the right fielder couldn't catch the ball and I wanted to get an app. You know, and it it it wasn't about me. I just wanted I wanted success for the team. And and when you're that young, I mean, I was like really, really young. Um, it posed a problem because I would I would get so angry because I I couldn't understand. I couldn't understand how someone couldn't hit, throw, or catch a ball. Now come to find out, I think that advanced me a little bit, you know, and I've always played up in in age groups and in brackets and things like that. But I I think the older I got, the more leveled out I became, and I realized like I actually had to work harder. Um, and I was underdeveloped and I was undersized, and I had to outwork my talent. That's just how I had to demand success for myself. And then I think that anger from earlier in my childhood got caught up early on in my college career, and it it took a while for me to overcome. And I I think in full, there's still traces that that show itself now still, but just understanding the lessons failure can teach you, understanding how to be a better teammate, understanding that you play a game of failure, and I just wanted to be, yes, I wanted to be successful, but I wanted to make an impact with the success that I was having. And I just felt like I could never get headway to do that because I was always injured, and then I would come back, and then I finally had a good stint, and then something else, I would hit a slump, and it was there were so many variables in my life that I think I couldn't regulate my emotion because there was so much chaos happening in my life at that time. And I I think I wouldn't, I wish I would not have been so resilient to any type of therapy or performance um psychology earlier on. I think I would have, I should have soaked that in a lot better and not been as resistant to it because I think I would have overcome all of that a lot sooner. So being able to emotionally regulate yourself, not only in a pressure situation, but when you're playing a game of failure and you want to compete and win so bad, and you want to like get on base, and you, you know, you want to be, you want your team to be successful. And yeah, you just you have to understand that just breathe. And it's what's gonna happen is gonna happen, and it's all in preparation. And you, you know, the anxiety in those moments and the the fear I realized were the the root characteristics that like made me so angry and tight, you know, which hindered me sometimes to be successful. Um, so I I just wish I I could have enjoyed those moments a little bit more instead of being so tense and and anxious and worried, you know, emotional regulation. Um, I was actually just talking with a softball kid about it yesterday. It was a lay lesson for me, but I think it's so crucial for really success at any sport, but especially a sport like that where, you know, you look at it like a test break and you get a 30% on a test, that's that's pretty bad. But you bat 300, that's pretty good, you know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, do you feel with your athletes now that you're able, because you you went through that evolution of not being emotionally regulated, working on it now, doing it, that you can't not see it for people who don't have it. So you just help identify it now more sooner for other people, right?
SPEAKER_03I do. And that's and that's the way I keep telling myself that I can again use this, use my own struggles, or one of my struggles again for a positive ripple effect is to be able to pull them aside and you know, uh it's clear as day on their face, body language, success, stats, they're they're struggling. It's cool to kind of have an authentic conversation with them and and take that conversation to a level of such personal experience, you know, because the story and the lesson's always gonna hit harder for them. If it's coming from, yes, my years of how I've gotten here, but like, hey, I was once in your shoes. And I want you to learn this lesson quicker than I did. And not to say that what I am I'm going to tell you is right, but let's search for ways to do it. And I and leave it as a very open ended um conversation. It's not me telling them what to do, it's not me advising them what to do. It's me learning about what they're they're Motives and their triggers are. And then us collaborating on maybe best um approach of action. And then using our sports psych department here at LSU to help that as well. You know, obviously I'm not a certified sports psych or therapist or counselor by any means, but I am with them a lot more than um almost any other member of the support staff, if you will. So I think understanding, yeah, this player development holistically and that being a huge part of it, uh, if I can just be of any help, then we do it.
SPEAKER_02I think bringing awareness to it is huge because you always say awareness precedes change. But also people who um maybe are a little bit emotionally dysregulated, then there's that wanting to hide it and being very good at minimizing it and just pushing it aside and not bringing it to the support staff that doesn't see them as often as you. So you pointing it out and bringing it up is huge, even though yes, you're not a therapist and you're not like helping them solve it, but you you're take helping them take that first step.
SPEAKER_00Is there anything like that comes to memory, like a marked uh setback that really drove change for you? Like any moment where you're like, Yeah, I gotta change some stuff. Because you know, you could take a couple hits and be like, eh, truck on, but there's usually that one moment that people come back to where you're like, I have to change something. And from then on, it's when really you started implementing change in your emotional situation and how you approach the sport.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And this is me being fully humbled and and transparent with y'all. Really, two situations one sport, one non-sport. Um, I remember striking out in a pressure situation. I was so upset. I just went to the bathroom and just started like throwing crap around the dugout. And um I came out of the bathroom, my coach put her finger in my face and said, if you ever do that again, you will no longer be on this team. And that was a oh crap moment for me. Like, what do I care about more? Being this human or learning how to do this to continue to give fruition to a dream of playing softball at my dream school. That was a defining moment for me. And then in a relationship, um, I remember them like coming to me and saying, Hey, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna handle or tolerate this. I want better for you because I want better for us. And that was a defining moment. I was like, I gotta shape up, you know, and this was years ago, years ago. But those absolutely were pivotal in pushing me to really look myself in the mirror and find a way to affect change long term.
SPEAKER_00It uh it's do you think they caught you in time? Like you hadn't messed up majorly to really drive that lesson home? Because there's a little bit of humility there. Like some people need really painful lessons to change, and others can just see the mistake coming and be like, okay, I'm gonna change this now.
SPEAKER_03I think in in softball, yeah. I I made a change in enough time. Uh in relationship, I would in the moment, I I it took me a few years to get over that because I felt like it was too late. But now I I know, like I look again in hindsight, and I see I was not supposed to be with that person anyway. I see how I would have not been happy if I was still with them now, like how I have evolved and changed and grown and transformed, and how I I would have been hindered by that if I was still with that person. So it why I'm working out for the better. Um, you know, it it takes sometimes years, unfortunately, for you to fully see in the most clarity possible how something that has really changed you or would not have been a good situation long term to begin with. So um kind of I I can look at it as a blessing um in the moment that that not only changed me, but it actually started to be the part in the relationship that that eventually separated us, um, or one of the major parts. And I think now that is for the better because we maybe it would have ended terribly in another way, you know.
SPEAKER_00So college, what was that like? You mentioned a lot of injuries and things like that and a lot of ups and downs. What what what was that like? What happened there?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I um man, back then I'll I'll set the scene. Like I told you guys in my talk at SummerShine, I was, you know, an undersized, underdeveloped kid, and I had to work my tail off. Um, we we grew up as a family not poor, but by all means not um not wealthy. I would say in middle class at best. Uh so my financial means uh in in things that I needed to either have as equipment or like eating the right food to help my body keep up with the intense amount of training. With all the knowledge I know now, I was like, I was in a hole. It was bound to happen, you know. And when we get to college, there was no NIL, there was no cost of attendance, there was barely a scholarship, you know. And I just it didn't like you had to buy all your food, and I just didn't, we didn't have money, we didn't have extra money. Your scholarship paid for, you know, your your cost of living and like minimal minimal groceries or anything that you needed, gas, like just things to live by. And then after that, there really wasn't that much change left over. So you're talking about wanting to make sure that you put premium gas um in your car. You know, I we were living off of ramen noodles and you know, processed foods, and I just couldn't keep up. Knowing now what I know about my metabolic rate, and um now and I love the weightlifting, like I absolutely saw value in it. I put on, I think 15 or 20 extra pounds of muscle by my my, or let me not say muscle, 15 to 20 extra pounds of weight, I would I would attribute over half of that to muscle in a span of two years. And I felt great, but I mean I was just a taking time bomb. Um, you know, we didn't have all the technology and testing parameters that we do in my field now to be able to flag me as a high risk, if you will. Um, or uh we didn't even have a nutritionist to even talk to me about these things, much less the the quality of food that I'm putting in my body. So I my freshman year, I was I was healthy sophomore year, fairly healthy. I started just having knickknack like strain, hip flexors, quads, rolled ankles, you know, just some minor things. And now we know how all that was kind of precursive to lead to something bigger. And my junior fall of my junior year, I blew out my um left ACL and then winded up coming back from that so fast that our PTs and doctors had to call our athletic trainer and say she needs to calm down, like she's doing too much. Um, and I was doing rehab and stuff three times a day. This is gonna sound crazy what I'm about to say, but mind you, this was 15, over 15 years ago. I came back from that ACL, um, I was back on the field full capacity in about five, five and a half months. Um yeah, yeah. So, and and look, and I don't say that to discredit our athletic trainers, they were they were great. Our sport men team was great, but back then you just didn't know you knew now and you couldn't test. So if all of the markers from an eye test and range of motion test and a strength test matched to the research that they had back then, all you can objectify, and I felt great, right? You know, it there was there was really no need to wait. Now, I say that I wasn't back playing every single inning of every single game. I was mainly just kind of a pinch runner. I played a few innings here and there. So um, I think that was kind of part of it. Like I'm not gonna be this this starter that they ultimately needed or relied on. Um, then a week before my first senior game, I shredded my right knee. Um, I think the only thing hanging on was my PCL. And that one took a took a hit on my my soul, my body, my mind, my heart. Um, that one took me a while to emotionally recover from. I think that was a really a dagger. I struggled with it emotionally. I had to take weeks away from the sport for a second because I was really worried about myself. The coaches were really worried about me. Um, and then the fall of my fifth year, wound up taking a fifth year because of that. Fall of my fifth year, um, was in a lot of pain again. Come to find out, under another MRI showed a torniscus. So we went back in, and I I mean, I wasn't fully ready until maybe first week of season. So, as you can imagine, I mean, I was an injury nightmare at that point. Um, and I just I loved what I did. I wanted to be a part of the team and I wanted to play whenever I could. Um and I worked my butt off to do it, but I understood the circumstance. Like I saw the writing on the wall, I wasn't gonna be your all-American starter. I knew that. I, you know, was struggling to kind of find innings over the previous two years. Um, and then I I leave college and I get to Liberty 2017. Um, I catch a med ball in the sand and um blow my left ACL out again and then rehab that, finally get to Illinois a few years later in 2018-19, just walking to the weight room, fell. Umiscus again, winded up having to have another surgery, um, get to LSU, walking to the weight room, fell. I knew I knew all these were just meniscus at this point. Um wind up having another surgery once I got here, and then wind up having a hip surgery. So there's been uh quite the the resume there, you know. Um, but every single surgery has taught me something either more about myself or more about designing my life to be more purposeful within the constraints that I am physically limited to, and then also kind of defining myself through that with the the model of am I gonna let this be an excuse or not, you know. I can let this make me um physically incapable uh of living the dream I want to live as a strength coach, and um or I can let this hinder me and make me bitter, and I just didn't I didn't want to choose a later option, you know. But I I would say all those injuries kind of led me to to wanting to be a strength coach because not only did from my freshman to sophomore year, I found so much value in putting on muscle and size, and I fell in love with that. But then after every knee injury, I kind of got some one-on-one time with my strength coach, my athletic trainer. Um, and I I was originally in pre-PT as an undergrad, and then I realized hey, I didn't want to be on the reactive end of things after injuries. I wanted to be on the proactive um understanding mechanisms side of things in the um strength coach realm. So that's really where my my desire to become a strength coach came from. And then, you know, I'm a big chaotic energy, wild cheetah when it comes to just the the maniac person I am in the weight room. You're talking about the juice? You're talking about the juice? They used to call me, they call me the juice coach back at Illinois, uh, all of our football strength coaches, because you you would hear me before you'd see me. And uh yeah, I I just fell in love with it, you know, and and that was really the start of it. Um, kind of the spark of interest to become a strength coach. And then uh starting in the private sector right out of college, you know, I I knew I wanted to do training, I just wasn't sure in what aspect. And I mean, I was doing private training for probably six, seven months, and then very quickly I was like, I want to get back into college. Because I just I I I yeah, I don't know. It's just it's not built for me. I think the the college, at least in this season of my life, I just I wanted the um I wanted the accountability, I wanted the ownership. I wanted to know that they they had to come in to see me, you know. How can I make the most effective program for you if clients don't come, you know, and show up regularly and their training is not consistent? It doesn't really give either of us the opportunity to um come across any form of success. So just the highly competitive nature of college athletics was appealing to me, and then the accountability that came with that was just something that I yeah, have fallen in love with.
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SPEAKER_00A couple notes here for our listeners that have never heard the expression the juice. Um, it refers to a certain level of enthusiasm that strength coaches are known for. Um, what are you at, Katie? Like a level 12 juice?
SPEAKER_03Both things I try to be, yeah. I I I want to be that the craziest, not necessarily the loudest, but the craziest, most psychotic person in the room in a good way. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I uh it's funny because the fact that I got into strength coaching and that sort of thing, I'm like, oh, I see how it all lined up. To me, strength coaching is kind of like the military. And I think like collegiate strength coaches have the enthusiasm of like a very seasoned drill sergeant. Um, but in a better way, right? Because the drill sergeant's kind of trying to break you down. Strength coaches are really build you up, right? But it it's hilarious the parallels to me when I when I hear that boom and that thunder and the voice, you know, and when Janie first started coming around other strength coaches, and he's like, why is he yelling?
SPEAKER_02No, I wasn't like, but no, it wasn't like why is he yelling? I um it's a good example is the strength coach from Alabama that presented at SummerStrong. I'm just sitting there listening to him. I was pumped.
SPEAKER_00And I was like, that's the juice. That's the juice. You know? So for J for our general listeners, that's what we refer to, that level of enthusiasm there. Um, when did the weight room come into play for you? Were you lifting weights in high school or was it college when you got introduced to it?
SPEAKER_03On a regular level, college. Now, my dad would, I would say, exercise for general health, you know. And both my parents worked at the hospital. So they had a gym right on the side of the hospital that they were members of. So my dad sometimes, when I was able to drive, would say, Hey, I'm going work out after work on a lunch break. And I would like go meet him. And I say very loosely, like, he didn't sit there and I didn't do what he did, but I did my own thing and I knew that there was value in it. I just didn't know what I was doing, you know, no idea what I was doing. But I I wanted to do it because I understood it would make me better.
SPEAKER_00Man, that's intense. So your first time in a structured program was already at college.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we didn't really. My high school, we were fairly poor public high school. Like football was the only team that really got to lift. So it wasn't even like I had a PE lifting block or anything. I didn't get any of that.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_00Now, all those injuries, you said you that you now can see how you were like you would have labeled yourself high risk. What uh what what were you assessing? You mentioned the nutrition there, so people listening take notes how nutrition can affect your orthopedics. But what else were you were you thinking?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, nutrition was a huge one. Um, but now I understand Q angles. Like, I don't have the best cue angle. My um anatomical makeup at the knee joint is not truly centered. I'm slightly off. Um, I don't know why it's on both knees. Um and then I have a ton of joint laxity. So I'm more we know as as females, we have more joint laxity than than males. Um, but I I have a lot in my knee. I have excess in my knee. I'm not hypermobile. I have a lot of excess laxity, um, more than normal. So not only those things tied poor nutrition to tendon stiffness and and ligament health, my my knees are not anatomically set up evenly. I find it misaligned. Um now, and that makes my cue angle a little bit worse, which I think it gets hidden because I'm such a small, able body. You know, I'm I'm really not huge in the hips. Um, but now seeing how all this plays into now my my pronation, pronation and supination mechanics, um, which now makes sense to all my ankle injuries or my my sprained ankles. Um nutritionally, I can't couldn't help myself from a tendon, a tendon or ligament standpoint because I had so much laxity in my knees. So not only I have slightly mess align, my Q angle is not great as a female, um, I have more laxity than normal females. So you already know females have more joint laxity than males. I'm not hypermobile by any means. I just had a ton of laxity. It's in both knees. I was made made aware of that. Um, and I I wasn't strong neuromuscularly to help the structure of the knee joint. So now all those kind of tied into now I'm at risk, not to mention my family history. Like my mom had uh either one or two ACLs, my um brother had an ACL, he has another kind of I would say quarter tear like mine. I my left one is still roughly 20, 30 percent torn. Um so it yeah, yeah, now all those things make sense.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So if you could go back with the knowledge you have now, how would you have addressed it? Like, how would you help somebody that's a similar, you know, I like now in the weight room, you see an athlete with similar build, similar, you know, joint laxity, like the similar traits that you had, but they're not injured yet. How would you be like, hey, you need to pay attention to this, you need to pay attention to that to kind of mitigate, right? Because, you know, contact injuries and that sort of thing are gonna happen. It's just a matter of reducing risk. So what would you do different?
SPEAKER_03I think that's a great point. I'm never going to completely mitigate any um any risk for injury or any injury itself. I can't promise that until our recruits that. But if if I can help you at least understand what we can do and to work on it and why it's important to mitigate a risk, um, that is success. So um, injury history, first of all, first and foremost, with our sports medicine staff paying very close attention to that. Um, because we all know like that's the biggest pre precessor for that, as well as um so family history and then their own personal injury history. That will tell me a lot about everything moving forward. Um biomechanics, understanding a lot more now about foot mechanics. So watching them walk barefoot tells me a lot about shift in joints in all planes of motion. So that's more biomechanical assessment. What are their sport-related movements and how they get in and out of those positions? So I put them through body weight things where you show me how you have leveraged these positions to be able to do that. And I will be able to label whether there are dysfunctions there or compensatory patterns there. And then I work to understand the limitations of that. Is your body is are you moving this way because your compensations are from a different area of your body up and down the chain? Where, where, if any, does this cause you pain? And then making sure that I get with our nutritionist and make sure that they are doing everything they can nutritionally. So stating how important that is to said athlete and then bringing to attention to our nutritionist. Hey, in my opinion, based off of things that I've I've read, my understanding, this athlete is a high risk. What can we do to make sure that we are keeping them as healthy as possible? Whether that's um adding supplementations to their everyday diet or advising them to stay away or go to certain styles of food. So really just from their standpoint, using what they are nutritionists is great at um to help uh educate our athlete and really follow up with that athlete again and again and again. Um, and then really just understand that, okay, if we're looking at um a ton of joint laxity, like what supplements can I help with that, but also can I load them in uncompromised or truly compromised positions to help tendon responses and then use it use all of our force plate data to help understand the rate in which our contraction times are happening to be able to yellow flag or red flag that um or show improvement. So we're either on the the uh monitoring side of that or on the performance side of that.
SPEAKER_00That's so crazy. Like the amount of technology that goes in and the amount of thought that goes into it now to prevent injury, not prevent, but you know, mitigate risk, if you will, um is mind blowing. And and as strength coaches, like I can look at somebody and be like, ah, there's something there that's not quite where it needs to be, or I can hear what they're eating and be like, eh, that's not good. But to be able to quantify that with force plates and that sort of thing, it blows my mind, right? Um, that it's evolved that much and in 15 years, right, was when you were playing. So to see that come along, that's great. Like that's a good opportunity. Now, kind of teeing this up, you know, I I have to convey to people because I always think about this, like I've been physically active for a long time. I'm 43 and I've been working out nonstop, always been active for well over 20 years, you know. Like once I decided to get in shape in college, that that was it. Then I joined the military and I've been, you know, using my body like that, and it's such an integral part to my balance, to who I am, to my mental health, to all of it, right? Now, and I'm just a guy, you know. I'm I'm just a guy. I'm not, I'm not a big athlete, I'm not, I'm just a guy using what God gave me and enjoying it. So to people that are couchbound or people that are not that active, when you talk about the injuries that you're talking about, they might be like, ooh, that sucks, but they don't understand how bad it is for somebody who's used to getting that much out of their bodies to be injured and be out on the couch, right? Like how much that can throw you off since you are using your body at the highest level, right? To me, as a guy that just moves around every day, and Janie can relate to this too. We're like, man, if I get injured, uh that's gonna suck because that's that's a big part of what I do every day, right? But to an athlete at the Division I level, it's even worse. I can only imagine, right? Was that like was it almost like depressing to you? I mean, I I don't think that's a big word to use when you get that injured.
SPEAKER_03Again, uh a setback doesn't scare me because I've always kind of been the underdog. So I'm not it's not that I don't think I can overcome it. It's just like, damn, not again, you know, not again. And maybe I learned lessons later than then sooner, and maybe I I could have minimized some of that later on if I would have learned lessons sooner. Um but in the moment I I can honestly say I think I was doing what was best, you know. Um, but absolutely I I mentioned after my second ACL, well, really after my third one, it was my meniscus after my ACL fifth year. My college days are ticking down, and my meniscus blows again, and it is so painful that I I can't get through it, and we'd have to have another surgery. And that one really took a toll on me. Wow. That was when I was in a very bad mental space. I started seeing our sports psych at LSU, which was the first one um ever, and I had to let go of all the resistance I had had historically with um therapists or counselors, you know, um, and really kind of come with such uh a heavy heart but open arms to just seek help because I was I was pretty hopeless. Um, I was down with dunks to say the least. Um I was not in a good spot mentally. I was saying bad things, I was doing bad things, um, and I in my head was thinking very bad thoughts. And I was lucky enough to have a team of coaches and support staff to immediately recognize that um and try and throw everything in the kitchen sink to help me. And if that included taking a few days away from softball um to to recalibrate, then that's what needed to be done because that was a priority and and that's what had to happen.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00It um I go back to like the army days. We used to assess our soldiers on risk factors, you know, when suicide became a really top priority for the military.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Part of the assessment, you know, they had this like big circle of areas that you have to like check the boxes on. And part of it was injury history. And I back then, you know, I wasn't I just I was just a fitness practitioner, but back then I didn't know. And I paid no attention to how injuries could affect mental health and you know, lead down that path of like, you know, I might want to end my life or the or get in really deep dark places. I just had no idea. I didn't have the the the wherewithal that I do now, where I'm like, oh, now I see how that's related. You know, we're talking over 10 years later, how that's related. So that's the level of how bad injuries can be, especially if you're a very physically active person. I wanna I want to drive that point home, right? It's it's yeah, big time adversity. And now setting that up to what to where you're at now, where you know, what you've experienced is could seem insurmountable the most, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, this is this is really where, you know, and I I don't know if you haven't said it yet on purpose um or not, but to No, it's your story to tell. I want you, you know, that's that's all of those injuries or or surgeries really set me up for what I recently experienced almost 12 months ago. We're we're approaching a year, which is wild. Um, I I lost the lower half of my left leg in a jet ski accident, so I am below the knee amp and tea and uh under a year, honestly. And this is where the heart habit and hustle came in. So, what I spoke about in Summer Strong, I knew I didn't want to leave myself an opportunity to become depressed. So, how could I keep a pulse on that and stay on top of that? When movement and activity and training and pushing myself have arguably become the most important part of my everyday life. How do I do that now without a leg? And if I can wake up every morning and I check my heart and I check my habits and what I'm gonna be about, and I check the hustle that I want to give for the day, those three things really keep me kind of in unison and a and a healthy check. And I will be honest with you, like this week has been hard for me. This week I've been in a valley. It has been probably the toughest week I've had in a long time. Just things just keep coming at me out of the blue, and nothing that I've done in the past to help with recovery has helped. You know, I've been in and out of wheelchair crutches, and I've been in pain nonstop. I've had breakdowns on my kitchen floor. I've had breakdowns driving into work. I've had to like drop everything and go to New Orleans to my rep. I've had to go get MRIs and X-rays. So it's doctors' appointments and like, so everything in my job has really had to take the back seat to me taking care of myself. And holy smokes, it, I have been so tired this week. Emotionally, it has drained me. And this morning, like getting up, running through it. I'm not making this up. Get out of my bed, and I sit on the edge of my bed and I go through my mental checklist. Where's my heart? Where is my habit? Where is my hustle today? And today is still hard, but it is easier than yesterday. I will tell you that, you know. But I'm also just honest with myself. I don't need to have it together every day. I don't need to be full sinned every day as much as I want to be. I know that's not sustainable. Yeah. But being very honest with myself and starting from that point and saying, okay, well, this is what I want to be about today. It's not how I feel. It's what do I want to be about today and where am I at? And then now I come up with a game plan on how to fill the gap.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I think that that's people don't understand. Like two things can happen. You can be very optimistic and expect the best outcome for yourself, but then also very realistic and knowing that the best for you is gonna incorporate some down days because you know, you have to. Like it's just you can't challenge yourself the way you challenge yourself and not have some days where you're just gonna have to uh take a couple steps back.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and progression and and you know, elevate like upwards trajectory realistically is not a straight line up. Straight line up. You know, when you zoom in, it's like little dips and ups and downs. And what you're looking is for a general trend upwards, right? And you apply apply this to all in life, like income, you know, your fitness, your health, like you might take a little setback, but you move back up. And as long as when you zoom out, it looks like you're going up or if you are going up, that's what matters, right? Now, I I think when we heard about this last year that you know, with that you had your accident, my first thought is oh, she's a strength coach. This is that that's gonna be a challenge, right? To keep being a strength coach because you're on your feet all day, you're moving around, you're demoing movements for athletes. You know, you can't be juicy if if you know you have a uh an orthopedic limitation, right? Like it becomes even harder to give the juice. Not only that, you have experienced a a very, very big setback and you know, you're consumed with uh getting yourself right, but your job is to pour energy into others, right? And that's something as if you're a coach, your priority is how the people that you coach feel, right? Versus how you feel. So you might be, if you're a good one, because there's some coaches out there that care about themselves first, and you know, there's a balance there. Like, yes, I have to, you can't pour from an empty cup, so you have to take care of you so that you can take care of others. But your whole existence as a coach is to give energy to other people and put their needs first, right? And you're trying to do that while getting over losing part of your leg, you know? So what's the ticket there? Like, what like how do you the whole fall was a blur.
SPEAKER_03I I look back on it like, holy smokes. I'm right there with you. You can't pull from energy cup. But one of the things that I take pride in as a coach is a level of consistency. So now the definition of consistency, you know, because I am consistent in my energy, my effort, my athleticism, my ability to demonstrate and and look the part. And that was a way that I invest in myself to continually over time longitudinally be able to pour back into them, right? Well, now I have not only a physical limitation, but that will be very inconsistent for me. One day I have a good day, one day I have a bad day, one day I'm not in pain, but like I I like haven't eaten and I can't really move because of the medications made me so sick. You know, so it's every day was just like audit. And it, I'm telling you, it was for six months I lived hour by hour, like literally hour by hour. That was helped me be consistent through that. I have to give so much credit to LSU from our from our AD down to my moss and the people that I worked with. They actually moved our part-time position to help me directly. So I had minimally one intern and a part-time position with me at all times to help me with any session. Um, and that was even if I was there to help me, because I couldn't really set up and and maybe not demonstrate things I wanted to demonstrate. The other half of that was if I woke up and my limb is bleeding and I need to go run to my prosthetic rep in New Orleans, that's priority. Now I got to hit the road, and on the way, I have to call them and say, hey, I'm not gonna be at work today. This is what happened, here's what's going on today. Start group text messages with athletic trainers and support staff and coaches. Hey, this happened. I'm gonna be out today. So-and-so is taking over. Here's the contact information, like just immerse them in as much of our programs as possible to where if I'm out, that still runs as seamlessly as possible. So when they're with me while I'm while I'm there, they have an opportunity to see not only how the session goes, but I'm able to voice to them my expectations, my desires, but we need to get out of it, how the setup, like all of the logistics to where if I'm gone, they at least have a pretty general idea of of what I want out of said training session. Um, and you know, where where our injured people are and where they are in their return to play, and um how to make you know adjustments on the fly if needed. And our coaches were familiar with them, our athletes were familiar with them. So it was um it was it was great. They admin had helped a ton um with that, and then having a golf cart, they actually got me a golf cart for me to roll around campus because as much as you would think uh a three to five minute walk really is is not that big of a deal when you no longer have a leg and you your your steps have to be counted. Um, and you have to be very, very precise about your give and take on when you're gonna have to give those steps. You know, if if during the day I can only give you a thousand steps, I can't waste where I don't need to actually have um impact on that run. So um it allowed me to be very methodical. And when I tell you hour by hour, um, it was decision making. Um and it it took a lot out of me emotionally, but it allowed the consistency of my programming to stay um as consistent as possible in what we demanded from them and the training outcomes. Um, and you know, you mentioned uh Janie optimism, you know, and I I think I I can make the best version of myself out of a bad situation. That's what I strive to do every day. But I want my optimism in the adversity to be just as big as my capacity to handle the adversity. And I think, you know, I I spoke at SummerShell about my process of you process something, you accept it, and then you move. And then I think there can be delusion in optimism without action. So I think without movement. If if I am optimistic and I never move in the direction of my optimism physically, then yes, I I live in a state of delusion because I'm just I'm wishing all these things to happen versus uh kind of laying the foundation um and runway for those to kind of set itself up to happen naturally.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And you speak about uh the heart, the habits, and the hustle. Like, what are what are you doing for yourself right now? Like, how are you pursuing health? You know, you mentioned looking the part and retaining a certain amount of capability. Like, what are you doing right now? What does that look like for you? Knowing that, hey, I'm I'm not the person I was a year ago. You know, I'm literally missing part of my body, but I can still find a way, right? Instead of a way out. Like what's your what are what does that look like for you right now?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I haven't quite figured it out. I think this week has challenged me um to a new degree, which I'm I'm I think that's why I'm being met with so much emotion and and a little bit of disappointment and frustration this week, because I'm irritated because now I I've jumped into a new season of life and now I'm having to figure that out. So I'm kind of going through the weeds of that. But what will will physically help me, my limb has been in a lot of pain this week. What I physically need to do is get out of my prosthetic and get horizontal. I also have to be careful if I only worry about the physical bucket. Not only am I not pouring into myself proactively physically because I'm trying to reactively recover, I'm not pouring into my mental state as well. I can read all the self-help books I want. I can journal, I can have my gratitude journal, my prayer journal. That's fine. That's only gonna get me so far. I need to move. Because in my head, I don't want to make an excuse for myself. I have a goal for myself. I don't like to go three days without training. That's just because I don't want to be a person of excuses, whether I'm tired, whether I'm hurting, there's always something I can do. So that mindset forces me to create solutions and adaptations and modifications for me to still have a desired training session that is productive for me physically and mentally. It's just not in the way that I thought it would initially be when I woke up that day. So for me to adapt, adapt, adapt, adapt, and find a way to overcome, um, you know, with saying, okay, I am going to spend four hours out of the day outside of my prosthetic. I will be horizontal. I will dedicate time to do that, but I will dedicate 45 minutes to be in it. I'm gonna have to limit my weight to be very light. But if I can focus primarily maybe on upper body today, maybe on things that are um isometrically related, where it doesn't have to be a ton of tonnage or impact on my leg, I can still get work done. And that actually helps my mental health a lot more. And then I'm able to move on, you know, with the rest of my day. So um I would like to say that that's black and white, but it's not because it depends on where I check in in the morning. It depends on what the day presents itself to be, what I originally had planned, how much I have to adapt. Um, and and sometimes that still is a little hour by hour, but I have a general idea of now I can have contingency plans. And I call on this contingency plan, I call on this contingency plan. Um, and man, that'll be fun to recollect in five years to see, you know, how how much all of that has evolved. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I I think, you know, a takeaway there, like action's the answer, right? Like you're constantly seeking out action. You're not just kind of sitting there and letting things happen to you. There's all you're always on the okay, find something to do, find something to do, find something to do. And that may seem exhausting, and it probably is to anybody, right? But it's also the answer, right? From what I'm hearing from.
SPEAKER_02What I've appreciated is you don't shy away from things, even though your your life did a complete 180. You don't like you still went to Winter Strong, even though I think you said you had to take your wheelchair with you. And was that Winter Strong or is that the outdoor thing?
SPEAKER_03That was that was our our CSCCA conference. So that was a week before Summer Strong. Okay. So that was in early May. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But like you still showed up, right? Even though, right. And you like at Summer Strong, you were there with your, you know, with your prosthetic, and you still participated. In everything that you could and your presence didn't change. Because, you know, I mean, we've been to SummerStrong many years together. And one thing I always noticed about you is your presence. And it's just I loved the fact that yeah, you were different this year, right? But your presence was the same and you still showed up. Which some people who if they lost the lower portion of their leg, they they wouldn't show up. They would just more identify with I'm an amputee and now my life is limited. Where you've taken it is I'm an amputee, this whole new world is open for me now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And which I think takes a lot of energy and bravery. And I hope that you give yourself credit for that, even on bad days.
SPEAKER_03So well, thank you. I appreciate that. I just I've never been one to make excuses. So I think that's really not that hard, you know. Like I understand it's not gonna look the way I want it to look, and I may not know what that will look like, but I'm gonna try my best to figure it out and still take a step in the right direction. Even if I, you know, hypothetically wanted to do A, B, and C today, but I only got to do A and B, that's still progress, you know. And there's I I can't focus on limitations and I can't just focus on the problems. I need to recognize problems so I can create solutions. Um, but I also need to be able to see the these possibilities, you know. And I think that's that's been really cool. I always have enjoyed that, you know. I'm in my field to figure it out. But athlete comes to me and says, I've been having shoulder pain. Well, let's figure out why. You know, like um, hey, I had an Achilles rupture two years ago. Well, let's do some research and figure out why, you know, let's do some evaluations and figure out maybe things that that can um be red flags for us or pre-indicators for us um to to help again minimize as much as the risk moving forward. So it's um yeah, not a problem for me. And I thoroughly enjoy the people I hang around with, I enjoy what I do. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00So what looking out, what are what what's next for you? Like what are you looking to accomplish in your new chapter? You know, as you you set out, that's I think that's super important, like setting goals and kind of working towards them where you whether you get there or not is kind of relevant. It's just uh that process of having something to work towards that's actually gonna give you all the benefit that you're looking for.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And and that's what I call the pursuit, you know. I'm just in in mad and complete pursuit of something. If I reach the summit, great, you know, but it it's about more so the day in and day out pursuit of that goal for me. Um really two well, three things now. So, of course, my my professional goal is always to continue to help these athletes succeed, and we want to win national championships. And I did what's in NASA two years ago. We missed it by like 0.007 of a point this year. It was like the closest in history of wild, um, or the closest of like a decade or something. And and so I want to continue to do that. Those are goals and ambitions, and like I I hope that I can be a reflection of zero excuses for our athletes. So that's that's a continual goal professionally. Um, personally, I it's it's really been brought to my attention, and I think this is why a lot of amputees have have reached out to me in in the physical realm, is because there is not another female IPT that has a job that I have with the knowledge base that I have, that has athletic background that I have. Um so I've I've been called a unicorn on more than than one occasion. And it's it's not to tube my own horns, it is to understand the impact personally that I can have for other amputees. And I think that's so cool that I would be doing myself a disservice. I would be doing our ampute community a disservice if I don't put forth some effort to help move that needle along. I think someone told me this a while back, and I think it's so cool. Um, I have to build a plane as I fly it on behalf of all active amputees.
SPEAKER_02And I uh at SummerStrong, yeah, you mentioned at the beginning of your speech, you're like, I'm not a hero. Because we had, you know, Nick Lavery speaking, and you know, he got wounded in combat. And I understand what you're saying, and I I agree, yeah, you know, you're not. But in a way, just like what you said, I think you may be more impactful for the general population because some people will see an amp, they may be an amputee or have a severe disability and look at Nick Lavery and just say, I can't relate because I didn't go into the army. I didn't go, I wasn't deployed. But you I think reach another whole nother population of people because they I can relate, whether it's if they're a female or they didn't have a military background, or they see you like, yeah, you had a lot of support with LSU, but you didn't have the federal government support, you know? And so I know that's a good idea. I think that yes, I understand what you said, but you're not a hero, but you reach a whole population that they may not be able to connect with. So never thought of it that way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and combining your, you know, knowledge of anatomy anatomy and training and that sort of thing with what you're experiencing right now, it's definitely a you're right. You're you're building a plane as you're flying it. So that that's really scary. No, it's it's scary and it it's challenging, but hey, somebody's gotta do it, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm up for the challenge. That that doesn't scare me at all. Um, and speaking of challenges, probably the last big thing that I'm trying to set forth all of my effort to accomplish is a Paralympic dream and track and field long jump. Um, I just got my officially tried on my blade a few weeks ago. It's actually in Orlando right now, getting molded with the final steps to be shipped back to me in Louisiana where I can finally start jumping, you know, and seeing where where I land realistically. Um so that that's that's a dream. Again, will it happen? I don't know. Will I even make the team? I don't know. Will I win a medal? I don't know, but there's only one way to find out, and I'm willing to do that. Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Now are you cleared to jump yet? Because I think last time we talked. I am okay. Awesome. Yep. And with the so it's just just the long jump, not triple jump, right?
SPEAKER_03There is no triple jump, correct. In in paralympics or something.
SPEAKER_02I apologize, I'm very naive to this. No, it's so am I.
SPEAKER_03I'm still learning.
SPEAKER_00Why why'd you pick long jump? Or is that one of those that picked you type of thing?
SPEAKER_03A little bit of both. Okay. So one of my buddies, so this is again, all goes back kind of a god wink. When I was at the University of Illinois, one of the um one of having a friend of a friend, he was getting his PhD in um wheelchair adaptive physiology, exercise physiology. So he worked with a lot of our uh wheelchair uh adaptive athletes at the University of Illinois. For those who don't know, the University of Illinois um is one of the one of the biggest productive Paralympic athlete output institutions in the country. Okay, so we have that's great. A lot of, yeah, wild. So, and I just happen to know the guy that's kind of heading up all of their training. And then I get down here, he calls me in August, um, early August, and he, you know, he heard of the accident, whatever, and he's like, You have you been poached by any Paralympic teams yet? And I said, It's funny you mentioned that. I had two just last week, and there's two more um in the works. And he starts laughing, and he was like, You are gonna do great. He was like, You should really go for it, you know? And I said, I haven't even thought about that at that point in time. I was like, I haven't played any of these sports. So what what are the realistic odds that I'm not only successful, but successful to represent our country to be on the team and to win a goal in sports that I've never done? And he's like, Katie, I'm telling you, your mentality is enough. Like, I'm not gonna tell you what to do, but like try and see it first. And uh then he called me. So he's the one that kind of got my wheels turning about it and was unsure at the time that I wanted to go out for a Paralympic sport or I wanted to, because they're they're they're poaching me not only to play, but to actually be their strength coach and play at the same time. Wow, so it was super cool. I had a lot of opportunity, but then I narrowed down the tracking field because he wounded up calling me one night in like that October, November. Um, and he's like, dude, I think you should go for long Joe. And he was like, There's really not a ton of people on the team, so yeah, your odds of making it are a lot higher. Um, I you you used to run tracking field to be fast. So like I think you you have the speed, you have the mentality, you have the resources. It's an individual sport, so you don't have to worry about traveling and and team training, all that kind of stuff. Um, and my office is like 200 yards from the track. So I it kind of just made sense. Um, I didn't think I was fast enough to compete in like 100, 200, 40, 400, things like that. I don't think I'm there yet, but I think the time that I have with the learning curve of like the long jump, uh, with the sustainability of all the cartilage or lack thereof that's left in my knees, um, you know, I could produce one 140-meter sprint into a sandpit, uh, which would again limit impact. So just kind of putting together all of my injury history with opportunity with resources. Um, and and then this these blades like kind of fell into my lap because you need, you know, a weightlifting blade and then you need a running blade, and then you need a jumping blade. So all these things just kind of like I show up to my rep place one day, and you can't make it up. I I literally said, Hey, I'm gonna on my way home, I'm gonna call my entrance company, I'm gonna see what, if anything, that they can cover so I can start reaching out to other foundations to help cover the cost of indifference, if it all, you know, to kind of fundraise for myself. And that that's a whole nother part of it that takes up time and energy. And um, she's like, Well, what blade are you looking for? I told her, and she was like, hold on, and came back with that exact blade and that exact size and that exact category for that exact amputation. And she was like, Some lady just dropped this off a few months ago, been looking for someone to give it to. And I was like, So you gotta do it. Oh dude. And I just started bawling crying.
SPEAKER_01God showed up. Oh my god. Yeah, yeah, you showed up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sometimes I pray, I'm like, God, I know I'm hard-headed. So can you be obvious with signs? This was him being very obvious with his signs.
SPEAKER_03I do. Oh, it I mean, it slapped me in the face for sure. But it's funny because I pray those same things. Like it's not about making it like bringing it into my life, but it I want it to be so clear that it hits me in the face. And I pray that a lot because I don't think it gets prayed enough. And you know, if you don't pray for it, then things will pass you by. So it's things like this that I the whole way home was crying and laughing and calling my family. It was like, you're not gonna believe this, you know. Um, so it's it's been really cool to have moments like that just show up continuously throughout this past year.
SPEAKER_00Man, amen to that. That's amazing. So, kind of wrapping up here, um putting this, you know, putting a bow on it, like what do you want to leave people with? And and wherever, and by the way, I wanna we should figure out how to link your Summer Strong talk to this when this drops, because I think people can get extra context and they're gonna want it from that speech as well. That was really good.
SPEAKER_03I think I kind of want the story of my life to be not about necessarily what I have so much accomplished for me, but what I I gave to or did for others. Like that's how you leave a legacy, and I want I know what I I want to have said about me when I'm no longer on this earth, and I trust that I am headed in that direction, you know. So I I don't necessarily want it to be about, oh, she did do the Paralympics, or um she did win another national championship, but about how those athletes, like how I made them feel, how they were encouraged, how I showed up for them, how all the little things that went into those big successes that everyone else sees.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um, can you hit on the the Pam again? Because that was one of my most favorite things.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Process, accept, and move. It's funny because I look back and I didn't realize how much I said it in the talk. And um I forget what Jenny Windstrom, I think, was giggling one time too hard at it um at Pam. And I um the acronym came to me last minute. Um, but I I had always told myself when adversity hits, instead of staying stagnant in a state of stagnation where I don't know where to go or what to do, um, or without accepting the reality of the situation that can lead me to depression, it was okay, I need to process this. After I process it, like, okay, this has happened to me. I would use my amputation as an example. In the water, I process my leg is gone. I'm bleeding out, my leg is gone. How do I accept this once I get to the hospital? And then once I'm able to, how do I physically start to make actions to move in a direction that I want to go? If I want to be about overcoming, if I want to be about um, you know, powering through a storm, if I want to be about um not being stopped, if I want to be about a relentless pursuit, what are actionable things that I can take to move the needle in that direction? So, but if I move too much without processing or accepting, then I'll spin in a circle. Right. And not that I always need to get it right. I think even if I have the first two things right, and sometimes I still, like yesterday, I don't know what to do, but I knew I had to move. Is it do I take care of my right leg and I go get x-rays in my eye? Do I go back to New Orleans to my rep to take care of my left leg? Or do I go out and have lunch with my best friend who will just be able to help me vent and call myself and help myself mentally? So I can move three different ways. None of them are wrong. I can stay paralyzed through analyzing, trying to analyze in all three of them. It's not about making the right move, they're all three right. But what is gonna serve me the best in this moment? And I chose to go have lunch with my best friend. And I that put me in the best spot into a Friday night to wake up on Saturday morning. And again, the pain's still there, that's fine. I can handle that. But I knew my emotional cup was the cup that was the most empty yesterday, and I needed to fill that. And now that set me up today to begin again to process, accept, and move. And now my movement may look different than yesterday, but at least I'm moving in that that direction.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think. And here you are, you know, doing what coaches do best and pouring into other people, you know, like our listeners. So that that's really a a well-made point there that you chose, like, okay, I have to take care of myself so that I can take care of other people in in the near future. Um, and that's yeah, that's I mean, that's amazing. Katie, um, where can people reach you? I have I've everybody wants to talk to to you now, but like where can people reach you?
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_03Um they can reach me um my email address, uh, all lowercase, k-g-u-i-l at l-su.edu. That's um, you know, first name Katie, last name Gilery. So just uh the first letter of my first name and the last um, or the first four letters of my last name. Um the other way would be on Instagram. That's probably my two most active ways of communication right now. My Instagram handle is Steel Gill S-T-E-E-L underscore. Yes. Um G U. Yeah. Well, your shirt is right there. Yeah. Steel Gill. That's me. So those are probably the two ways. So the platform I have the most communication on, and then emails, which I check pretty often. So I don't unfortunately have LinkedIn. I probably need to get on that. Um, I don't have a website linked up just yet, but those are my two ways.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think that um one thing I've been heard on a podcast about um, you know, a lot of people don't really focus on what it's like to be human or how how what it what it is to be human, right? And it's about like experiencing everything, good times, bad times, hard times, easy times, right? And so I think you're a true testament of that because you're just uh you're having this whole range of experience. And I think just the further along you go, that's gonna give you so much depth. And I, you know, I don't mean this to sound mean, but I think people who've had it easy their whole life, to me, they're a little boring because they have no depth. Yeah. And so I think that I'm very, very excited to see where you're gonna end up five, 10, 15 years from now. Because even if you don't do the Paralympics or you don't do something that you're thinking of right now, it's going to be very impactful because of the wealth of the human experience that you have.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think it it all adds up, right? Like everything uh kind of builds on top of each other. And you went wherever you end up, it might not be where you imagined it, but it's gonna be in a good place, right? Because you've leaned into the challenge. I think that's what I want people to take away from it. It's like, hey, it's okay to do hard things. If things get really hard, you can still do something about it. And moreover, wherever you land on the other side of that challenge, you're gonna really appreciate it. And it's gonna be way more valuable because you went through that hard thing. Right. And in our context, for our audience, it's the pursuit of health and long-term health and being the healthiest version of yourself. And there's a lot to draw from here from from your from your story, what you've what you've shared with us today here. We uh we definitely thank you, first of all, for no, thank y'all.
SPEAKER_03I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00Chatting with my good friends, you know, sharing that that energy with us and sharing your story. We really appreciate it, and I'm sure our audience will appreciate it as well. Um, guys, reach out to Katie. You know, she she's a wealth of knowledge for a lot of stuff, even beyond, you know, being an amputee. Like, I mean, she is again I I I have to harp on this. She is a Division I strength coach. And I didn't know this. You work with LSU gymnastics.
SPEAKER_02Gymnastics and softball? Uh beach volleyball. Beach volleyball, excuse me.
SPEAKER_00I mean, like top athletes in the country is kind of a big deal. She's not letting it, but that's kind of a big deal. You know, so definitely you have a lot that can people can draw from. And I'm I'm so happy that you decided to share that with us here in in the pharmaphobic podcast. Jenny, anything you want to close with?
SPEAKER_02They can find us at our website, achieve the lifestyle.com, email at info at achievethlifestyle.com, or you're just most likely going to get hold of us on Instagram at Achieve the Lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00Because it go down into DM, guys. So as always, guys. Remember what Katie said? Remember that Pam.
SPEAKER_02I just love it because like Pam. Yeah. Yeah. That's why.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Yep. Remember that Pam. Okay. Process. Accept and move on. Okay. Movement. Okay. And I want you to quit your whining, guys, and get after it. Okay. You just heard an awesome story about overcoming adversity and dealing with it every day. So quit your whining and get on your health journey, okay? And finally, I want you to stay pharmafree. Thanks for listening to the pharmaphobes podcast. If you found this conversation interesting, which I know you did, make sure to follow us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. And also make sure to check us out on Instagram at Achieve the Lifestyle. And if you're interested in pursuing a stronger, healthier, more capable version of yourself, check out our website at AchievethLifestyle.com.
SPEAKER_02The pharmaphobic podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed are those of the hosts and guests and do not constitute medical, legal, or professional advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making any medical or wellness decisions. While we discuss pharmaceutical, holistic, and alternative health topics, our content is not a substitute for professional medical guidance.