My Story

In this episode I share my journey to becoming an IFBB Bikini Pro starting with the first time I lifted a weight. I then go on to share my struggles with binging, my gut health journey post show, and what my current plans are regarding my 2026 pro debut. I hope you enjoy! 

Transcript

0:01

Hello and welcome to the Fill Your Potential Podcast. The first episode. I cannot believe I am finally here recording this. I have said I have wanted to do this for the past four years and. Y'all know how that goes. You say you wanna do something and you just never do it, but here we are. So I am honestly excited for this form of content because I feel like I don't have to try and make it perfect. I know. Those of you that are listening to this right now are here because you already pretty much know who I am, know what I'm about, and I can be a little unhinged and unfiltered and just speak. So that's why, honestly, I feel like I'm gonna thrive with long form content. Um, and I would absolutely love y'all's feedback when this episode is said and done so I can continue to improve and get better. But that being said, let's dive right in. Obviously, this is the first episode and so I'm gonna give y'all the entire backstory. Um, all the details. Now, just want to preface, if you're looking strictly for gut healing, um, specifics, I'm not gonna get into that on this podcast, or it would be two hours long and I only have about. 30 minutes left. So that being said, I'm gonna share my story. Um, I am gonna include how I healed and some of those specifics, but I'm just gonna really share it from the very beginning, going back to when I even started training. So that being said, let's dive right in. So when I was 14 years old, I. I did my first pull up and lifted my first barbell in the weight room in junior high, and I was like, huh, I'm really good at this. I'm pretty fucking strong. Um, my dad had actually built a garage gym that he worked out in. He's very into health and fitness and he's the one that actually taught me how to lift, taught me how to train. So I attribute a lot of my knowledge and just understanding of weight training. From a young age to him, which I will be forever grateful for 'cause it has gotten me to the point that I am at today. Um, but that being said, I fell in love with weightlifting. There really wasn't much more to it. I played volleyball for nine years growing up, but I just loved to out, like I was the girl in off season that tried so hard. Not because I wanted to stand out, but I genuinely just loved training and loved the feeling of. Feeling like you're about to die under a barbell. Um, to be dramatic. But that being said, got into training, played volleyball, you know, for nine years and then. Into college was still lifting. I ended up playing volleyball for a year in college down at a and m Kingsville. Most of y'all probably don't know where that is. It's in the middle of nowhere, and I just wanted to go work out all the time. I would get in trouble by my coach because I'd come to practice sore. She was like, babe, you can go squat more, but that's not gonna make you a better volleyball player. So I decided to throw in the towel and just pursue. Honestly, I didn't know I wanted to body build at that time, but I knew I just wanted to work out all the time. So got really into that. And then everyone kept talking about this competing thing, which I didn't know much about. I wasn't big on social media. Had maybe a thousand followers, just friends. Um, I was in a long-term relationship, so I was just kind of doing my own thing to myself, but everyone kept talking about it. I knew this girl that went to my gym, competed in figure, and I was like, you know what? Let me do what everyone else does and go ask her in the bathroom if she wants to coach me and try this whole competition thing out. So at the time I thought I was massive and in comparison to most girls, like I was pretty big. I'm five seven, I was about 1 55 maybe at the time, but like I was solid. I was very dense and. I just, I thought I was big. I had never cut before. I genuinely grew up and was trying to gain as much mass as possible. I would literally eat cereal before bed just to go step on the scale and see if I could get it to reach one 60. I to this day, I don't think I've ever hit one 60, at least not a morning weight. Um, but we'll get there. So that being said. Was a big body, wanted to compete. Hired this coach and basically I love her. No shade to her at all. Um, I don't think she coached many people, and this is just not how I would've done it, but she put me on a. Meal plan. Very basic meal plan. Mind you, I also had no understanding of macros. I ate clean and my philosophy growing up, thank goodness my parents cooked for me growing up, we didn't have sodas or a lot of processed. Food in the house. We didn't really eat out. We didn't have the money for it. We didn't really go get fast food very often. So I grew up on a lot of home-cooked meals and my dad was very big into feeding US protein. He would wake up literally every morning and make us breakfast tacos with eggs and sausage. Um. And make sure we ate before school. So he was very much into making sure we were nourished, which is such a blessing because I carried that into my older years. But that being said. In college. My big thing was I am not going to eat out on the weekends. I'm j, or I'm sorry, I'm not gonna eat out during the week. I'm only gonna be able to eat out on the weekends and that way during the week, I'm just going to home cook meals and eat quote unquote clean. So I would have three to four meals a day during the week. I'm sure at some point I was a five or six meal girly. Now four meals, that's what everyone should be on three to four day. You really don't need more than that. I'll go into that later, but. I was eating pretty clean, cooking my food, but I didn't really track. I just knew I was gonna have protein with every single meal. Um, I had a very balanced diet between my carbs, fats, and proteins, whole foods. And I tried to cook a lot of my food throughout college. And then on the weekends, if I wanted free meals, I would go out and enjoy myself. So that's kind of how I lived. And then I got put on this very strict diet. I wish I had remembered the meal plan. It was insane. Like breakfast was like. 200 grams of egg whites, two handfuls of cooked spinach, some blueberries and some protein powder. Like what? Vomit. And then the amount of food I was eating at one point I, at one point, I swear I was eating like 3000 calories of straight um, whole Foods, which was absolutely absurd. Now, COVID happened during this time, so we started dieting. And then COVID happened. We had to kind of pause it, so we were quote unquote bulking for a little bit. And then we went back into dieting when COVID cleared out. And long story short, I lost 25 pounds in 12 weeks, which is a shit ton of weight, um, to lose that quickly and was on this stupid strict meal plan. I knew nothing about anything, so I just did exactly what I was told and. I never before had an issue with food thoughts, food restriction, anything like that. I, because I ate, I never restricted myself ever in my entire life. I was trying to be a big body. So that being said, once this diet was over, I got on stage and was incredibly small. I got backstage and I was like, what the hell am I doing? I am not a figure competitor. I am very tiny, and at this point I'm still natural. I was natural. All the way up until I turned pro. So just keep that in mind as well. Um. But anyways, the show ended and I think I got fourth in my open class. I did not do very well and didn't hear from her The next day. It was crickets. I knew nothing about a reverse diet, didn't know anything about anything. I was just like, okay, well, I. Just gonna guess. Go back to eating what I was eating before. And just like any new competitor had bought in all the sweets and all the, you know, had the list of foods I was going to eat afterwards. And I was in college alone. I was living with my cousin, but he's not into bodybuilding, so he wasn't really able to kind of understand what I was going through. But after that show and I was just back in my, you know, college apartment, I just start overeating. And eating. And eating. And at one night, I remember I ordered a 20 inch. The slices were 20 inches, or maybe the whole pizza was, no, the whole pizza had to have been 20 inches. This massive New York style pizza with a side of SNA sticks. It was like this pizza that was cinnamon like sticks, basically like cin, cinnamon roll, but a pizza I housed. As much as I could until I physically could not fit any more food in my stomach. I went to bed and then I woke up at 9:00 AM the next morning and I was like, okay, can I continue eating the pizza? Like that was the first thing on my mind. The first thing I thought about, I was like, I gotta keep eating and. I ate, I started crying. I called my mom. I was like, mom, I don't get it. Like, I just, I can't stop thinking about food. I'm never satisfied. I, I don't see any other reason to live, but to eat. That was truly my mindset. And I didn't wanna work out. I would pull up to the gym, cry, drive away. Um, sometimes I'd make it on the StairMaster for like five minutes just to try and get me going, go home. I remember one night I got like a tub of icing and just sat there and ate it with pretzels and, um, ate that basically until I couldn't eat anymore. And then I went to the gym and tried to sweat it out. And this cycle continued for about a month. It was, it was so bad, y'all. It was so. So bad. I was absolutely miserable. And I'm sure some of y'all listening that to this can relate, but it's truly the way, it just fucks your brain chemistry. You can't, there's no discipline involved, like you're in a whole nother dimension. Your, your brain is not functioning like a normal human being. You are so dysregulated that nothing is going to stop you from these impulses except for being maybe tied up to a pole and like prevented. Um. Um, but I just had to allow my hormones to regulate themselves. So that being said, I am going through this cycle and I meet this bikini IFBB bikini competitor at the gym. Didn't know what that was at the time, but she was like, Hey, there is a bikini show and MPC show in our city in two weeks. Let me pull you back in and let's do the show and try the bikini category and see how you do. And I was like, homegirl. I've been binging for a month, but on the other side, I was like, you know what? This would force me to stop overeating and have a goal and lock in. And what's crazy is it worked. I had that two week show in mind and I was dialed. I did not binge eat. I was on my plan, which she had me on 900 calories, so I just went from eating probably like 5,000 a day down to 900. I hope y'all can see where all my GI issues are stemming from. At this point, I was just living my happy life and then just got. Fucked by people who did not know what they were doing. So that being said, um, was eating these 900 calories and. Actually, this is another funny story. Uh, I think a week out from the show I had a double Dave's pizza down the street from my apartment. If y'all don't know what Double Dave's is, they have the best pizza rolls known to man. And ya girl was having a moment. I, this is so sad. I went to HEB and I got a little bag of those, um, white chocolate covered. I think they're almonds. Man, I've had no, they're pecans. They're pecans, white chocolate covered pecans. I got a little bag of those and then I took it to the double Dave's, and I literally went inside and sat my ass down by myself in that double Dave's, and I ate like three pizza rolls and a bag of those almond or those p uh, pecans. And then I got in the car. And I dmd Kerrigan. And at this time I didn't know who Kerrigan was. I watched all of her YouTube videos, her prep Flogs, because they motivated me throughout my prep. I looked up to her. Um, but we were not friends. Like we had never spoken. So I DM her and I'm like, Hey girl, I follow you and I just did this thing and I don't want to tell my coach, by the way. Please don't ever do that. Just tell your coach and then. Um, I was like, what can I do? Am I gonna be okay next week? Mind you, I was not anywhere near stage lean. Like I was so incredibly watery from all the binging eating I had done and being put on 900 calorie. Like it was a shit show. I just happened to have a good amount of muscle in great genetics to make this work. But for the average person, this is not gonna fly. Um, so I did that. Texted her, she was like. You're gonna be fine. Drink a lot of water, like you'll get through it. So that's what I did and a week later I competed. I wish I could show y'all photos on this podcast because if y'all would've seen my DIY tan, I was quite literally black. Um, my makeup was terrible. I had no, not worked on posing, had no idea what I was doing. You can actually find videos on YouTube. I'm calling myself out, myself out right now, but it'll make y'all laugh. Um. I did that show. Mind you, this was right after COVID, so there were only. There was only one other girl in my class, so I inevitably top two qualify for nationals. So I qualified, I did get first out of the two, but um, ended up qualifying. So that allowed me to be able to go to nationals the following year, but this was in October of 2021. So after that I binge J for quite some time, as you can imagine. Um, I actually. No, not yet. I've binge eight for quite some time. And then I was like, you know what? You need to start tracking macros and like learn about food and see if you can gather. So I started tracking macros and I waited until I was able to actually follow a plan again. And honestly, it really just took time, um, time and understanding and just being around my family and that support system again. So ended up getting back on track. A few months later, I would say it took me maybe like five months. I can remember when it happened. And then I reached out to Brandon because he lived in Houston with Kerrigan and I lived in Houston. And I was like, I'd love to have, you know, a local coach. Not that they coach in person, but like, I'd love to have them around so I re, I did what you're not supposed to do, please don't do this. But I sent them photos 12 weeks out from Nationals and I was like, Hey. I want to compete at nationals. Can you coach me? Now, most people, most coaches would be like, hell no. Like, what are you talking about? You're not ready for a 12 week prep. And also, I know nothing about your body, but y'all have to remember like I do have. Phenomenal genetics and at this point I had a shit ton of muscle and I was already pretty lean. So I kind of set them up for success in that regard. Um, so they were like, um, hell yeah, we'll prep you. And ended up starting, and I was really ready in like eight weeks. It was extremely quick. Um, but ended up prepping for. What show did I do first? Junior USAs and got third in my class. Now mind you, like, this is my first real show with like a real coach, and so still didn't really know what I was doing. Didn't really practice posing, but I, I weaned it and it worked. Ended up getting third and then a few weeks later it went to USAs in Phoenix and ended up winning my pro card there. So that happened. I was incredibly dialed, everything was going smooth. And then. Right in the middle of that second section of prep, I remember I was sitting in the parking lot eating egg whites and oats just like I did every day. And my stomach blew up like hard as a rock blew up. And at this time I knew nothing about gut health, like nothing about. Really anything, honestly, except how to train my ass off. So I was just very confused. It kept happening, but like I'd wake up flat in the morning. I could get through most of my day. I wouldn't bloat till the evening. Um, and come show day, everything was so dialed and controlled. You weren't really having any fiber, minimal protein on show day. So that wasn't really an issue in terms of the bloating. But after the show. I was just bloating every single day and it, I looked like, I mean, you have seen my photos on Instagram. I looked like I was nine months pregnant. Um, and really didn't know anything about the this at the time. So I do, let me pause real quick. I do have a real on my Instagram that's pinned that says The real reason I have not. Done my pro debut and I go through my entire story with my gut healing up until about a year ago. I need to make the second half of that, but I, I'll go through it again, but I'm gonna give y'all like the, the cliff notes version 'cause I'm kind of running outta time. Um, so just keep that in mind that you can go and look at that post and kind of see what I went through in, in terms of healing, but. I tried to do an off season, tried to keep pushing like any stubborn young girl would, and finally said, you know what, Brandon like, I can't live like this anymore. I gotta figure this out. So I found someone to help me out. I got off, I was on the pill, the hormonal birth control pill for 10 years. That's another podcast for another day, but. It didn't really have an effect on me or my prep thankfully. Um, but after coming off of that, it does alter your gut microbiome. So I think a combination of that and then also just all the stress from prep and then the binge eating, just accumulation of everything led to my GI issues. And it finally just, there was a, a straw that broke the camel's back and everything tipped over and exploded. But that being said, um, I worked with someone for a little bit. As I got off the birth control and as I was trying to heal my gut. Long story short, that did not work out. So that's when I reached out to Sierra. Actually, I did work with Lacey for a little bit and then I worked with Sierra for a little bit. That did not work out. Um, I'm not gonna get into that right now, but. Don't recommend. Sorry. And went back to Lacey. So this is all within, now coming up on four and a half years from when I turned pro to today. So the first two years of me trying to heal was kind of a shit show. I didn't know what I would. Doing, no one I was working with knew what they were doing. The second two years of trying to heal has been so much better because I've been with Lacey. But then also I've had all this knowledge from doing all my research that I've been able to do a lot for myself. And then also keep in mind that because I was so inflamed in dealing with this condition for two years of just day-to-day inflammation, the healing process is gonna take a little bit longer because. You are not just gonna undo four years of inflammation in a few months. That doesn't work like that. There was a lot of nervous system regulation that had to go into this. So just keep in mind the timeline. I tell people this is not a normal timeline. This is not something everyone is gonna have to go through. But because of my situation and how long it took me to be able to work with someone who knew what they were doing it, it did take me a lot longer. So I always say I walked. So y'all can run. I was the Guinea pig so y'all can thrive. 'cause anyone that comes to me, I'm able to tell them exactly what to do and what not to do, to speed up their healing journey. Um, as long as they listen. So that being said, worked with someone, didn't work out. Then um. I'm just gonna kind of fast forward all of that. I ended up getting my cycle back, honestly, just from gaining body fat and getting my breast augmentation done. I didn't work out for six weeks and my body finally just took a chill pill. So oftentimes that'll work just relaxing and allowing your stress to come down. But I also have a very re stress resilient cycle. Some people do, some people don't. I've never lost my cycle. Throughout this entire gut healing protocol, that's not the case for everyone, but thankfully it was the case for me. Um, so if you are someone who's missing your cycle, once you start to heal your gut, your cycle will come back. A lot of the reason your cycle is gone likely is because of the systemic inflammation that is being caused due to your gut health, your poor gut health. And so once you eradicate whatever's going on there, heal and seal it. Take care of a lot of that stress. Um, your brain ovarian connection will kick back in and you will begin to have a cycle. I see it happen all the time. Um. Not always that easy, but usually that is where we need to start is the gut. So that being said, I, oh my God, my leg is asleep right now and it's not coming back on. Good lord. Um, that being said, started working with Lacey. So what I ended up having with sibo, which didn't know about it at the time, that is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. So basically. Your bacteria should be mostly in your colon, in your large intestine. Sometimes that bacteria, due to various reasons, can overgrow in the small intestine. Now, I use this analogy a lot, but think about your bacteria as flowers in a garden. We have our weeds in it and we have our flowers. We do not want an. Overgrowth of flowers. We don't want an overgrowth of weeds. We want a healthy balance of mostly flowers, a little bit of weeds, but if we have enough flowers, we can't even see the weeds. So weeds, bad bacteria, flowers, good bacteria. Think about having a ton of weeds, like barely any flowers, and just your whole garden is weeds. And then any type of probiotic is like a seed prebiotics or like fertilizer. So think about putting. Fibers, fibrous foods, high FODMAP foods, um, any type of prebiotic, polyphenols on top of your garden. So fertilizing the weeds and just making them grow more and more and more. That's what was happening in my gut. So what we have to do, go off and kill all the weeds, and then once we kill the weeds, we can replant seeds for the flowers and allow them to grow. But you cannot grow things in a garden that is already full. So that being said. I had to go in and do a lot of kill off work. Now I had a SIBO level, a methane level of. 85. You can have methane dominant sibo, hydrogen dominant sibo, or hydrogen sulfide dominant sibo hydrogen or methane dominant sibo. Three main symptoms, bloating, gas, constipation. The gas is gonna smell like sulfur. It's gonna smell like rotten eggs. You're gonna clear out a room. It's gonna be terrible. My dating life at the time. Awful. Um. So we have to go in and kill all these things off. Now, most GI Mat or most SIBO tests that I see, and I will make a whole separate podcast on just the gut stuff, 'cause this one's gonna be too long if I get into all the weeds of that. But just to put this in perspective, most women that I see their methane numbers are around maybe like 20, 25, 30 max. Mine was an 85. So that just tells you how incredibly bad it was and why this took so long to eradicate. Um, so that being said, I ended up. Getting on a protocol with Lacey. We did herbal treatments. I did antibiotics one time. I did not respond well to them, so I have stuck with herbals this entire time, um, and did a few rounds of that. I did get to a point where because my SIBO was so bad and I needed so much kill off work to be done that. My stomach, my actual stomach lining was starting to burn and I had to take a break. During that time is when I met Travis and we were getting married. Um, well actually hold on. No, we were getting married 'cause I didn't meet him and then immediately get married. I mean, kind of. We got engaged within nine months, but that's besides the point. So I. Oh my god. Sorry. I thought I just saw something in the other room. I am incredibly skittish. That's part of me healing and getting my nervous system back under control is trying not to be so skittish. That being said, um, now I lost my train of thought. I was doing kill off and met Travis had the stomach burning. Um, we were getting married, just honestly living my life for a little bit because this whole thing had just been so stressful. I just wanted to enjoy the wedding process, so I was kind of vibing. And then after we got married, I said, you know what? I need to lock back in, finish this thing. And so I went ahead and attempted herbals again, and the burning went away. Um, a lot of that burning was from just gas traveling upwards and pissing off and irritating my stomach lining, but ended up being able to tolerate the herbals. So did a few more rounds of that recently, and the SIBO is now gone. Thank God for. Praise the Lord. I didn't end up doing a retest, but I have no more symptoms of it. And the last test I did, it was a 10. And to be negative, you need to be a nine or below. So I was like, look, if I'm at a 10 and I did four more weeks of kill off and I have no symptoms, we're just gonna call it a day. So God bless. This whole journey has just been incredibly frustrating. Um, incredibly hard and. I'm realizing how much I could go into right now and this podcast would just be so incredibly long. So I do wanna break it up. Um, I just kind of wanna get the main points out there, but that being said, I did get rid of it now. With all of that, I, once you kill everything off, so once you kill off the weeds, you have to go bit back in and replant the flowers, right? So I'm starting that phase of replanting my flowers and just really healing and sealing the gut lining, starting to get back into training again. Um, just easing myself back into. The bodybuilding lifestyle, and I've realized that I still have some lower abdominal bloating that is not going away. So the upper abdominal bloating gone lower, abdominal bloating, not quite going away, and I am still just not a hundred percent when it comes to energy and recovery. Um, so I. I am trying to figure out where I wanna start this. I got blood work done and what came back on my blood work was a lot of markers that were just showing that my liver was not exactly functioning the way I would've liked it. So right now my T four to T three conversion is very low, much lower than it's ever been. My testosterone is low, my estrogen is high. My LDL is actually very high, which is. A sign of too much cholesterol. That's honestly a myth, but just a lot of markers. My sex hormone binding globulin is high. A lot of things that it indicates sluggish liver and your liver detoxifies toxins, right? It detoxifies everything that goes into your body. So if you have toxin overload, you can put a lot of stress on the liver and it can cause a lot of inflammation in the body. So. A while back when I was going through all of, like, I was in the thick of trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I did a mycotoxin test, which, um, was testing for mycotoxins coming from mold. Now, growing up in my childhood house, I've always known there was mold in the house. I don't know how much mold. We never had an inspector come out. I never knew. Really about the repercussions of living in mold. Um, I didn't know anything about it. I didn't think anything of it. But now that all these health issues have come out, I'm like, you know what? I know that I lived in mold. Let's dive into it and see if anything's there. And sure enough, I had, not a ton, but I did have some mycotoxins. Um. In my body, which the mold spores produce mycotoxins, and the mycotoxins are what get into our body. And they are stored in our tissues in different places in the body. And every day we are constantly turning, um, turning over cells and these toxins are being released and recirculated through the body. So until we actually get them out through binders and through detoxing, they're not just gonna come out on their own. So that being said. Now that the Sibos gone and, and mold can actually lead to a lot of GI issues because it suppresses your immune system, it slows motility. I'm not gonna get into all of that 'cause again, this podcast could be so long. But that being said. I knew that my SIBO could have stemmed from the binge eating, the prep, the constipation, all these other things. But at the same time, I also knew in the back of my mind that I had this mold in me and that that could be what's congesting my liver just because of the toxin overload. And until I figure out what is going on, like I'm not going to be able to optimize my body and be in a place where I can body build. I am someone that. I am patient and I very much understand that in order for me to be the best athlete I can be and build muscle and recover and just be a good coach to my girls and have the energy for them and be present, um, and be able to lose body fat and be healthy and have good gut health. I need good labs. I need to check off all my boxes. So if this is another thing that I have to dive into and heal, I've, I've come this far, like let's go because I wanna be the best I can be. Now, that being said. I've talked to Lacey about this. She's incredibly familiar with mold. She has gone through multiple protocols herself, um, very well versed on this. I trust her at this point with my entire life. If she told me to eat dirt, I would literally eat dirt. Um, she is the smartest human being I know. And so we had a conversation and she's on board for a mold yeast protocol now. When you have mold, it can suppress the immune system and it can allow for yeast to overgrow in the gut. Some signs of candida or yeast overgrowth would be intense. Sugar cravings, maybe skin issues and rashes. You can have frequent UTIs or yeast infections because a lot of our gut flora is very similar to our vaginal flora. Um. You can have a white coating on your tongue. You can have consistent bloating that gets worse with sugars, like added sugars. I don't have strong symptoms of yeast, but I know in the past I had a ton of sugar. I know I've had candida before. It's popped up on my GI map, and I also know I had this, I have this mold that a lot, a lot of times comes with. Yeast, and I know I still have this lower abdominal bloating that's not quite going away, and it could very well just be that lingering yeast that I need to get rid of. So as of today, December, what is today? December 18th. I'm a few days into my m. Mold, mold and yeast protocol and really what that looks like, it's actually very simple. Um, I'm taking some binders to bind up those toxins, those mold toxins, and excrete them. And then I'm taking some antimicrobials to kill off the yeast. And then I'm really focusing on liver support. So I'm taking revived liver, I'm taking phos acetylcholine, I'm doing castor oil packs on my liver, um, three to four times a week. I'm also doing dandelion root. TI mean, I'm hitting this thing from all angles and then I'm sweating a few times a week in the sauna just to speed up the toxin release to get it into my system, to allow myself to excrete it. Um. So that being said, we're gonna run this for three weeks. We're gonna see how I do, see if anything changes. Hopefully we'll have made some, this is gonna take a lot longer, but we at least wanna see progress within this time. Um, hopefully we'll have seen changes and then once this protocol is over. Ideally all the mold that should be outta my body, the yeast should be outta my gut. The sibo, the overgrowth of my small intestine has already been eradicated and hopefully things will start working better. Um, we think that my testosterone could be aromatizing to estrogen because of the inflammation in my body and my LDL is just high because of my liver. Um, and then there are some other things on my CBC that are showing. Uh, basically chronic suppression of the immune system. And this could also be stemming from the long-term mold I've been dealing with. So a lot of these things align with the mold and the, the toxicity. So hopefully once we clear this out, we're gonna see a lot of these markers come back to life Now. I'm about to have to leave in a second, but I wanna touch on one more thing in regards to where I'm at in my journey. I did announce my pro debut. I feel like I have put myself in this little bubble, um, of healing since it's been going on for so long, and I, it's really. If y'all have never done it, it's really fucking hard to stick to a plan for four years and not stray. And I have been so incredibly far from that. I mean, I'm literally 26 years old. I wanna live my life. These are the best years of my life. Me and my husband are just in our prime, so it's been really hard to be 1000% on plan, but I can find myself, um, kind of drifting away from the day-to-day tasks I need to be doing to get me. 100% back into bodybuilding and healed and healthy, and I felt like announcing a pro debut and just putting it out there is going to force me to do so, and it's already made such a big difference. Um. In terms of just kicking my ass back into gear and being like, okay, we're on a timeline now. Like it's now or never. Because if I continue saying, yeah, I'll get on stage when I heal, I'll, I'll do it whenever. Whenever that happens, it's never gonna happen. So we have a timeline, we've set a date for the goal and we're gonna make it happen. So that being said. As I am finishing up this mold protocol, I obviously cannot train hard. This is one thing that a lot of people don't understand about healing, but you have to give your body grace and remove stressors. You cannot just go balls to the walls with training and expect your body to be able to heal. It's too much stress. We don't have enough energy to even build muscle or recover. So training has been very light, but. Uh, okay. I really have to go y'all. I'm also dealing with some, not injuries, but during this whole healing journey, my nervous system, and that's another podcast. We have a lot of podcasts to go. My nervous system essentially was so dysregulated and you can look up symptoms of a dysregulated nervous system. I'm sure a lot of y'all align. A lot of us females are incredibly dysregulated. Um. But it caused my glute to lock up. We store a lot of our trauma in our lower belly, in our glutes, in our lower back, in our traps. So my, my glute locked up. My right glute. Now, when your glute has been locked up for two years, clearly it's not working. It's not stabilizing the hip, it's not activating. Now I have finally gotten that glute to release through breath work, through acupuncture, through dry needling, through nervous system regulation work. But now it's unlocked, but it's still not activating those. Um, neurons are still not firing, so I'm having to get my, you know, nervous system to kind of retrain itself and refire that glute. So I've been doing a lot of rehab with that. I can't really train lower body 'cause why am I gonna put weight on the glute when it's not even activating? It's not working properly. That's just gonna piss it off even more. So it kind of works out that I'm doing this mold protocol where I do have to pull back my stressors and I'm also still rehabbing my glute and I'm rehabbing my shoulder. Um, I'm also having a wing scap and have some shoulder issues with that. So I'm just kind of a mess right now. Um, but it's okay because we're at the tail end. We have the pro date debut set. Um, it's happening October 16th. Or 17th, I don't know what day I go on, but in St. Petersburg, Florida, it's the Hurricane Pro. Um, and I'm not doing this show because I'm gonna look my greatest, you know, I had this idea that I wanted to step on stage with the best physique I could possibly have, and realistically, that's just not gonna happen. And that's okay because I'm doing this for me, I'm doing this to get myself out of this little bubble I've put myself in. And to prove to myself that I am a great athlete and I can do this, and no one will understand how much it will mean to me to step back on that stage and get to the finish line and be healthy. And by healthy I mean not have symptoms and have great blood work and great lab testing. Like I, I just want to be. The best version of myself again, and this is gonna kick my ass into a year to do so. So even if I get dead last, even if I look like a scrawny little string bean up there, I, I quite literally don't care because getting up there is just proving. I proving to myself like I can do it. Um, and I, and this chapter is closed. This whole healing chapter is closed and put on the shelf, and I can just take my knowledge and continue to share it with others, share it with y'all, share it with my clients. Um, so yeah, I am, I'm incredibly excited. I will be wrapping up this mold candida protocol. In addition to my rehab on my body. Hopefully those two will end around the same time within a few months. I'm hoping by the end of January I'm gonna be good to go. Then we're gonna start easing back into training, hopefully put on a little bit of tissue. Tissue will come back on very quickly. I've lost muscle mass, but I can regain it very fast. Our body, um, and those, those tissue receptors are still there. Um, not tissue receptors. I can't think right now, but y'all get, y'all get what I'm saying. Um, your, your ability to rebuild that muscle is gonna happen very, very quick and adapt. Um. So once that happens, give myself a few months before I prep. Surely my prep won't be very long. I'm thinking maybe three months max. Just knowing my body and how quickly I can prep and then we will be getting on stage. So that being said, I really have to go y'all, but thank you so much. If you're still listening to this, definitely give me feedback. I'm so excited to come out with more of these and have specific topics to help you guys on. If there's anything specific you want me to talk about. Please go send me a dm. Um, my Instagram, well if you're here, you're following my Instagram, but my Instagram and TikTok are Kayla Ashworth underscore. Same thing with YouTube. Um, but yeah. Thank you guys so much for listening and together we're gonna fill our potential.