Hey there!
I’m Laura Schellenberger
I am just a gal who loves to exercise, eat well, and travel. I live a healthy lifestyle, but I am all about balance. Did someone say burgers?
I love a good dad joke, and when the pun is intended. My idea of a successful day would start with a coffee and end with a milkshake. I prefer peanut butter (crunchy) over nutella. I get around 30 second dance parties to 90’s R&B, I think the hulk is the real MVP, and my favourite role that I play is being an Aunt to four little humans.
I love a good novel, exploring new cafes, and spontaneous adventures big or small. I like being outside; hiking, swimming, and at the same time enjoy a lazy Sunday. I am currently enjoying my CrossFit training, and working on my goals, which are strict handstand pushups, front squatting 200 lbs, and doing the splits!
My Why…
When I was a child, I watched my Grandmother die very slowly due to having all sorts of chronic health issues that were related to poor lifestyle choices. It was awful. All I remember of her, is being sick, going to doctors appointments, and being in constant pain. That wasn’t who she was though, and on some level I feel guilty that I don’t remember her for who she actually was. I think most people believe that they will go through life, until one day they die. For most of us this will not be the case. We will be sick for a long time before we die, like my Grandmother. The last interaction I had with my Grandmother before she passed, was me holding her hand as she was repeating the Lords Prayer. She paused, looked at me, and asked me who I was. I remember thinking in that moment, I don’t ever want to end up like this. I was eleven.
In high school I worked at a Pharmacy in the dispensary for 5 years. I later went to University for Public Health. It was these two experiences that gave me the opportunity to get a better understanding of the Canadian Health Care system, and its policies. I understood the system to be a reactive approach to health, and treating the symptoms instead of fixing the root problem of people’s health issues. This wasn’t good enough for me because I experienced first hand that treating people’s symptoms doesn’t necessarily mean improving their quality of life. This part of my life solidified that I wanted to be on the other side of the healthcare system taking a proactive approach to people’s health. There isn’t anything I could do to fix what happened with my Grandmother, but maybe this way I can help others improve their lifestyle now, so they can have more quality time later.
MY EXPERIENCE
I am so passionate about making exercise and living a healthy lifestyle a priority because of the positive effects it has had on my own mental health. I can see how it has not only changed my body physically, but more importantly mentally. It helps me manage my stress, and it makes me feel good. It helps me be more mindful, and show up better for myself, and others. I am a better friend, daughter, sister, and aunty because of it. I am who I am today because of fitness, exercise, and healthy eating.
My Fitness Journey
The Uneducated Opinion Phase (2011)
This was the beginning. I call this phase of my fitness journey the uneducated opinion phase. Due to my involvement in sports my whole life I have always been fairly lean. This was me discovering resistance training, and experimenting with nutrition. My guide … instagram influencers. I cringe typing the words. This phase of my fitness journey strictly focused on exercising everyday twice a day, eating only foods that I labelled as healthy, and avoiding carbs. My training lacked structure, and didn’t involve a whole lot of compound movements. Coming to the conclusion that it was a very inefficient way of exercising. Naturally with my history in sports I included a large amount of cardio. Not to mention thats what all the skinny instagram influencers were preaching at the time. Cardio, lots and lots of cardio. I remember I use to go to the gym twice a day. One session was for cardio, the other was a resistance training session. I do NOT recommend this, it is not sustainable or realistic for anyone who, I don’t know, has a life. I was definitely the “I don’t want to get too bulky” kind of girl. My nutrition was not optimal either. I had the mindset that there was good food and bad food and you couldn’t eat the bad food if you wanted to be skinny. There was no balance, but hey it was a massive learning curve for me. Despite all the things that I now see wrong with this phase of my fitness journey, this was the most important phase. I had overcome the hardest part of the fitness journey, which was starting. I decided to make a drastic lifestyle change because I didn’t like who I was becoming.
Snickers to Twix Athlete Cut (2019-2020)
There was a lot of growth and development, working with other coaches, having surgery, rehabilitation after surgery, educating and learning, trial and error, traveling, experimenting with body building, powerlifting, and crossfit, and boom we fast forward to 2019. At the beginning of 2019 I felt like I had taken my body as far as I could go with the knowledge that I had. I started working with a nutritionist to take my health, fitness, body, and mind to the next level. Because even coaches need coaches. We cleaned up old habits that weren’t aligning with my goals, and built a solid foundation with my mindset, exercise routine, and relationship with food. Throughout the year I did a few mini cuts, but mainly focused on maintenance to build up strength. I was training crossfit 5 times a week, and doing minimal cardio. My nutrition was flexible, and allowed me room for balance. I no longer saw food as good or bad, and I wasn’t scared of eating carbs.
I’ve always wanted to do an athlete cut, and I finally felt like mentally I was ready. So this begins the Snickers to Twix Cut phase of my fitness journey. This was a very enjoyable experience overall, despite being in quarantine for more than half of it because of covid, moving cities, being laid off, starting a business, and extending the cut by a month. We slowly reduced my calories, increased my daily activity, and cardio but maintained 5 days a week of Crossfit training. After 20 weeks in a deficit I dropped 16 lbs, was really hungry, and had minimal energy and motivation to complete workouts. The goal was to get lean AF, and that is exactly what I achieved. However, this weight, and lifestyle is not sustainable, which leads me to the next phase.
The New Me Phase (Currently)
Currently I am enjoying my CrossFit training. I train 5-6 days a week. My main focus is performance, and how to best optimize performance through my nutrition and recovery. My main goal is to be fit enough to be able to do things as they come up and not have to train or get into shape for it.
I am learning to enjoy the process of working your weakness. Things I am currently working on are strict handstand push ups, building up my squat strength (especially my front squat), and improve my muscle-up capacity.
I enjoy testing my fitness through a few CrossFit competitions throughout the year with the main goal of having fun and doing fast fitness with friends.
I follow the 80/20 rule with my nutrition where I eat nutrient dense foods 80 percent of the time leaving me 20 percent of the time to enjoy “soul foods”. This allows me to have balance in my life. I can eat to fuel my workouts and optimize recovery but also enjoy family dinners, eating out, and indulging in sugary snacks with my neice and nephews.
My main focus is to train hard and eat well, inspire others to do the same, and develop meaningful connections along the way!