Eden shares her story below.
When I think about my childhood, I can remember loving to laugh, having lots of friends, getting good grades, wearing dresses with sneakers and playing as hard as the boys did at recess or P.E. I also remember being a lot bigger than the other kids, not being able to fit into clothes at the stores they shopped at, being teased about being overweight, never wanting to share my real weight or to get on a scale around my peers. As if being one out of a handful of black/brown students in an entire school and living in a neighborhood less “wealthy” (and much less white) than the one I was schooled in wasn’t enough to create feelings of alienation, being overweight fueled the fire. Though it’s taken several years to truly recognize and bring light to it, seeds of pain and insecurity were taking deep root in my body and in my psyche.
I joined weight watchers with my mom and my neighbor when I was twelve and had a little success. When I started the ninth grade, my mother picked me up from school one day after having gone on a school camping trip and she very simply said to me, “Eden, today you are going to start a new diet, we all are, the whole family is going to do this together.” And she went on to describe the details of the diet and that she had already cleared the kitchen so we could start fresh. I welcomed the idea with no resistance and was quite relieved. At that point, I was about 5 lbs away from 200 and was fed up. In about 1 year and some change, I lost 45 lbs. I had made fat so much of an enemy that I was too afraid to deviate from my diet’s restrictions. This sparked a shift towards health consciousness and was the beginning of a journey into exploring nutrition and health a bit more. I had always been very aware of my body but I began building a different relationship to it--one that was less centered around shame and more filled with learning and understanding.
I played some sports in high school, and during college, I kept a somewhat inconsistent workout schedule and maintained a pretty clean diet. I took the initiative to research various nutrition and alternative healing philosophies in order to better individualize my diet. About 2 and a half years ago, I began taking workout classes and very quickly fell in love (some may call it an addiction) with my workouts. I made fitness a very central focus, going to classes every day (sometimes multiple classes a day) and if I ever had to miss a class it was a very big deal. Since the first day I started at this studio, I have not fallen off and I am the strongest I’ve ever been. But what I have learned is that working out isn’t the hardest part. Truly, the heavy lifting comes in trying every day to combat the fat little girl inside of me—the addiction, the emotional comfort of food, the insecurity, the self loathing, the negative voices.
I feel that my interests and the work I set out to do in life is driven by my desire to help myself and to help others who are made to feel like they are less than, like they have less than, or like they don’t belong. My passion for social justice/social change as well as for health/wellness come from a very personal place. My passion and commitment to wellness and education have allowed me the opportunity to pursue (alongside my coach, Anthony Freeman) developing a wellness lifestyle brand and community of individuals who are empowering themselves to be more optimal being. Norma is an example to all of us. We are all excited by her leadership and dedication to creating spaces for herself and her community to achieve their health goals.
