Anti-Bunhead Fitness

The Secret to Indulging...Guilt-Free

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 05:14:34 -0700

Hello, friends! It's been a while since I checked in. Hope you've been enjoying the first few months of 2026. How is it already almost April?!

I just returned from a week in France where I spent a few days in Val d'Isere snowboarding in the Alps (or at least attempting to snowboard...true confession, I am not good but think it's incredibly important to do things you "suck" at. More on that later) and then a few days in Paris exploring the city.

Why is this relevant to you? Because it all comes down to food and indulging in life...while still feeling confident in your body & not guilty for going off your exercise & diet plan.

If you've ever been to France, you know the food is GOOD! Even in the little ski village and slopeside mountain eateries they offered the most gourmet, delectable food. Instead of your average USA ski resort fare of hot dogs and chili...we are talking quiche, fresh pasta, rich roasted meats, thick hot chocolate, crème brûlée, & pastries galore. And that's not even getting into what Paris had to offer.

Now, I have major body goals - both aesthetically and athletically. I have a few photoshoots booked in the coming months that I need to feel confident in my body for and am performing for the first time with Tom Gold Dance (a dream-company of mine!) April 9 & 10 (come see the performance if you are in Manhattan!) that I need to be physically primed for.

A younger version of myself would have been terrified about taking a week off from my normal routine and diet, thinking I had two options for this vacation:

1) Let myself indulge in the delicious food I desired but come back feeling miserable and guilty for veering off my disciplined plan.

2) Resist temptations & deny myself the enjoyment of the experience, leaving me anxious, restricted, & miserable the...Read More

HOLIDAY DETOX

Sun, 04 Jan 2026 13:28:03 -0800

Happy New Year to you all!

I hope you enjoyed your time with family & friends... and all the holiday indulgences! After a busy (albeit fulfilling!) Nutcracker season where I was intensely focused and "on" the whole month of December, I was ready for a real break over the holidays where I ate and drank whatever I wanted and let my body rest & recover.

All that means is that I'm actually craving some structure and discipline now that the holidays are over and ambitions for the year ahead are upon us.

That's exactly why I designed my HOLIDAY DETOX... to provide a step-by-step plan of action to get back on track and in control of your health & body at the start of the new year!

Join us January 12-25 where you'll get daily messages sent directly to your phone every morning (via WhatsApp) helping you take baby steps towards building confidence in your body and life.

This DETOX is not about calorie restriction or extreme dieting. Yes, we will be eliminating the junk calories and toxins that detract from your health & bog down your gut microbiome.

But we will also focus on ADDING IN the nourishment your body needs to run optimally, heal your hormonal tone, and crank up your metabolism... turning you into a fat-burning machine.

Plus, you'll learn my nutrition philosophy for life that includes 2 phases - the Vibrant Phase and the Clean Eating Phase. This philosophy is what allows me to indulge (sans food-guilt!) in my favorite treats while providing healthy control & confidence over my body... without feeling like I'm on an endless, bland...Read More

Nutcracker 2025

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 17:49:58 -0800

It's that time of year again...the holidays are fast approaching and dancers are gearing up for our most strenuous, fulfilling, busy time of year!

I just got back from a weekend in Ames, Iowa, where I had the honor of coaching Nutcracker rehearsals with the choreographers of the Iowa Youth Ballet. I've been guesting as Sugar Plum Fairy at this Nutracker at Stephens Auditorium at Iowa State University for the last 4 years...and it's been beautiful to watch these dancers mature as artists and human beings throughout that time.

I'm so grateful to Robert Thomas Dance Center and the choreographers and directors of the Iowa Youth Ballet for bringing me in to help coach these Nutcracker rehearsals and participate in the behind-the-scenes process. I'm a huge believer in art not being about the ego...but about the potential for human connection behind it. And this weekend was the perfect example of that. I hope the young dancers got just as much fulfillment, hope, and inspiration out of this weekend as I did! Thank you Ames, Iowa, for your warm welcome and genuine kindness. This is what art is meant to do -- connect us all on a level of real warmth, depth, & love.

I've had lots of questions about where I'm performing this season, so I'm adding all the info here in case you want to join in on some holiday magic!

Nutcracker Performances:

Wilmington, NC - Thalian Hall - Ticket info

December 5 at 4pm and 7pm

December 6 at 10am

Mount Airy, NC - Andy Griffith Playhouse - Read More

Built Not Born

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 11:44:24 -0700

Some dancers are born with a body they feel confident in. The rest of us have to build it, one step at a time.

That’s why I created Bulletproof Ballerina® -- to provide the tools needed to build a body you feel unstoppable in. Even if you are born a “misfit.”

There’s this concept of “thoroughbreds” in the ballet world – the dancers born with the ideal genetic potential & life circumstances to be the perfect ballerina. (Read more about this concept here.) And the reality is, there are so very few of these thoroughbreds out there. Most of us are dancers with an insatiable passion for our art even though we have our own struggles (physically & mentally) to overcome. But that desire for the perfect ballet body and lines is so strong it can leave the rest of us feeling like misfits. Like we don’t belong. Like we’re not good enough or worthy to share our art.

When I was younger, I dealt with this insecurity with destructive methods -- eating disorders, obsessive exercise, rigid diets & rules -- to gain control over my body & confidence in my dancing. While some of those methods worked in terms of giving me a sense of control, they also made me absolutely miserable. They caused a lot of physical damage to my body & emotional damage to my mind. And they certainly didn't give me the confidence I so desperately desired.

The methods I thought would make me a better dancer did the exact opposite.

My Bulletproof Ballerina® training method was born out of my experiments to find a different way of exercising, eating, & living -- a way that would get results & build confidence without...Read More

2 Keys to Success & Longevity

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 09:26:57 -0700

These are the 2 most important keys to success & longevity as a freelance dancer (or entrepreneur of any kind):

1) Be willing to redefine your definition of "success." Often.

What you think you want out of your career is not always what will make you happy.

And what makes you FEEL successful is different from how you want to be seen as successful. Don't confuse the two.

"Success" will be different at different points in your life. What you want from ballet as an 18-year-old is not the same as what you'll want as a 40-year-old. Ballet has to evolve with you as you evolve as a person. Otherwise, you'll stay stuck in a definition of success that no longer suits you as you mature, causing you to resent ballet for holding you back (whether you realize it or not) & quit before you actually want to.

As an example from my own life, at the start of my career, I thought success meant working as much as possible, performing on big stages, & earning highly paid contracts. Now after being in the business more than 2 decades, I've found that the things that make me feel the most successful are not necessarily the big performances on epic stages but the small, simple moments of real, honest connection & craft. "Success" is no longer a numbers game... but a pursuit of deeper meaning & authenticity. Had I stubbornly held onto my definition of success from my twenties, I would have burned myself out long ago chasing things that were no longer fulfilling, instead of allowing my art to mature along with my life.

If you want ballet to grow with you (and allow yourSELF to grow)... you must change your definition of success... often.

2) Build your tolerance for planting seeds... without seeing any growth.

Fat Loss - Reality Check

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 08:43:31 -0700

You may not like this post. It could be a harsh reality check. But my hope is that even if you don't like it, you will find peace in it.

For most of us mere mortals and non-thoroughbreds, fat loss is real work. It's hard, especially once you pass a certain age and your hormones start shifting. Your old tricks that used to work like gangbusters in your twenties & thirties stop being effective or take an eternity to create change.

What's worse is that we have an unrealistic expectation for what "normal" healthy & fit looks like. We are skewed to think extremely low body fat is normal because we are bombarded by shredded fitness bodies all day long on social media and YouTube. Because we see these images constantly, we've come to accept being extremely lean as the "norm."

But that is not the norm. Fitness models and competitors diet down for shoots and competitions to peak with this shredded look for a small moment in time. (If they have an extremely low level of body fat year-round, you better believe there is something else they are sacrificing... whether health or sanity. But we'll get to that later.)

When our brains see these images non-stop, we think that is how we are supposed to look if we are at all dedicated to health, fitness, & self-improvement... and feel like losers if we don't look that way.

On top of that, we are competing with fat loss drugs and surgical enhancements creating artificial results & tainting the playing field even more. So, if you are trying to do things naturally (which I highly recommend), it can feel like even more of a slog.

But let's cut to the chase. If you want to look extreme (meaning 6-pack abs, shredded muscle definition, very low body fat), you have to be extreme. You have to be diligent with your diet and workout plan to the point where it is pretty much all-consuming and little-to-no room for error.

That means, when your girlfriends invite you...Read More

Hunting Happiness Retreat 2025

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 20:33:14 -0700

Years of dreaming & contemplating, months of planning & designing, weeks of preparation & anticipation... culminated in this soulful weekend of connection...

To each other and not our phones...

To nature and the present moment...

To our SELF...

To our pain & sadness, joys & passions...

To what we find meaningful.

Healing from our past.

Being inspired for the future.

But returning to the now. Reclaiming what it means to feel alive and LIVE in the moment...with full hearts & open, unguarded energy.

Because the truth is...these Hunting Happiness Retreats are not just about chasing pleasure & big adventures... but about removing the blocks that prevent us from experiencing pure joy & love in the small, simple moments...

It's the taste of your morning coffee.

It's the wind blowing through your hair in a top-down convertible.

It's the morning self-care body & breathwork.

It's the river flowing over your bare feet, reminding you of the precious impermanence of life.

Claiming joy in these simple moments is what being alive feels like.

It's more than happiness we are hunting. It's LIFE.

✨️To my Tribe of Happiness Hunters who joined this inaugural retreat... thank you for sharing your beautiful souls this past weekend. I hope you continue to eat life and search for pockets of pleasure! Until...Read More

Summer Stuff

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 10:46:58 -0700

Hello Bad Girl Ballerina community!

I don't normally do this, but I wanted to take a second to address you all directly and let you know how grateful I am to have you here with me on this journey! I'm committed to bringing you real-life advice that I've tried-and-tested myself.

I just turned 44 in May. And while we are being increasingly pressured through social media & advertising to buy drugs and cosmetic surgeries to enhance our youth & beauty, I'm determined to do things the natural way.

I've never been one to follow trends.

Actually... let me revise that. I tried following trends, fitting in, and playing by all the rules like a good girl. But that made me miserable. And the harder I tried, the worse I felt.

And so I became a rebel. I make my own trends. Hunt for what works for me... not what's popular.

Especially in the health and fitness world, what inevitably happens with trends is this - something is super popular for a year or two... proclaiming to be the next miracle cure... only to find out a few years later that it's not (or worse, causes damage in some way).

So you won't find me giving trendy advice or jumping on the next bandwagon. I like to keep things simple, uncomplicated, real.

My health & fitness journey revolves around returning to the basics:

Purposeful fitness that doesn't waste your time, energy, or your body's allotted mileage.
Nourishing fat loss with real food instead of drugs or fancy supplements.
Read More

The "Seasoned" Professional

Wed, 14 May 2025 06:00:07 -0700

May is my birth month. So naturally, I get extra reflective about life this time of year.

Society tells us that as we get older, we decline. We lose our intrinsic value, beauty, & worth along with our youth. Especially in the ballet world where so much emphasis is based on external beauty, this feeling of inevitable decline is amplified a thousand-fold.

A dancer supposedly reaches her "prime" in her mid-twenties and has nowhere left to go but down after that. She starts feeling pushed aside to make room for the young, fresh generation to take her place in her thirties...and put out to pasture by her forties.

This isn't just "them" putting these stigmas on us. We put these limitations on ourselves, too. I can't count how many friends and colleagues call themselves "old" before they even hit thirty. We allow ourselves to fall into this worth-less mindset, assuming we are washed up and less valuable than our younger peers (who have way less experience and credibility!).

How does that make sense?

It's such a shame we fall into this pattern and feel this way. Whether you are a dancer or not, your value should only increase with age. In ancient cultures and certain circles in today's society, age is respected as a valuable asset. My husband practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu. In that art, the older you get, the more you are revered. It's a beautiful thing. And it's so logical. The more time you have to dedicate and practice a sport/art/life, the more wisdom & understanding you gain from them. And the more skill, maturity, richness you can give back to them, as well. That deserves admiration.

With ballet being both an athletic endeavor and an art, it's understandable that certain physical elements are impacted by the natural aging process, no matter how well you take care of your body. (This is why it's vital your Read More

Hunting Happiness

Wed, 07 May 2025 06:00:43 -0700

The beauty about getting older is that you go through a lot of sh*t... and become better because of it. You learn from it. Grow. Become wiser, more experienced, and gain deeper meaning, understanding, & appreciation for life.

The rough part about getting older is that you go through a lot of sh*t.... and that can leave you jaded. It can crush you. Demoralize you. Steal the beauty & innocence from life... if you don't actively try to preserve it.

That's why I'm constantly hunting aesthetics and happiness... to counter the darkness with light. If you look for hatred, ugliness, anger, sadness, you'll find no shortage in the world around you. In fact, it's aggressively pushed on us every day. But if you seek beauty, kindness, purity, & love, you'll find that around you, too.

The universe gives you what you focus on. That's how energy works. You create your reality with your thoughts.

That's one of the reasons I created this Hunting Happiness Retreat. I've been through a lot of hard lessons these last few years, and I know a lot of my friends and colleagues have, too. As we go through life, we all experience terrible losses of trust, opportunities, jobs, loved ones, and parts of ourselves that are unrecoverable.

Those scars cut deep. It's all too easy to let them harden you. You become calloused and "tough" as a defense mechanism, so the world can't hurt you anymore. But those callouses also prevent the light from coming in. And if you let yourself grow dark and jaded on the inside, that will no doubt start to show on the outside. It's difficult to escape this downward spiral where beauty & happiness are constantly smothered.

Notice I said, "if you let...Read More