Author, 10 Steps to Your F.I.T.: Faith Inspired Transformation (2014)
Has appeared on the cover of numerous health and fitness magazines including: Oxygen, Fitness, etc.
Director of family health and wellness for the International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA)
B.S., Business, University of Arizona
Certified fitness trainer
Husband: Bill
Daughter: Giavella |
Guest Bio
It Only Takes 10 Steps to Your F.I.T.!
CBN.com
– THE GAME CHANGER
Kim grew up dreaming of being on magazine covers. She plastered her bedroom walls with covers of Glamour and Sports Illustrated. The models were taller and thinner; Kim was shorter and thicker. By the time she was 13, Kim had an unhealthy self-image and dieting became a regular part of her life. Her painful battle of losing weight and keeping it off led her to dark, desperate places. Then after her father, 47, had a stroke, Kim, 30, made a commitment to get fit.
She dieted and trained for several years, and even learned gymnastics as part of her regime. At the age of 33, Kim stepped on a stage surrounded by twenty-something girls in the best shape of their lives. The ESPN Fitness Competition was tough but Kim won first place. Even after winning the competition, Kim struggled with the perpetual cycle of weight gain and loss. She continued down the dangerous, unhealthy road of extreme dieting. She made the cover of nearly every fitness magazine cover. Soon Kim’s self-worth was based on whether she made the cover of a publication or whether she made it to the next round of a fitness contest.
At the age of 38, Kim had a baby girl and realized the methods she was using to maintain a certain look were not ones that would ensure a long, healthy lifestyle. Kim, who was raised Catholic, was tired of the raging battle to keep weight off. She had been attending church for years and was encouraging women to be healthy, but the Holy Spirit convicted her that the images she was portraying were not consistent with the true message of her heart. God showed her that staying healthy for her children and taking care of her body to avoid diseases were better motivators than looking good for a fleeting occasion. As she turned to God, Kim walked away from fitness modeling completely. The game changer for Kim was when she began focusing her healthy lifestyle on God rather than on her own body, which gave her lasting motivation and sufficient strength to continue. “This is the answer to losing weight and keeping it off,” she says. Kim felt freedom to compete again. Seven years after she won the ESPN Fitness America Competition at age 40, Kim won first place in the fitness routine portion of the Ms. Fitness USA competition. She placed second overall. “It became clear to me that He had prepared me for this victory,” says Kim. “It wasn’t so I could boast about myself…no, I believe God put me on that stage to show me that He could and because I knew I couldn’t have gotten there without Him.”
GETTING F.I.T. FOR GOD
One day Kim says God inspired her with the idea for F.I.T.: Faith Inspired Transformation. “Being an athlete in the fitness modeling industry wasn’t being celebrated,” she says. “There is a tendency to make your body an idol. I want to give a message that is honoring to God. We have to stop the self-obsession.” She came up with 10 steps to getting a faith-inspired transformation. Some of the important steps include:
- Stop dieting. This is where we identify the failures of quick fix dieting and agree to embark on a faith-inspired transformation.
- Renew your mind. This is where we turn our focus from changing our bodies to changing our lifestyle according to God’s Word.
- Commit to one hour of F.I.T.: This is the daily commitment to spend time in the Word of God, in prayer and exercising.
One Christmas, Kim was standing in the kitchen with her mom who was complaining how she could never be the same size she was in high school. Kim said, “You’re right. You can’t because you’ve set that limit on yourself. The Bible says we can’t be any better than what we think.” So Kim’s mom, then 60, entered a triathlon a few weeks later and focused on training. “If she didn’t renew her mind and put a date on the calendar, I bet she would still be talking about losing weight instead of doing it.”
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