I'm Kersten, PhD, NASM and ISSA Certified personal trainer and Macro University certified Macro Nutrition Coach. I also help Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) and people with chronic neuroplastic pain or other neuroplastic symptoms, reduce or eliminate their symptoms so that they can enjoy their lives pain-free again.
Below you can find more about me and why I am so passionate about these topics.
My TMS/Neuroplastic Pain Story: Overcoming 7 Years of Low Back Pain and Other Symptoms
I experienced chronic pain for many, many years. My main chronic symptom was the classic lower back pain, but over the years I also had arm and chest pain, ankle pain, feeling of “swelling” without anything visible; gum pain, insomnia, anxiety and depression.
There were times when I couldn't get up from the floor when demonstrating an exercise in my group fitness class because my back was in terrible pain…
There were times when I avoided going to visit my friend because every time I sat on her couch I was in agonizing pain afterwards.
I love to hike, but I started avoiding walking downhill because every time I did, my back was hurting again.
I spent thousands of dollars on chiropractic treatments. I didn’t have insurance, so I spent almost everything that I made as a personal trainer on chiropractic adjustments.
I bought online programs that promised relief from back pain.
I strengthened my glutes and core like it was my job because every fitness person under the Sun tells you that it's the weakness in these areas that's causing your lower back pain.
For a moment I even eliminated all the sugar from my diet, hoping that that will somehow fix my pain.
I tried all kinds of tools and equipment to help me get relief from this pain.
None of these things brought lasting relief.
My X-rays showed very minor findings that were still considered normal and did not justify the pain…
Insomnia was the other chronic problem for me. There were many nights when I cried out of desperation because I just could not sleep. I tried all the sleep remedies, some of which worked for a few nights and many that did nothing at all. Nothing solved my problem for more than 1-2 nights.
The common advice to keep your room cool, go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, avoid heavy meals close to bedtime, exercise regularly, light candles at night, get morning sunlight immediately after waking and even put lavender under your pillow – might be helpful for some people but they were not for me. Trust me, I tried!
So, hearing the same old “Just go to bed earlier and keep the room pitch black!” only made me more frustrated because clearly, there was more to it.
There's nothing more frustrating than doing everything what you think is right, and not getting results from it.
These are just a very few examples of how I felt when my chronic symptoms were at their worst.
The Solution
As I learned about 3 years into my pain, it was all caused by nervous system dysregulation and overly stressed brain. But just learning that didn't free me from pain. It took another 4 years to start seeing a change in my pain levels.
Recovery took time. For me, the common advice you can come across when you have neuroplastic/TMS pain, such as “Just tell yourself that you're safe!” and “Go back to normal life!” or “Stop catastrophizing!” didn't really change anything. Because I didn't feel unsafe; I was living a normal life and I wasn't avoiding anything, and I was not catastrophizing. I was sure that TMS/Neuroplastic pain was my “diagnosis”, without a doubt — but that wasn't enough to heal me.
Here are some of the things I had to do:
- Facing, allowing and expressing my emotions the way I had never done before (learn more about it HERE). For example, I never expressed my sadness and had decided that no one is allowed to every see me cry, so I kept all my pain and hurt in. I was also frustrated often, but I tucked it away and thought that it's best that I just keep carrying on!
- Addressing my personality traits and reducing the qualities that contributed to pain, such as overworking, people pleasing, hiding my opinions, avoiding conflict and being overly agreeable!
- Creating SAFETY in my nervous system through somatic exercises, Inner Child work and brain retraining tools such as visualization
- Doing LESS in my life and resting more — I reduced multitasking and juggling 1000 things at once
- Fully and completely relaxing my body and mind with guided or silent meditations and body scans multiple times a day
- Knowing and believing 100% that I'm fine and don't need physical treatments. Even though I wasn't going to doctors or getting Xrays anymore, for a while I had still continued to go to a chiropractor for treatments and I was still using some pain creams. When I finally completely stopped these things, my pain did NOT get worse at all. When I started to do the mental and emotional work instead, I started noticing days when my pain was lighter and it seemed to have a direct correlation to my mood and emotional state! I started paying more attention on calming my nervous system, addressing my emotions, setting boundaries and becoming a more assertive, strong person, and my chronic pain started to go down.
How I'm Doing Today
Today, I can do everything I want: I lift heavy weights, go on long hikes, practice kickboxing, and my anxiety has significantly decreased. I am not perfect — I get back tightness once in a while, but I know that it's a signal to look at my stress levels and emotions, and I never freak out about it.
I was once told that my back is so bad that I have to say goodbye to deadlifts forever. Not true! A few years later, after doing all the nervous system and emotional work that I'm teaching you as well, I can lift 260 lbs/118 kg. It's hard to believe that at one point, I couldn't get up from the floor!
My Fat Loss and Fitness Story: Overcoming Years of Unhealthy Food and Fitness Habits and Finally Finding A Healthy Balance
In my early and mid 20s, my eating was extremely out of balance and my workouts were extreme: I was eating as little as I could and running as much as I was able to, up to 3 hours in the morning, fasted. My only goal was to be as skinny as possible. I stepped on the scale every morning and didn't allow myself even a half a kilogram of weight gain. If it did happen, I would run even more that day.
At the same time, I developed binge eating disorder that I hid from everyone. I got mad at myself for not having enough willpower to make the binges stop, without realizing that the problem wasn't lack of willpower — the problem was constant deprivation because that's what made me binge.
My only goal was to be skinny, and I skinny I sure was, because I always ran all my binges off.
About 7 years of this behavior and I found myself burnt out, with flat hormones, super thin, and in very poor health.
From Skinny to Overweight — From One Extreme to the Other
To recover from all these problems and get my health back, I had to stop working out and I had to start eating more in order to gain some body fat… I know, this may sound odd to most people, but when you are in such a depleted place where I was, this is exactly what you need to do to get better.
So I did it, but after about 6 months of eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, I ended up in the opposite end of the spectrum. I was now eating too much and ended up gaining a lot more weight than I was comfortable with.
The eating that I justified with “but I don't want to get sick again”, had become excessive… I was gaining and gaining.
My light bulb moment was at the end of 2019 when I was shopping for a dress for my friends' wedding. As I tried on some options, I realized that I had gone up yet another dress size. I had gone from a healthy size of 8-10, to now 14…
I was not obese by any means but I also wasn't comfortable with all the weight that I had put on. I was missing my athleticism, I was missing my strength and being able to do any activity without getting out of breath. I had always been active before that, so I really felt like I didn't know myself anymore.
The Turning Point
It was that moment in the fitting room that I decided to ask for help.
I had a friend who had told me little bit about macro nutrition, but every time she mentioned it, I brushed it off as something too complicated. Besides, I didn't want to do anything that was even close to dieting. I had done too much of it in the past.
But as I was standing there, not recognizing my own body in the mirror, I decided that I'm ready to give this macro thing a try. I asked my friend, who was a macro coach, to help me.
She put together my initial plan and told me how many carbs, fats and proteins I should eat so I could lean out a bit.
To my surprise, it was nowhere as hard as I had thought it would be! I was still eating the things I liked, but now I was much more mindful about it. I could still have chocolate, just not two large candy bars after lunch. I could still go out to eat, just not go to Yogurtland instead of having a real dinner (yeah, I used to do that).
I definitely learned how to prioritize my protein which, as I later realized, I had not paid ANY attention to at all previously.
In a couple of months, I saw better results than I had thought possible. I was really amazed by how easy it was after the initial learning curve that involved getting to know the tracking app and how to use the food scale.
I Fell In Love With Strength Training
Around the same time when I started with macros, I also radically changed my workout routine. In my 20s, I had only done long distance running. In my late 20s, I did a lot of HIT training, with just a little bit of strength training sprinkled in…
Now I was ready to dive in to REAL strength training, with the goal to build muscle and get strong.
I learned how skeletal muscle is the cornerstone for excellent metabolic health and great hormonal health, how strength training was the most valuable tool for strengthening my bones, for slowing down aging… All which could be summed up with two words: Faster metabolism.
I learned that with more muscle mass on the body, we don't only get the fantastic health benefits of more flexible metabolism, but also the ability to eat more and not gain weight. I learned that lifting weights is the one and only thing that is able to change the shape of our body, something that I had previously tried with endless cardio and not succeeded — and I now knew why.
I Wanted to Help Others, Too
After seeing how dramatically traditional weight training and macro nutrition changed my health and physique, I knew that I wanted to share this knowledge with others.
I also knew how many women are struggling with weight and body fat, always searching for that next quick fix which would give them the fat loss results they wanted, without knowing how much these poor programs harm their health and actually slow down their metabolism.
I was already a personal trainer through NASM and ISSA, and now I became a certified Macro Nutrition Coach via Macro University, And it is my passion to help women to finally get the success that they deserve.
To Sum It All Up…
I am so grateful that I found macro nutrition and strength training. Both have transformed my life and I am so much healthier, stronger and happier than I was before. I am also much more confident.
I knew that I didn't want to lose weight by doing any quick diets or instant fixes. They are not sustainable because they are extremely restrictive. If you have tried some of them, you know this — your results only lasted only for a little while. But I know you want something sustainable!
If you've been chronically under eating, like I did for years — you have to stop. It will wreck your hormones and metabolism, just like it did mine. And it will only get worse as you're getting into perimenopause and menopause. You have to stop that excessive cardio and overdoing HIT workouts to actually lose fat and be healthy.
And you do need to lift weights. Not only because it gives you the shape you want but also because it gives you the health you need, no matter if you are in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s or beyond.
Healthy fat loss isn't effortless, but it should not feel torturous. You should be able to eat your favorite things even when working on fat loss.
If You Are Ready…
If you want sustainable muscle building and fat loss results, and you want to get them in a healthy way, I am here to help you. This is my passion and I can't wait to work with you! Before you apply, check out the Client Success page.