About this episode
On today's episode, we had Nicole Ferrier on the podcast. We had a fantastic conversation around dieting, female health and reverse dieting. More about Nicole: I graduated in 2017 with a BA in exercise science and minor in nutrition at Baldwin Wallace university. Alongside my bachelors degree, I am also a certified personal trainer through ACE. Education has been a big piece to changing my body. I believe in building physiques through physiology. That means, proper workout programming and no cookie cutter programs. Through physiology I am able to program nutritional plans and workouts to evolve physiques to the next level. However, I am a firm believer that fitness is more than our bodies. MY BODY USED TO CONTROL ME. I didn't always feel strong and confident. As a young teen I never really felt like I "fit in". I had one major outlet, which was gymnastics. I have always defined myself as an athlete, I trained upwards of 20 hours a week and overall ate like a normal teen. That was until I got consumed by diet culture, tumbler post and some toxic comments from loved ones. This lead me down a dark route. Through my teens years I struggled with a variety of disordered eating patterns. Being a competitive gymnast , I also became hyper focused on my body image. At 14 I hopped on my first ever "diet" where I lost 10lbs in a month. I restricted food severally and couldn't function normally. This lasted all the way up into my late teens. I struggled with the yo yo of crash dieting and even binging and restricting. My weight fluctuated more than modern day gas prices. The constant changes in weight lead to concern from others and for me, constant frustration. Not to mention my confidence was completely nonexistent. EDUCATION SAVED MY LIFE. Through my time at university I came to the conclusion that I was and tired of being sick and tired. I was burnt out from trying every fad diet in the book. Plus I was over exercising and running off everything I ate. I knew there had to be a better way. That was when I found food freedom through macros. I went from a cardio bunny to a weight lifting junkie! I finally felt free from being a treadmill slave and realized the power in weight training. In 2015 I found tracking macros and started to apply my exercise physiology into my training and it completely transformed my mind and body. With macros I was able to see all food as good. I learned that I could eat way more than I thought and truly change my body. Once, I combined my weight training with flexible dieting, I finally saw results! As an athlete I always wanted to stay competitive. That lead me to the love of bodybuilding. I am currently a NPC bikini competition and have competed in over 17 NPC shows. Competing in shows allows for my inner athlete fire to stay lit. Competing has also brought me so much confidence and has helped me grown as a person. As a trainer, my mission is to help you grow. Grow in your knowledge with nutrition and training but also your mind and how you see yourself. True fitness encompasses both these aspects. www.nicoleferrierfitness.com Beyond The Bikini Podcast Next Level Experience Program Beta Testers –> Click Here Order From Top Notch Nutrition -> Click Here Connect with us on Instagram Host Brad Jensen – @thesoberbodybuilder Guest Nicole Ferrier – @niocleferrierfitness Key Nutrition – @keynutrition