about me

about me

Hi! My name is Kim, and I’ve recently discovered that I like to lift heavy things.

I haven’t always been a fit adult (I guess I was an active kid, though, so that helps). In fact, from when we moved to southeast Asia in 2005, and up until 2012, my doctor would tell me at my annual physical, that I was morbidly obese (ug, looking through pictures to find one to link here was super depressing).

Then, in October 2012, I had to have my gallbladder out (while living in Japan, and mostly in Japanese, which I don’t speak), and although it went super smoothly, that experience scared me sufficiently enough to never want to go to the hospital again. So, after I recovered from my surgery, I decided that I would do whatever I could to ensure I didn’t have to go back to the hospital (in any country) ever again.

In about a year, I changed pretty much everything:

  • my diet: from convenience eating to a primarily plant-based, whole foods.
  • my lifestyle: I finally allowed my husband to convince me to go hiking in the Japanese alps on a regular basis, and we started walking around our work neighborhood at least twice a day, during the school day, and then again in the evening near our home.
  • fitness: thanks to my amazingly supportive friends, Elaine and Merilyn, I started running on a regular basis through all of the beautiful parks so close to my house. And then, thanks to another wonderful friend, Zoe, I learned about at home workouts like Jillian Micheals and T25, which eventually led to heavy lifting, as guided by one of my oldest friends and amazing personal trainer, Heather.
  • geekiness: I’ve been a tech geek for my whole adult life, and in that year, I started applying that geekiness to fitness – following athletes and fitness-related accounts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, and generally reading up and geeking out on different types of training.

In that year, I lost about 70lbs, and realized, for the first time in my adult life, that I could be in control of my weight, rather than my weight controlling me.

I spoke about this in a 5-minute keynote at Learning 2 Asia 2014 in Bangkok:

Making that change, and finding that new niche in my life, was so empowering and rewarding, that I realized that I wanted to keep going. In the past five years, fitness has become an increasingly important part of my life.

In that time, I’ve gone from mostly running and cardio, to heavy (for me) strength training. In the last few years (from 2016 until today), I’ve started to focus pretty specifically on powerlifting, and since then I have competed three times, twice in Bangkok (meet recap from my first comp here), and once in my home state of CT (with a fourth comp coming up this summer back in CT).

I spoke about this experience in a 5-minute keynote at Learning 2 Asia 2017 in Shanghai:

All of which makes me super excited about this blog. I have always loved learning and sharing, but it took me ages to finally make a fitness-related space for myself on the internet. Which is a little strange, because making space for myself on the internet, and teaching others how to do the same, is kind of what I do for a living. But, that doesn’t matter, I’m here now, and I can’t wait to share all sorts of fitness-y goodness with you!

Join my FB group and learn with me!

Want to get access to what I’m learning as I’m learning it? And connect with other like minded individuals who are on a journey towards optimal health and strength? Join my new Facebook group: Learning2Lift and connect with me!

Stepping under the squat rack image by Kelly Moffit Photogrpahy, shared with permission