About

Hey there!

My name is Taylor! I am from the Chicago area and grew up in the area my whole life! I started my page as a way to get my mission across to as many individuals as possible. My “mantra” Educate. Fuel. Inspire. stands for:

Educate: To educate individuals on the fitness industry/myths, and provide science based evidence on fitness topics.

Fuel: Is to provide nutritional information that includes goals for weight loss, weight gain, and maintenance, as well as recipes that are easy to make and follow. Which will help individuals to reach their goal and lead a healthy lifestyle!

Inspire: Lastly, to get a positive message to those that may be struggling with anything! Including body image, physical and mental health. My goal is to get this positive message to reach as many people as possible in hoping that it helps inspire/ motivate them reach their goals not only in fitness but career, mental, physical, and self improvement!

My mantra comes from personal experience and struggles I’ve gone through throughout my journey. I’ve hit lows and I’ve also hit highs and it has helped me become the person that I am today. So, with that here is my story… get ready for a novel guys….. hope you enjoy!

I went to Illinois State University, where I completed my undergraduate degree in Exercise Science and continued my education at Illinois State, and graduated in 2017  with my Master’s degree in Exercise Physiology!  I am a NASM Certified Personal Trainer and also hold Precision Nutrition Level 1 certification.

During my time at ISU I found the sport of bodybuilding and fell in love with it! I ran track for my first two years and specialized in the 800, after running for 11 years I fell out of love with the sport and decided to hang up the spikes and pick up something else. Although, I will say that running track helped me find my love for weight training and bodybuilding. 

After quitting track I  went through this period of my life where I was pretty lost. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, I couldn’t get into the major that I wanted ,and I was also in a toxic relationship. I was definitely depressed without knowing that I was in this bad place. I stopped working out, I was going out 3-4 nights a week and partying, and I lost a lot of weight because I had no appetite, most likely because I just wasn’t happy with myself. I associated not eating with losing weight (which is not okay) and started this bad relationship with food. I ended my relationship with the guy I was dating, but I was still going out and partying hoping that would keep me distracted from life.

After feeling like things were starting to fall into place I took what I learned from strength training and my education and finally started to workout and lift again. I became my new stress relief and a place where I could go and turn everything off. I started lifting 5 days a week for about 2 years. I was really starting to put on muscle and I loved the progress I was seeing. But I also got bored with lifting 5 days a week and going to the gym and not really training for a goal. The athlete inside of me wanted to be apart of something and wanted to compete! I had just started to follow some fitness influencers on Instagram and they were competing in body building shows, I was in awe at how beautiful they looked and thought wow this is something I could see myself doing. I was just to scared to put myself out there and actually do it. And then I met the love of my life Brendon Buff, at the gym of course. (thats a story for another time). He was competing in his first show and I saw him go through the process, and I was like YUP! Im gonna do it! He was the push I needed at that time and I am forever grateful for that. And this is how I found bodybuilding!

I competed in my first natural bodybuilding competition in 2015 where I placed second in my class. I inevitably got the stage bug and competed again in 2016 working with Peter Fitschen my current coach, and won my class and the overall earning me my WNBF pro card at my first show in 2016, and then also on my pro class at the NGA Heart of America classic! I still compete and currently started my own online training business which is very new!

Now after graduating I am currently a sports performance coach at EFT Sports Performance located in Highland Park, IL. I work with a wide variety of clients ranging from middle school, high school, and college athletes, older adults, and rehab bridging programs for athletes returning from post surgery injuries like ACL/MCL tears. I also am in charge of the performance nutrition program there, where we help athletes reach their goals through nutrition and performance, whether their goal is to gain weight, lose weight, or maintain.

Hope you all enjoyed and PROPS to you if you read all of this! I really appreciate your support and hope to work with/ help in anyway that I can!