Episode 57: Pillow Talk: Creating Awareness Of The Self-Doubt To Get To The Truth With Joseph Oniwor
Without being aware of it, many of us can’t break past our own limiting beliefs or limitations because we lack the honesty to recognize that we are the very ones keeping us from taking opportunities. Joseph Oniwor, an arena football player, turned breakthrough holistic and fitness lifestyle trainer, sits down with Amy Vetter to introduce us to this concept of pillow talk—getting to a level of conversation within yourself and creating awareness around our self-doubts and into the truth. During this discussion, Joseph shares his beginning of living in a single-parent household and how that affected his internal beliefs about himself. He talks about how he was eventually able to conquer his self-limiting beliefs and achieve success. What is more, Joseph then shares how the mindset practices he developed over time allowed him to turn his life around and now help others as well.
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Pillow Talk: Creating Awareness Of The Self-Doubt To Get To The Truth With Joseph Oniwor
I'm with Joseph Oniwor, who was a Pro Arena Football player that turned breakthrough transformational trainer that has been in the fitness industry for many years. He is focusing on helping others regain confidence within themselves and pursue their dreams. Joseph is a firm believer that if you incorporate mindfulness, holistic lifestyle changes and a healthy workout regimen into your life, your passion will become a reality. In this discussion, Joseph shares his beginnings of living in a single parent household and how that has affected his internal beliefs about himself, and that he was eventually able to conquer those beliefs to achieve success. He shares how the mindset practices he developed over time allowed him to turn his life around and now help others as well.
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Joseph, do you want to give us a little background on yourself?
I'm grateful to be here, Amy. Everybody calls me Coach Joe in my world. I'm from Los Angeles, California. I'm living in Shelton, Connecticut. My journey has been all in the sports world. I'm now a transformational trainer. Through that, I've been a professional NFL Arena Football player and a Division-1 football player as well. That led me through that arena. A lot of the leadership skills, the growth opportunity that I've had have all come by way of exertion. Exert effort to learn about yourself. It's been a great journey. I've lost 110 pounds on my transformational journey in terms of on the physical side and through that, the mindfulness and the mindset has been the big catalyst, the key and the difference maker in my life.
We love to get into the background of my guests and trying to understand where you came from, what the belief systems you had as you grew up. Where did you grow up? What did your parents, brothers and sisters do?
Coming from Los Angeles, California, the first beginning year of my life, I was raised in Compton area, Carson area of Los Angeles. I come from a single parent household. My mother and my father split right before I was born. My dad was around until I was about six years old. I was 1 of 3 at that time, the baby. My grandparents played a big key in supporting my mom in terms of raising the three of us. By the time I was five years old, we moved away from my grandparents. It was a house of four. Also, a big foundation or a big thing or blueprint that started to frame at that age is I was the youngest of three and I was the only male in the house. It’s a “You're the man of the house” type thing. I didn't realize how much that played into creating a blueprint for myself throughout my life, but it was a big key and the foundation of not having a man around. All of the limiting beliefs that I developed about myself from that, which is key along with the responsibility and things on the other side of being the only male in the house and having that great opportunity as a young person to define life from that aspect when you don't have any guidance.
What kind of job did your mom have? How was she supporting you?
My mom has been an RN since the time I was born. By the time she had the three of us, my mom was 23. She has been in a nursing field her whole stint. She’s always been an RN as far as I remember in that professional side.
What was the age difference between your sisters and you?
My oldest sister is four years older than me. My oldest sister Anna Mae, my father is from Nigeria, those names are of Nigerian descent. Anna Mae is two years older than me.
Were your parents from the US?
My mother is from the US, my father is from Lagos, Nigeria.
He had grown up there, and how did he come into the US?
My father has such a great story. He stowed away on a US warship when he was nineteen, and that got him over to London. He was over in London for a couple years trying to get his visa over to the US, which he eventually got after about two years. That's how he came over. He was exceptional in his vision. He used to stand on the beaches of Lagos and say, “I will come to America,” since he was a little boy and he eventually made that happen.
Did you stay in touch with him or did you not see him since you were six?
He was in and out until I was six, and then I didn't see him again until I was sixteen.
Until you're sixteen, you haven't had an example of a father in the house and you're being told to be the man of the house. Where did you take examples from?
My grandfather and my uncle were the two male figures. My grandfather was the leader of the family in terms of that role. He is strong. He was a pastor, hard worker. I have three older uncles, and the youngest one, my Uncle Paul was more of a big brother, but he was what I framed my life of what a strong male look like. He was my idol growing up.
What made him a strong male example to you?
He was the cool guy. He was closer in age to me. All of my uncles, my Uncle Timothy and my Uncle Raymond, who unfortunately passed away when I was young, he was murdered in Los Angeles. I didn't get to know my Uncle Raymond, but my Uncle Tim went away to the Navy, so he wasn't around that much because he was away serving on duty. My uncle Paul was around and he went out with my grandma, he was there. He was a cool guy, strong, great athlete. He is somebody I always wanted to be.
What did you apply in the house from watching them? How did that affect how you were in the house?
In terms of at home, it didn't resonate because I was still lost in finding myself and my father not being around. A lot of humans maybe don't have or understand or know how to frame it, but I was lost in trying to find myself. Whether doing the chores, taking out the trash, feeding the dog, but the thing that all there was, was emptiness. I played sports and early on I got great grades, but it was purely for the fact because I was trying to be seen. I knew I could get attention from being great. I have some natural skills as an athlete and then education, I love to learn, but that was all because I went to bed every night, feeling alone and feeling not good enough. I didn't know what that was then, but I went to bed every night unhappy.
The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level
It's such an important thing to talk about, especially as a man, because I don't think men talk about these things. I didn't see my father from the time I was 16 to 32. I understand something of how you feel from a female perspective. There's always been something in my head where there are people that are born to survive and there are people that fall into the pain of it and can't get themselves out of it and take other paths. I, like you, was focused on getting good grades. I was going to get better than this. I was going to make sure I still accomplished. It was embedded in me to focus on that versus the pain. When you go to bed at night, I can understand that feeling from you. When you're doing well in sports, which sounds like you were, you're getting those accolades that you need.
Even though I went to sports in school, I did get in the space of finding my outlet, to be in trouble. I gave my mom a run for her money as far as getting phone calls at home. There was a destructive nature because I was angry. It is a great conversation to have from a male perspective because I didn't feel good enough and I couldn't have that conversation, and I didn't know how to have that conversation. I was depressed. My mom used to say like, “You're a good kid. You think negatively.” I thought the world was going to end, everything was horrible. My life sucked. I tried to run away from home when I was nine. To say where the line is, you become suicidal versus thinking about it. I thought it would have been better off me not being on the spot. I was diagnosed officially as being depressed when I was fifteen. Finally sitting in some office and say, “I think about death being better all the time.” That was the opportunity I had at fifteen, that thought since I was five years old crying in my room. I was thinking about it. I used to scream, “God, why did you put me here? Why did you do this to me?” I didn't know how to frame life. I didn't have any way to have that conversation articulated in the dynamic I was in.
How did that turn around for you?
I was raised in church with a spiritual background. My grandfather always had like, “If there's something out there, help me.”
Do you believe in the higher power?
Yes. There's always something in me that felt great. I continued to go on my journey, but the turnaround started when they diagnosed me as depressed. It was the first time they gave me a prescription, they said, “This is going to help you.” I've always had this fighter in me that got me in a lot of trouble. I said, “I don't want this.” I didn't know how to frame it. In that point, it was an adversary. There was this opportunity to be happy and something in me was pushing against that. I was in that mentality like, “I'm not going without a fight.” You know how you’re going on a ride, you hear a click and you're going over the top. That was one of the big clicks in terms of mindfulness, where I started to see that there was something about life happening in my head. I didn't know how to quantify it, but there was some way that I could start to grab my thinking and try to send it in a different direction. That was a big click at fifteen years old. Luckily, I started to get good at sports at the same time. I found this deep, “Maybe I could go somewhere.” The first time I thought I could, “Maybe football could take me somewhere.” It was that perfect storm that started to click my life in a different direction.
It's important with kids to find that thing that you're good at. Everybody has a thing, whether it's sports, music, art or academics. Sometimes we push into things where we have an interest in, but that's not our natural thing, but when we find that natural thing where it doesn't feel like working, and it just works. You have to keep seeking it so that you can turn things around. Were you taking the prescription by that point?
No, I never took it.
Did you go to therapy to help you?
It was a school counselor who we connected with. I ended up seeing her a couple of times. I took it upon myself. My mom had always told me, “You're thinking.” I took it on myself to start to try to figure this out on my own. I've always been that type. I did go and see her, and we talked about different things. I didn't handle the issues with my dad. It was the driving thing. With my dad, it was learning how to survive in a world knowing I was enough, regardless of if my dad had been there to say it or not. It was in me. That came to light, but I know if I could stop all these just sitting there thinking all day how horrible my life was, and because I was good at sports, I could spend hours thinking about how to be better. I got heavily into weight training as well. I almost filled my mind with stuff that allowed it to not be that idle mind, that could be the devil's playground per se.
How did you do that? Did you journal? Did you take time aside to do that by yourself? What things were you doing to put that into practice? That's a way to train your brain and you have to be consistent.
I came from this spiritual background and religion with the Book of Proverbs, the book of wisdom. Somebody had told me one time, “There are 31 of them. You read one a day and apply it today and it changes your life.” That's where I started to get it. I would read one a day and whatever it was, I was like, “How did that apply to my life today?” I was 15, 16 years old. I started to do little stuff like that. That was the little habits that I didn't understand were starting to groom me to retrain my brain.
Is there one that stands out for you?
I have it tattooed on my shoulder, “The being that quits when his heart is weak.” That’s Proverbs 24. It said the man that quits when it's hard is weak. That still is my mantra, when it's hard is when you get to know who you are.
That's the thing about any mindset or self-help as you go through it. At fifteen, you can start turning this around and feel better. Then an injury happened when you're eighteen, you’ve got to then fall back on, “It's hard again, how am I going to get through this?” rather than letting it cut you down.
That's what all started to happen. That was the platform that set the foundation for everything that's happened. Maybe it’s a small thing, it's the onion effect. There will always be a new layer.
You played football in high school. How did you end up in Arena Football?
I played football at UNLV. I was a nose guard up there. Once I graduated, I transitioned to NFL, college in general. I started to work out for NFL teams. One of the NFL teams told me my position in college is going to be a long shot for me to have an opportunity. One of the NFL team, the Colts, the scout said, “I like the way you look now. You should lose some weight. You’ve got some speed, some agility and see if you can maybe transition to a different position.” As that happened, it was a journey of, “I'm going to need to develop these skills.” Arena was the next step to be able to have an opportunity to develop at that position. That’s where my career went from college to Arena.
This is a goal you had to make it to the NFL, I'm assuming. How did that feel to get that news and have to pivot?
To get the news then pivot, up into that point, the development had continued. It’s like, “Now, it's hard. This is where I separate myself.” It was not being able to get lost in the thought. It was like, “This is the next step.” Believe that, “I can make this happen if I press hard enough.” To get the news, it was discouraging. One of my college coaches told me something out of my exit interview. He asked me what was next. I said, “I want to keep going on and work hard and see how far I could go.” He says, “Some people need to know when to quit.” That right there was the moment to me as one of my athletes I trained would say, “It was not me.”
It was your mental me?
Pillow Talk: One of the biggest things that hamper performance is the lack of awareness around the inner conversation.
Yeah. He didn't coach the most encouraging. Even if I quit the next week, I wasn't going to quit that day after he told me. He'd be the one to be the callus to that. That was what I needed, and I shifted focus and I layered in on a goal. Every day I was going to wake up and get one-step closer through effort to getting to that goal if I could.
What was your degree in college?
My degree is Interdisciplinary Social Science.
What does that mean?
The focus was Sociology, but with this degree you could take more classes and rounded out. I was able to take more of a focus in Individual Psychology along the Sociology and bringing some Philosophy and some Religion. All the things I'm passionate about, I was able to put together. That degree contained all of those.
What was your journey then with the Arena Football and to where you are now?
I spent two years in Arena Football, and I had a lot of fun there, I learned a lot about myself, I did a lot of great things. Arena is an aggressive, violent sport and just football in general. In Arena, I was a linebacker there. I started to get a lot of concussions, blunt-style training. After my second year, I had to make the decision, “Is the reward worth the cost?” After that year, I started to notice, “I'm looking to put a sentence together and it necessarily may not flow.” That was right on the cusp of all of the concussion stuff that came up and became on a forefront. It was before that. It wasn't talked about or big yet. I decided to go into boxing after that. This is my theory. Football may be crazy, but I had an opportunity.
No one gets punched in the head in boxing.
This is my theory. I'm not completely crazy here. My theory was this, football, we were going to destroy our frontal lobe because we're smashing head off. When boxers get brain damage, that's what they call punch-drunk and it's like a spiderweb. It's all over their head. You don't see a punch-drunk boxer unless they've made it a career over their whole lifetime. I'm only going to be there for a bit like, “I won't be completely smashing my front. The rest of my brain is good to go. It’s a bit everywhere else. It's good to go. It's war torn.” Inside of that, I started going to boxing. I did that for a while. I found out I had holes in my retinas from all the head collisions and brain drawing. After that, that's when I exited collision sports on the competitive side.
Now, you’re back into the heart. Where did your path go?
I got into sports management. On that side, I started a recruiting company for the company I was boxing for. They were a new company, and they didn't have some system in place to recruit athletes that I had been in my world. I had got myself recruited into college. I worked that whole process, I knew that system. I started a company called Athlete's Opportunity, which is a recruiting company for and specifically tailored for that company I was boxing for. Over time, I ended up becoming successful with that recruiting. They brought me in-house and working my way up and becoming a General Manager there, and starting to learn the business side of sports. I realized that wasn’t for me. Through that, I had lost my weight and I completely went on this inner transformational. I'm not the athlete at the end of my career that I was when I got that scholarship. In our life, how much my passion was in the physical transformation space and now mindfulness was at the forefront of what the opportunities are available when you connect the two for people to have more than having a new waistline but having a new life outlook. That's my passion to this day and probably forever.
What were you doing as far as mindfulness training?
At that point, I got introduced to sports psychology, imagery and visualization and all of that aspect, whether it’s positive role play into mind and starting to neurologically create those new patterns within the brain. I got into that. Fast forward, when I transformed, and this was more of the human journey versus sports, I was always self-conscious. I'd love to be honest and be completely authentic with my human experience. I was a great athlete, I'd wake up every day and I'd be like, “I'm ugly. I don't look good enough. I'm not attractive,” all of this different stuff. That was only one of my limiting beliefs. It was always because I was the big guy and I was overweight, but it wasn’t that, it was such a deeper thing. At that point, I had lost 60 pounds. I went from a lineman to a linebacker, and now I'm a jacked football player.
I'm still in Vegas. I walk out to the library and this young lady stops me and she's like, “You look amazing.” I couldn't look her in the eye, and I couldn't let that land. I said, “Thank you.” I walked away. Everything I thought, I was going to be on the other side of the physique. When you get everything you thought you wanted, I was still me. That's when I said, “There's some stuff I’ve got to figure out who I am.” I started to take the deeper conversation of not how do I relate to the world, but how do I relate to me? That journey went on. It still goes on to the day of deciding truth versus deep inner conversation and these patterns and blueprints that are a sounding board that I’m no longer interested in.
We always talk about that in yoga. Would you be best friends with yourself if you pay attention to the things you're saying to yourself? It’s true whether you're in sports or business, many people limit themselves in their careers as well. They think they might not be good enough. Even though they're being told they are, whatever messages are going on in someone's head is limiting them based on their own. This stems back to your father not being around when you're a little boy. Even though you have tons of examples of good men in your life, that doesn't matter. At the end of the day, it's not your father. All these things that we carry with us, no one sees from the outside. It’s hard to break why someone isn't taking on an opportunity or why they can't break past their own limitation a lot of times. How do you help people with that?
I like to say the pillow talk. We'll get to a level of conversation, but how do you talk to yourself before bed, that pillow talk of truth? With me, I love it because this is my thing, and my athletes know. If I say, “Let me workout with you for 30 minutes. Don't tell me anything about you and you'll tell me all about your life. I'll know everything about you in 30 minutes of a hard workout.” What I love is I learned that about myself. I learned how much I was going for a run. It was a longer distance running around, all the doubt that starts to surface, “Can you do it?”
To answer your question, the way to move past that is to become aware of it. One of the biggest things is what hampers performance is the lack of awareness around the inner conversation that are creating the auto response. It’s like that glass ceiling or that fake ceiling where I always stumble. I don't know if you've ever read that book, but they call it The Big Leap. It's called the Upper Limit in The Big Leap. You hit your upper limit and you start doing the same thing. That will bring you back down to that comfort zone or that paradigm belief. Once you're aware of it, you can make the choice to say, “Is this true? Is this not true? Can I move forward?”
For instance, I get to make a decision and you said, “I don't think you could do that. I don't know if I'm good enough, is this true?” I've proven. I have a body of sports performance that say, “I am good enough. This is not true.” The awareness of where did that come from? That time I didn't get picked first on the playground, I decided I wasn't good enough to play with everybody else. It's something that seems trivial, but it has been many people who had the greatest ability to ever who has a situation like that stop them at being a manager when they could have been a CEO. That awareness is the number one thing that allows that.
When I'm training my athletes, that's the number one thing we focus on. If something comes up, if we're doing a heavy set or we're finishing up and I notice a cue, I'll immediately say, “What's that? What came up right there? What were you thinking?” It will be an opportunity for them to say, “This is what it was.” We may go into that in the space or bring awareness. They come back a couple of weeks later and say, “You asked me what I got scared about there. I noticed that I saw that in three different areas.” The brain only knows effort or situation. It doesn't say, “You're in a gym. You're good here. You’re at home with the husband, you're not good there.” It only knows one thing. Once you become aware of it, you see how it's starting to play out and you can powerfully choose.
How have you seen the benefits with people that you work with?
This is the number one focus with my athletes. In terms of the benefit I've seen, I specialize in working with women 48 and over who are at this powerful transitionary position in life where the kids are out of the house and emptiness, or they've conquered a career and they've reached a level where they can start to focus on other things. As we're going through these wellness and fitness goals to see how that played into your eating because it's everywhere. We've seen a tremendous result in terms of the athletes I've worked with, in terms of transformation, if there was some mindfulness thing in place. Also, in their lives, their feedback in terms of opportunity, there are different ways they approach life and every aspect of their life, from hitting the highest number of sales in their businesses. There are high-power women that I work with to take a new opportunity, realizing that, “I’m going to stay here another five years, but I’ve got a year left in me. It's time for me to transition.” It's been great results with athletes.
When something comes up for us in one place, it's usually affecting us in a bunch of different aspects of our lives. It's important to notice. Sometimes I use the example, you can be in a bad mood and all day long, you're getting in fights with people like the grocery checkout person, just random things. You come home and you're like, “I can't believe this person and that person.” You're like, “I'm the common denominator in my day.” Trying to understand why those things are happening. In yoga we use the example a lot. It takes a lot of courage to get on your mat because you're alone with yourself and your mind. That's sometimes the hardest thing for people to do, come into the self-awareness, not to blame the outside circumstances.
Pillow Talk: Everything that moves you is the essence of life.
It’s usually the hardest, but the most powerful. I could have done many outward things to change, and it's all on my distance runs. I'll put on a weighted vest and I'll go for a distance run. In that run, it’s me and me, we are going to have some time to kill. On the other side, the level of freedom that I feel in every moment and every theoretical drop of sweat in terms of transforming and digging to find out who I am has been worth it for this lifetime and many more if I get to take it with me.
I appreciate you sharing your story so authentically. I'd like to end with some rapid-fire questions. You pick a category. The category is either family and friends, money, spiritual or health.
Let's go spiritual.
I don't have many people choose that. Things or actions that I don't have that I want?
Being able to be still throughout the day. That is something that I want to be able to lose myself in a moment.
Things or actions that I do have that I want as far as spirituality?
When I do have intuition, I've won in my life because everything may say go left. When my gut speaks, I learned on that is going to be the right outcome. It’s bulletproof.
When you go against that, you always get to the same result. Things or actions that I don't have that I don't want as far as spirituality?
There are layers. I may have lowered the water line to 1 foot of water, but that little monster still goes,
“You’re going to die if you take that risk.” I hold myself accountable. I have not yet reached that. Everything is still under development.
Things or actions that I do have that I don't want, as far as my spirituality?
I could be sitting here in nirvana and I'm still out chasing it.
It comes back to being present and still, and being okay with the now. This has been a great conversation. Is there anything you want to make sure that we haven't talked about that people come away with from our conversation?
You know that underneath all of the things that stopped you, you are only comprised of all of the things that have ever made you get there. Anything that will limit that is what gets to be removed, but everything that moves you is the essence of life. That's what we're all driving with.
Thank you. Your story will help many and also make a lot of people not feel alone.
We are in it together. It's been a pleasure, Amy. I'm grateful that you allow me to be a part of this experience with you. It’s such a powerful show and all of the gifts you give through this vehicle of your expression, which I know. Multiple ways you crush it that you give this gift for people to know that they have those tools and ability to know. This is awesome.
Thank you.
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For our Mindful Moments for this episode with Joseph. That was a very vulnerable and authentic interview I thought that he was open about his feelings and about his story. I hope that it will help many of you out there to know his story and see how he conquered his own beliefs to be able to transform his life and help others. Starting back into this concept of being the man of the house I thought was an interesting thing, even as a little boy and how that affects, the pressure you put on yourself and how others see you as a man. It’s something to think about whether your parents or you’re thinking about your own upbringing and you’re a man reading this. The kind of pressure to not have weakness and to protect others when sometimes you feel you need the protection, the emotion and the compassion that others aren’t seeing you as, especially as a man, because others look for a man many times for that same protection and care as well. That openness of talking about that or being aware of that for yourselves of, “What do I need?” is an important question to ask yourself and evaluate how overtime, by having that awareness of where you began, what other people put on you or pressure to be a certain thing.
I’ve heard other men also talk about this in their careers. There’s a lot of talk all the time about women being home or having flexible schedules but men didn’t feel like they could ask for that. There still may be many organizations where men feel like that would be a career limiting thing, making sure that they’re home on time for kid’s games and practices or being there at dinner time. They’re afraid of how others will look at them or will affect their success. What we need to understand is when we live true to ourselves, we’re more aware of how we start pleasing others versus what we need. That example of making sure that we are fulfilling our own passions but also being able to be compassionate to ourselves, our own needs and vulnerable to feelings that we have that we don’t have to put this guard wall up with people, that we don’t have emotion and needs from other people.
That example when we show that we do have those needs, permeates and has a bigger effect on the people around us when we are more ourselves, and open and honest about what we need. Joseph did that for us. By all aesthetic and looking at Joseph, he’s athletic and has a very masculine look to him and the way he led his life, but his vulnerability of what he went though and how much his self-doubt affected him was an important conversation to have. It’s important for him to be open and honest about it as well, so other men and women could see that it’s okay to be truthful about our experiences because it only brings us closer to one another when we do share those experiences because all of us have something.
His point about assessing those thoughts that go through your head and understanding whether they are true. Is it the truth? Is it something that we are creating within ourselves based on whatever experience that we have that no one else sees and thinks of us that we are creating that as a story in our head? That mindset, that’s important to wake up with every day and put the practices in place. Whether that’s meditations, mantras, exercise, taking pictures, going for a walk, whatever it is to clear our minds, be aware of what’s going on internally for us, so that we could make sure that we’re putting out the energy that we want, that we are feeling intentionally the way that we want. Make sure that we know that this is a journey. This path of awareness is always a journey and learning. We never get to a point where we know everything about ourselves. There is always a point where there’s a new a-ha moment. Sometimes that happens daily or weekly. That awareness, when it comes up, it’s hard but that’s where the learning happens and that is where the growth happens in our lives.
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About Joseph Oniwor
Hi, I’m Joe Oniwor, your personal transformation coach. A former college athlete and pro arena football player, I’ve been in the fitness industry for 28 years.
After becoming an ACE-Certified Personal Trainer and Fitness Nutrition Specialist, I started training clients 16 years ago. Four years ago, I developed The JOC Method and began working exclusively with women over 48 and up, providing them with the body transformation coaching needed to overcome the massive energy loss and weight gains associated with menopause.
Why did I choose this specialty? Well, I wasn’t always a fit physical trainer. Growing up, my entire family struggled with their weight, myself included. By the time I turned 25, I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and was prediabetic.
By switching to a healthier lifestyle, I was able to resolve these issues—and lose over 110 pounds! Now I’m 100% committed to using my discoveries to help women like you shed stubborn weight and enjoy a more active lifestyle.
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