hi, i’m rachel!

MORE about me

I am a wife and mother, a jujitsu enthusiast, and a Coast Guard veteran. I have a BS in Health Education and Health Promotion and am a Certified Health Education Specialist. I love to use my knowledge to simplify health and fitness for moms feeling overwhelmed in their health journey.

I have always had a love for fitness and nutrition but once I became pregnant with my oldest daughter I knew I wanted to work with pregnant and postpartum women. I struggled with excessive weight gain and found the lack of updated nutrition resources, knowledge, and support for women during pregnancy concerning. Over the last few years, I have been blessed to coach women through their pregnancies and some into postpartum with their nutrition and fitness as a Pregnancy and Postpartum coach.

I know how difficult it can be to navigate nutrition while being a busy parent. Our nutrition and our needs are not one size fits all. I have spent many nights taking tests while holding a sleeping baby, collected my diploma with a baby bump, squeezed in workouts during naps, and completed client check-ins with cartoons playing in the background.

Whether you are trying to conceive, pregnant, postpartum, or deep in the trenches of motherhood, nutrition will look different for you. I help guide women through those trenches and out the other side with as little stress as possible. My goal as a nutrition coach is to help parents create sustainable habits that will not only help them but also serve their families for the foreseeable future.

MY NUTRITION JOURNEY

During my first pregnancy, I gained over 60 pounds and my doctor told me I needed to go on a diet. I was handed a nutrition pamphlet dated 2008 and sent on my way. I reassured my doctor that I was eating whole foods, exercising daily, and was in school for nutrition. I did not know why I was gaining weight rapidly but I knew it was something out of my control. This began the obsessive spiral of tracking macros, logging my weight, purchasing my first fitness watch to track my calories burned, and a lot of stress. During my pregnancy, I felt out of control, unsupported, and helpless because nothing I did was working. At every doctor’s appointment, I left in tears, thinking I was putting my child at risk and fearing that I would never lose the “baby weight”. These feelings did not sit right with me and I knew pregnancy should not be spent stressing over how much weight we gain. At the end of my pregnancy, I had an emergency induction due to severe preeclampsia (high blood pressure in pregnancy). One of the main symptoms of preeclampsia is rapid unexplained weight gain.  

After birth, I decided to sign up with a nutrition coach trying to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I was immediately put into an aggressive calorie deficit that left me run down, depleted, and compromised my milk supply. I had only a generic set of macros to follow and decided to ditch the coach and take things into my own hands. I ate more food, got back to lifting weights, and got to a place of feeling the strongest and most confident I’d ever felt in my body.

During my second pregnancy, I knew exactly what I needed to do to maintain my ideal body weight, but most importantly, a healthy mindset when facing pregnancy weight gain. I went into the pregnancy knowing significantly more about pregnancy and postpartum fitness and nutrition and was able to approach that season of life with a more gentle perspective after coaching many pregnant postpartum women and going through it myself.

role

Nutrition coach, mother, and lover of fantasy books

boring
credentials

BS in Health Education and Health Promotion, CHES, Precision Nutrition L1, Pregnancy & Postpartum Certified

go-to drink

Iced coffee with cold foam

NON-GUILTY PLEASURE

A big ol’ burger with garlic fries and a trough of ranch dressing

walk out song

Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me - Taylor Swift

fun fact

I love to go on long camping trips in my rooftop tent and find hidden hot springs

coaching super power

I understand the difficulties of being a parent — disrupted workouts because nap time is over, piles of laundry, a sink full of dishes, and navigating nutrition when everyone in the house wants to eat something different. I love to help people work around the challenges that come with parenthood and find a way for nutrition to benefit the whole family.

on instagram: @herhealthaffair