Hey there! I am Joana, 24, from Hamburg, Germany.
For 14 years I was into horse riding and vaulting and joined the gym when I started studying with 18. 2 years later I competed in a Bikini Fitness Show and truly enjoyed this experience in my fitness journey. At the same time I learned a lot about nutrition and since then never stopped educating myself about the human body.
After my bodybuilding experience I struggled with finding my balance with food. For 3 months my Coach told me what and when to eat and after the championships it felt like falling in a hole and I didn’t knew how to eat or when or how many meals. I counted all calories I ate, saw food as something negative, restricted myself and fell into a cycle of overcompensating food with working out and binge eating.
At the same time I was obsessed with working out. Missing a workout was not an option so I forced my body to exercise even if I was tired and should have rested instead.
Where did this lead? My mind was thinking about food 24/7 and my personal life suffered. Moreover, I didn’t enjoy food and movement anymore.
What I learned over the past 4 years is to listen to my body. Some days I am more hungry than other days and some days I feel like going for a run, some doing a HIT workout and some days I want to do Pilates. I learned to accept that my body has different needs on different days or months and that we keep changing. Calorie counting helped and teached me a lot about nutrition but it is not a long term solution. Food is now energy and fuel for me and I enjoy it again without any guilt. My mind is now free for more important things than food. I learned that being thin or skinny is not equal to health! I am my healthiest now and I haven’t been healthy at all when doing bodybuilding!
At the beginning of 2020, I decided to make health my profession and started studying at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition to get certified as a Health Coach. The human body and energy is very fascinating to me and I am aiming to understand what is happening inside of us.
Now, my mission is to help you on your journey to wellness and better health! I care about the understanding of food as the cause of health or disease. It is my goal to help you understand the connection between nutrition and other areas of life like stress, sleep, relationships, movement and spirituality. Coaching holistically means to me that my clients know how to help themselves, even after completing my coaching program.
Joana Schulze 