Hope Harrell: Personal Trainer + Nutrition Coach

Welcome to the place where a healthy lifestyle meets sustainability! My name is Hope Harrell. I received my nutrition coaching certification from Precision Nutrition in August 2022. I am from San Antonio, Texas and have lived in Waco, Texas since 2017. I graduated from Baylor University in 2021 with my Bachelors of Science in Exercise Physiology where I also studied nutrition. During college, I was a crossfit coach and a kickboxing instructor at gyms in Waco. For the year after college, I worked for a chiropractic clinic underneath some amazing doctors as a corrective exercise specialist. I have volunteered with 2nd and 3rd graders at Highland Baptist Church since I became a member in 2018. I am engaged to my handsome and loving fiancé Jason who I met while working at an axe throwing place here in Waco called Stumpys Hatchet House. We are getting married in May 2023!

I became passionate about nutrition at a young age, but not for the healthiest reasons. I started crossfit in 2015–at the age of 16–after recovering from a fractured collarbone that took me out of my previous sports, volleyball and swimming. When I started, I drank alllll of the koolaid. I started the paleo diet when I was 16. I have nothing against this way of eating (or any way of eating for that matter: whatever works best for YOU is the best method!), but I was 16 years old. There was no reason for me to be restricting the types of food I was eating as long as I was getting enough food to fuel my growing and active body. Nonetheless, I maintained this diet with about 85-90% accuracy until I went to college. When I moved, I lived on campus; I ate at the dining halls, and developed a serious stress eating habit. I would try my best to be healthy in the dorm room and at the dining halls, but the stress of moving, starting a new job, working out at a new gym, making new friends, etc all got the best of me at that time.

Fast forward to sophomore year. I moved into an apartment and started meal prepping everything I ate. I was out of the house 13 hours every single day. With my full time college schedule, I also coached at the crossfit box and the kickboxing gym for a total of 25-30 hours every week, on top of my own training that I did. I did not have much of a social life at the time aside from studying with friends or the members I trained at the gym. I worked out 6-7 days/week, doing intense training for up to 2 hours everyday. Talk about exhausting! So everyday, I would leave the house with the three meals and all the snacks that I had prepared on Sunday, all my gym gear, and all my school supplies/books. I had no work/life balance whatsoever. Through all of this, I was also restricting my calories, trying to get “leaner while building muscle” (PSA: that is actually not scientifically possible for the body to accomplish!). My only saving grace was the two cheat meals I allowed myself every week. I continued this for two years, until March 2020.

We all know what happened next. The global pandemic sent me home. I tried my best to keep up the intensity of my workouts, but it was not easy. I moved to Omaha, NE for my internship at a brain and spinal cord rehabilitation clinic. I continued doing at home workouts, but all my years of over training caught up to me. While doing a small, at home workout, I threw out my back at the age of 21. For the rest of the summer, every meal became a cheat meal. I was no longer meal prepping, and I was living in a strange environment in the middle of a pandemic. Stress eating overtook me, and I finally reached a tipping point. I realized that I was on the verge of developing an eating disorder if I didn’t get my relationship with food in check.

For the rest of the summer and all of my senior year, I fell in love with cooking. I started to cook REAL food without tracking the calories or the macros in every bite like I used to. I started to love and appreciate ALL food as fuel for body, mind, and soul. I did gain weight over that year, but I was so proud of how far I had come mentally that the weight didn’t matter. I did not get on a scale, and I healed my relationship with my body image and with food.

I met my now fiancé right before I graduated college in May 2021. I started to cook a lot more comfort food to impress him… I would say it worked 😉 We did that for a little while, and then I took charge of my own health again. I realized that I had a very healthy relationship with food now, and I could then start to put myself in a calorie deficit to lose a little bit of the weight I had gained in the healing process. In January 2022, I made a few small changes in my weekly diet and exercise routine for my birthday beach trip in March, and to feel better about myself in the body that I had taught myself to love. I did not track any calories, and I didn’t step on the scale at all. I listened to my body’s natural hunger and satiation cues and stayed consistent. By March, I had lost nearly 12lbs, without getting on any sort of diet and still incorporating ALL of the things I love to eat. Since then, my passion for sustainable, holistic habit change has become what drives me. I want everyone one to know that it is possible to heal your relationship with food without any dieting!

Your “stressful” situation may look different than mine, but we all have one that we have gone through, are currently going through, or will go through. Maybe it is a big move to a new state. Maybe you have to balance your schedule and your spouses and kids, and it feels like you’re never allowed to prioritize yourself. Maybe your job has put more pressure on you and you are having to work longer hours. Whatever the case may be, you will be “stressed” at some point in your life, if it isn’t right now. Food (nutrition) and body movement (fitness) should never be the cause of that. I promise you it is possible to free yourself of all the chains of dieting, stress eating, or any other habit that weighs you down. With knowledge, accountability, and support, it is within your reach to grab the life that you have been dreaming of, in your own body that you love, eating the foods you love!