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Megan’s desire to coach has been shaped by the many twists and turns her own life has taken in regards to health and fitness. Her first interest in fitness did not come from a happy place. Ideals about what her body should look like and how it should perform were not her own.
Having always enjoyed rough housing around with her older brothers and “keeping up with the boys,” Megan tended to follow in her brothers footsteps—surely, whatever they did, she could do better. However, this was not accepted from many and the pressure to turn her more “lady like” was overwhelming.
Being a taller female the idea of modeling was always thrown out there. Megan was finally approached directly in high school about this. Self worth came from what her body looked like and not what it could do anymore. Being an athlete growing up her measurements didn’t quite fit into the high-fashion measurement protocol quite yet. In her intake, a tape measurement was taken around her hips and it measured 38” at the time. It needed to drop to being no thicker than 35”. She needed to lose muscle, causing everything she put in her mouth became an obsession, and ultimately led to the development of anorexia nervosa in her teenage years.
This damaged her athletic performance in many ways. She no longer had the power she previously had, and she was getting run over on the soccer field. She didn’t have the stamina to make one sprint down the full length of the field. It was time to make a choice: modeling or soccer. Megan chose modeling, quit soccer, and continued her disordered eating habits. This lasted a little over a year before the Athletic Trainer at her high school forcefully would drag her off of cardio equipment and have discussions about nutrition and disordered eating and what she was doing to her body.
Megan resumed her athletic career and started eating again. She grew another inch her senior year of high school when she started taking in adequate calories. Megan would have a disordered view about her body until 2011 when she stumbled upon Abby Wambach in an ESPN Body Issue. That moment is when it finally clicked that Megan was never meant to be a smaller female and she started finally embracing her “bigness”.
Megan has not only suffered from disordered eating, she has also experienced many injuries throughout her adult life.
In 2009, Megan had her first injury. In a sorority flag football game, she tore her ACL. Having never really been injured before, she didn’t realize what was happening. As soon as this happened, her hamstring started compensating for the ACL, allowing her to continue to play, and she went back into the game. But when she dove to grab a flag she had a sharp pain on the medial side of her knee, finally prompting her to remove herself because she knew something wasn’t right. After an MRI she would find out she tore her ACL and medial meniscus clear off. It was a miracle the MCL held on.
After surgery Megan hit an all time low, fell into depression, and restarted the behavior of disordered eating to have some sense of control. She felt as if her body had betrayed her and it was heart crushing. It would take a year for Megan to come out of her depression with the help of a friend/trainer that would help her develop some strength and purpose after this injury.
Megan believes it is community that truly helps people and that helped her so many times. Megan coaches because walking with people on their journey is sometimes what truly makes the difference between success and failure.