Hi, I’m Faith.
I am a West Virginia farm girl at heart. I thrive on fresh air, big gardens, and lots of trees.
My college years were spent in Salt Lake City, Utah earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance. Dance is one of my passions and at different times in my life has also been my occupation through teaching, performing, and choreographing.
If you would have told me in 15 years ago that I would marry my “high school sweetheart” I wouldn’t have believed it. But it’s true. Since 1998 I have had the best partner I could ever hope for and in 2007 we got married. Tate is patient and intellegent, athletic and determined, adventerous and brave; many qualities that have rubbed off on me over the years! His path to become a doctor of chiropractic moved us from Salt Lake City to Portland, Oregon.
When Tate graduated school in 2008 the economy was rocky and Portland was flooded with chiropractors. We have always loved to travel, especially in Latin America, so when an opportunity to live an work for a year in Lima, Peru arose we jumped on it. Living abroad was amazing and we decided to extend our time away with a 6 month backpacking trip through South America and Asia You can read more about it here.
Living outside of the United States and all the creature comforts that come with your own culture taught me innumerable lessons about myself and how I relate to the world. It has also led me to discover how I can create and gracefully maintain physical fitness and health while away from my gym, health food store, routine, and support network.
These days, life revolves around working at our chiropractic clinic and starting my own personal training business. You can check out the clinic here and Gracefulfitness Training here.
“By trade” I am a modern dance choreographer and performer, Personal Trainer, and Group Exercise instructor.
I’d love to hear from you! Send e-mail to gracefulfitness@live.com
My Path to Gracefulfitness
For me, body awareness came at a young age. When I was seven or so I really “porked up” as someone once not so gracefully described it. I remember a family “friend” telling my mom that I would be such a beautiful child “if she wasn’t so chubby”. At eight years old I borrowed my best friends bathing suit until her dad made me take it off and swim in a t-shirt so I wouldn’t stretch out the suit.
By the time I reached Junior High my hormones and metabolism had caught up with each other and I leveled out to a healthy weight.
But never skinny.
My body doesn’t do skinny. Fit, yes. Trim, yes. Muscular, definitely. I am what I have heard refered to as a “sturdy build”, broad shoulders, dense bones, thick muscles, always a bit of body fat.
I was never exactly athletic. Dancing has always been my priority and passion. As a dancer I am extremely grateful to have grown up in a studio with teachers that never once mentioned my weight or shape, a very rare phenomenon in the dance world indeed. However, they didn’t have to mention it. I was made aware of it every time we talked about costumes and was the only one in class that had to order a large or had the highest measurements on the size chart. (I was 5 foot 3 and 130 pound or so, not hefty but always thick).
It must have been around the beginning of high school that I began learning about calories (mid-nineties and Nutritional Facts labeling was just becoming required). I started to learn that I could eat a huge salad with some lean protein and whole grains for the same number of calories as a small amount of chips or fries. And the salad made me feel better, more energized and light. It was also around this time I learned about burning calories through exercise and started going to the gym regularly.
Since I hit puberty there has been only one brief period where I was truly overweight and unhealthy but it was short-lived. It was the end of and right after my honeymoon, which was two months long. I have never been as inactive or eaten as much fried foods or drank as much alcohol…but I loved every minute of it! I stayed away from scales but I think I put on ten pounds or so, which I lost most of once I returned to “real life” of teaching aerobics, dancing, and eating healthier.
Gracefulfitness is infusing your life with movement that makes you feel good.
Gracefulfitness is accepting your body’s boundaries while always striving to be the best, most authentic you.
Gracefulfitness is finding strength and balance in this crazy, mixed up world of body issues and negative self-talk.
Gracefulfitness 
Hi, nice to meet you !
Hi! Nice you meet you too, thanks for reading!
great blog Faith, welcome to cville!!!
thanks! let’s hike this week.?
i live in c-ville, too…and am also from WV! found you through reading kath’s blog. where do you teach? liking the town?
chat at ya later 🙂
Where are you from in WV? I am from Summers Co. but Lewisburg is more like my hometown.
I am not teaching here yet, just arrived a few weeks ago, and I am LOVING C’ville!
great to hear! i’m from wheeling, in the north panhandle, and went to wvu. still have the family up there, but moved here for a job about a year ago.
maybe i’ll cya around town some time!
Hi! Nice to meet you! I found your blog through Aracoma’s “Like” in FB. I am Aracoma’s friend and she told me about your trips…which they sound awesome! I am originally from Brazil, but I grew up in Bolivia (right next to Peru and they are basically the same culture) and I married an American man. You know, the world is very small.
Anyways, I love your blog. It motivated me to go back in to running (I’ve been procrastinating lately)
I hope I have the chance to meet you some day and talk about your adventures in Peru. Do you like mountain climbing? I do and I did climb some mountains in Bolivia, like the Huayna Potosi and the Illimani. That’s in my bucket list to do it again, so who knows…maybe we’ll do it together? you are more than Welcome to come with me to Bolivia and I’ll be your tourist guide 😉
Hope to keep in touch with you.
See you!
Erika.
Erika,
Nice to meet you and thanks so much for reading Gracefulfitness!
We haven’t made it to Bolivia yet, unfortunately, but we did spend a lot of time in the mountains of Peru and I think they have very similar cultures. I love hiking and mountain climbing and did a lot of it in Peru and Argentina!
That’s awesome that you have gotten back into running, good for you.
Do you live near Aracoma? We will be visiting her in the next few months.
Take Care,
Faith
Hello Faith,
Nice to hear back from you.
I live in the same town as Aracoma, about 15 mins. drive from my house.
Bolivia and Peru were the same country for thousands of years when occupied by the Aymaras and the Incas. Then the Spanish conquered the region when Peru, Bolivia and Chile were one country and the Capital was in Chuquisaca (or Sucre in modern Bolivia) Long story short, Peru and Bolivia are the same thing, we even share the Titicaca Lake and the Cordillera de Los Andes. Anyways, you’re more than welcome to come with me whenever I go there to visit. My only concern is the altitude of La Paz which the airport is at about 3800 mts. (12,464 ft.) above sea level and last time we went there my daughter got very sick. We’ll see how she does next time.
Have a wonderful weekend and we’ll keep in touch 🙂 Take care!
Erika.
Hi,
I wanted to inform you of the 2011 Fitness and Health Bloggers Conference, scheduled for June 24-26 in Boulder, Colorado.
http://www.FitnessBloggersConference.org
This conference will be a gathering of bloggers from throughout North America who specialize in the areas of fitness or health. I live in Boulder and can tell you it is a very active, healthy city and the perfect place for this conference.
Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to be included in conference updates. Find us on Twitter @fitnessbloggers
I hope you can join us!
great blog!! check out mineee 🙂
Just ran across your blog and thought I’d say hi! I really love the name of this blog so much and am enjoying what I see so far. I look forward to reading more! 🙂
Thanks! And thanks for checking it out.
I just found your blog and wanted to say that of the many healthy living blogs that I have read, yours, I could tell at first glance, was well done and so relatable to how I think and live. Your photography is great too. Keep it up and I look forward to reading more!
Thanks! I really appreciate this, especially as a new blogger.
Oh my gosh, you’re my name twin! Sounds like we’re weight twins too 🙂 How awesome is that!
Hi Faith! I just discovered your blog via Kath’s. I made a new year’s resolution to feed my family real food, and I’m loving blogs like yours that offer me so much motivation and inspiration.
Christine,
Thanks for reading and congrats on committing to a whole food family!
I’ve always thought the same thing about Kettlebells… when I see people exercising like that and not paying attn. to form I get scared for them!
Love your blog!!
Janine
Faith, i finally got around to checking out your blog that yarrow told us about. it IS fun and visually delightful. even though your sister didn’t show up for work today, zenya called in (unprompted) and said mom was under the migraine. Torula and i cleaned the greenhouse anyway–without yarrow. then i cut a bunch of firewood for exercise. keep up the inspiring work and i’ll try to not be too worn out to read it occassionally. you’re doing a good job writing. chris
Thanks Chris! Keep up that fire wood strength training regimen!
Nice to meet you in the blog world! Saw you featured on Kath’s post today! Just wanted to wish you and your husband lots of success with your new business and congrats!!!!
🙂
Hey girlie! It is so great to meet you! 😀
Right back at you!
Faith – I am so glad I stumbled across your blog I cant wait to read more!
Thanks for checking it out!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE all your entries about making things at home rather than buying. You make it look super fun! PLUS, you’re saving lots of money! Go you!
🙂
Thanks so much for that feedback! I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who gets satisfaction by “Doing It Myself” and saving a little $ in the process! 🙂