About Kellee
Hi- I am the ‘KH’ in KH Lifting You Up! I am a certified health and fitness coach with a Masters of Kinesiology- concentration in Integrative Wellness.
I started the KH Lifting You Up blog in 2016 as a way to give general fitness/health tips, ideas, and information to anyone who wanted to better themselves.
As of 2019, I have shifted to a specific focus of lifestyle medicine or integrative wellness and began offering holistic health coaching services. Read my story to learn how & why I made this transition!
My Story
The Start of my Fitness Journey
Towards the end of college I got out of my comfort zone at the gym. I started weight training and gave up cardio-only type workouts.
I quickly fell in love with the feeling and the results, so after college I decided to pursue a career in the fitness industry as a personal trainer and group fitness instructor.
I taught bootcamp classes, took them, did cardio at the gym, and ate “clean.” “Clean-” meaning no fast food, minimal processed foods, sugar, and alcohol.
At the peak of all this, where I was in the best physical shape of my life, I started to experience symptoms that were making my high-energy lifestyle hard to keep up with.
I tried to work through them because I looked “healthy” and I had an image to keep up as a personal trainer.
I figured it would pass if I stayed with my “clean” diet that consisted of A LOT of ground turkey, rice cakes, and salads.
But, Something Was Missing
As I continued to work at the gym I gradually began to notice that there seemed to be something missing to the mainstream concept of what “being healthy” looked like. I felt resistance to the idea that someone should work off their “crazy weekend” or weigh themselves every week to see if they lost a pound.
This pattern of guilt, shame, lack of worth, punishment, extreme measures, etc. was repeating all around me and I finally was becoming aware of it, and how destructive it was.
Through conversations and observations in the gym, I learned that my personal definition of “healthy” was definitely evolving from the norm.
Clients would say things like “you are made of all muscle! What do you eat to look like that?” or my personal favorite “what do you have to worry about, your _____” (fill in the blank with young, fit, skinny).
I was someone’s image of “fit” or “healthy”, but inside I felt like crap. I began feeling like an impostor.
This internal conflict drove me to question the way I was working with my clients. I started to feel that I was just skimming the surface of health by giving them a workout 2-3 times a week.
If I had been doing all the “right things” and I feel sick- wellness surely couldn’t be all about working out and eating “clean” with the 80/20 rule.
The (First) Surrendering
Meanwhile, my resistance to seeking help was failing me.
No matter how many hours I slept, how much water I drank, how consistent I was with my Vitamin C pills or how many protein smoothies I made…my symptoms were worsening.
I couldn’t turn a blind eye on it any longer, so I did what any concerned human in the 21st century would do, I hopped on Dr. Google. I conducted a massive search to figure out what was up with my body.
It didn’t take long to find that it was most likely a thyroid condition. I went to the doctor, got my thyroid panel drawn and sure enough my thyroid was out of whack.
I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, handed a generic medication, and told “maybe you’ll feel better in a year.”
I only knew conventional medicine my whole life. I thought that medications were supposed to help you and make things go away, but my meds were not helping me at all.
Months later I still felt tired, but now I had brain fog that made regular tasks 10 x harder and I became frustrated with it all.
Despite doing everything that my primary care doctor told me to do, I felt no relief and seemed to be experiencing more symptoms. I couldn’t keep up with my full-day schedule of training anymore.
I literally felt like a zombie in a 24 year old’s body. I decided to leave one of the gyms I was working at because it was just too much for me at the time.
My personal life was also affected. In order for me to get out of bed in the morning I needed at least 8 hours of sleep. Working on the weekends and super early in the morning (5 am) meant early bed-times and a lack of a social life. When I did have a weekend off, I was too tired to do anything “fun.” It was an ugly cycle.
My True Healing Journey
I knew there had to be something I could do to heal, regain my energy and clear my thoughts. Again with the help of Dr. Google, I began researching alternative forms of medicine. It did not take long for me to find a functional medicine doctor and make the choice to never go back to that conventional doctor again.
Through another blood test, my new functional medicine doctor diagnosed me with Hashimoto’s- an autoimmune disease. He showed me how important food is in healing and that I could reverse the condition with lifestyle practices.
This was the start of a new concept of wellness for me- a journey into holistic wellness.
I spent over two years learning from naturopathic doctors, functional medicine practitioners, and healers on my quest to reverse my autoimmune condition.
I found a common theme- treat the person as a whole entity and not separate- the mind, body and spirit are all connected.
Once I started practicing these methods and incorporating them into my everyday life I started to see positive changes in my health. I wanted to learn more so I decided to go back to school and got my Masters of Kinesiology-concentration in Integrative Wellness in 2018.
The Awakening & My Path to Alignment
I know NOW that my autoimmune diagnosis was the Universe’s way of guiding me to explore the different components of wellness. It opened the door for me to explore new concepts, methods, and practices that not only strengthened my body and mind, but also inspired me to reconnect to my soul.
In 2019, feeling so aligned with my authentic self, I decided to shift my career and started my health coaching business- KH Lifting You Up- to spread my message to others who need to hear it in their health journeys.
I teach women that their health and wellness is more than calorie counting and weighing themselves on the scale. That their happiness and sense of worth is not dependent on their weight or if they worked out to counter what they may have indulged in the night before.
Through lifestyle medicine practices that infuse mind, body, and spirit, we can collaborate together to reach your health and wellness goals.
