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Meet Emily Schromm: certified personal trainer, CrossFit Coach, and nutritional therapy practitioner who is out to change the way YOU think about food, weight lifting, and your body. Formerly on MTV’s Real World and Real World Challenges, her journey of self-discovery has lead to a full-time career in fitness and health. Her passion is to help every single person and client BE THEIR OWN SUPERHERO!

Emily Schromm and Her Journey From Self-Conscious to Confident

How It All Began

It’s been a fun 6 or 7 years. I was living in Missouri and working at Starbucks, just trying to make ends meet. We were all broke college kids. I went into Starbucks one morning and I was working, probably hungover and grumpy, and I ended up having a really good conversation with--what I did not know at the time--the casting director of the reality show Real World.

Taking The Leap

I had never seen Real World. I actually hate reality TV shows. But I had such a good convo that I wanted to continue it. He ended up asking me to come for a second interview, and I was really hesitant, but I also really just wanted to get out of Missouri. So I was like, you know what? I might as well try.

A photo posted by emilyschromm (@emilyschromm) on Oct 18, 2016 at 7:52am PDT

Discovering Life

I had a really fun experience throughout the audition process, never realizing that it would actually come to be. So when I got cast on Real World, it was very accidental, which people think I’m crazy for saying that. It was just one of those things that I never thought would actually happen and it happened. So I got out of Missouri and went to DC for a few months. That’s when I realized how unhappy I actually was… how much life I hadn’t experienced.

Starbucks Love

When I came back to Missouri, I wanted to make sure I didn’t stay there and kept living life. I didn’t want to just have an amazing experience in DC and have it be over. I ended up finding a way to move to the mountains. I actually transferred Starbucks. My mom said I should write a book about how Starbucks changed my life.

Transitioning To The Mountains

I transferred Starbucks to Colorado so I could live in the mountains. I wanted to learn how to snowboard so I did the whole snow bum thing. During this process, my fitness journey began. I realized how unhealthy I had become. I had been drinking a lot more. You know when you’re in the mountains, all there is to do is drink and smoke a lot of weed.

My Insecurity

When I was looking in the mirror one day, I was like “oh my gosh.” I just felt disgusting. I was always covered in clothes because it was 10 degrees outside. But I was so uncomfortable in my own skin, and I was so not okay with that. It didn’t make sense to be be brave enough to move across country by myself, but not even get in a swimsuit.

I just hated that feeling of insecurity… when your body doesn’t match what’s inside, it can make you feel very trapped.

Discovering Fitness

So I just started going to the gym, and it was super simple. I found online programs that I could try, new workouts, and I just experimented. I got my butt kicked every single day, but I went every single day. I started researching about food and learning about food, and I just got so into this world of fitness and health. And I started to feel so much better.

A photo posted by emilyschromm (@emilyschromm) on Sep 28, 2016 at 4:54pm PDT

Getting Out Of The Darkness

You know when you get in those dark places and feel depressed... I had experienced that quite a bit. I hated it. When I started this health and fitness journey, it was like all of that started to go away. It completely changed my world. That’s when I knew I wanted to be a personal trainer. I never would have said that. Even a year before I actually became a trainer, I was like “trainers are just crazy people that never finish college.”

The “Inner You”

And then I became a trainer. But I just love it. I totally love helping people find their inner superhero. I even named my program the Superhero Challenge. I wanted people to find the “inner them” that they had but weren’t seeing when they looked in the mirror.

The Superhero Challenge

The Superhero Challenge was actually created in Thailand. While we were filming the Real World/Road Rules Challenge, and I was in Thailand for 6 weeks. They completely disconnected me from my world. I was a trainer. I had clients… and they were my livelihood. They said, “you can’t connect with them.”

How The Superhero Challenge Came To Be

I had no idea how I was going to tell my clients that, because they depend on me so much. Also, how do I know they’re going to do the workouts I give them? How do I know what meal plans they’re following? So I just created this really cheap website with my friend. It was a point system that turned into what is now the Superhero Challenge.

Accountability

It’s accountability. Every day you get a message from me. It’s learning about food, getting exercises, and then making sure you’re doing it with a community of people. So it was kind of an accident that the Superhero Challenge became what it is, but it was the best accident probably of my career.

Women Don’t Eat Enough

The most common thing that comes out of my this challenge is realizing a lot of women just don’t eat enough. Especially if we’re working hard, we have in our head that we need to eat less in order to lose weight. Most of the clients that come to me have a really hard time eating more than 1400 calories, because that’s what they’ve been preached their whole lives.

A photo posted by emilyschromm (@emilyschromm) on Oct 25, 2016 at 12:25pm PDT

Beyond Counting Calories

So it’s amazing to have people eat more calories of high quality foods. That’s when their bodies start to change... a lot. Because it’s not necessarily about calories in/calories out, it’s about quality of the calories and learning to read ingredients.

Poor Diet = Poor Mind

I also love breaking the stigma of fats, another thing people learn with my challenge. I really focus on high quality fats because in our culture (and it’s a lot better now), they are very demonized. If you consume carbs and/or sugar, you are going to be grumpy, you’re going to be irritable, and you’re going to have brain fog.

Benefits Of Fat

I love it because this is a lifestyle switch. Now I increase my fat to replace that sugar, and all of a sudden, I have less sugar cravings, I feel like I have lasting energy, and I don’t have to eat every 2 to 3 hours. I’m just having such a better time thinking at work. All of those things tie into eating enough fat.

A photo posted by emilyschromm (@emilyschromm) on Nov 13, 2016 at 10:21am PST

More Benefits Of Fat

Also with healing, that’s a big one. You can’t heal when you’re low fat. You can’t have a happy sex life when you’re low fat. The truth is: there’s just so much that ties into eating more fat. So that’s a big one for my challenge.

Self-love

One thing I have learned, especially over the years, is that most people think it’s just about a workout plan or a meal plan, and usually that’s how it always starts. That’s how I started. I just wanted to work out. I wanted to find something to get me moving and to get me in shape, change my body a little bit. But it’s so much more about this inner transformation that happens, this journey of self-love.

Be Gentle

For me, this was huge. No matter what I did, no matter how much I changed, it was never enough. Learning that, in the moment, even if you aren’t necessarily happy with what you’re seeing, you have to be gentle with yourself. You have to learn how to appreciate the amazing things your body can do. If you crush a workout, tell yourself, “I just crushed that workout, and I’m awesome.”

A photo posted by emilyschromm (@emilyschromm) on Nov 5, 2016 at 3:41pm PDT

Love Who You Are To Break The Shame Cycle

You might still have things you want to accomplish, and you might still not be 100% happy with where you are, but if you don’t learn to love who you are right now, and you don’t learn how to appreciate what you can do right now, then you’re caught in this endless journey of hating yourself and feeling guilty. This is the shame cycle I want my clients to get out of.

I Struggle Too

I struggle with it, too. I definitely don’t have it all figured out. I think that I preach it so much because every single day, if I leave a workout and I feel disappointed because I’m not as strong as somebody, or I didn’t crush it like I thought I would, I have to just always just come back to that place of: I went to the gym. I put the effort in. I cannot keep beating myself up.

My Self-Consciousness Started Young

It’s so crazy to think where I was 10 years ago. I struggled with eating disorders, constantly picking myself apart in the mirror. I don’t think I was ever comfortable in a swimsuit, even at the age of 10. So it started at a very young age for me. I was self-conscious. I knew I had bigger thighs. I could tell in comparison to my friends, there was always this awareness that I felt just bigger. I don’t know where it came from, but I’m sure society has a huge piece to do with it.

Fake It Til You Make It

When you ever feel insecure, or look in the mirror and just hate yourself, you have to find something that you love. I always say, “fake it ‘til you make it.” Look in the mirror and give yourself 2 to 3 things that you appreciate and love. It might not trump the negatives that you feel about yourself, but when you change your mental state, you can change your physical state.

Emily will be launching her FREE 7-Day Challenge on November 28th, 2016:

Building Confidence

I might just say, “I like my eye color.” I’m not even going to say anything about my body, because I’m in that place where I hate everything about my body. I’m going to pick something that I enjoy about my body or my personality, and those thoughts can start changing the way you start walking, the way you look into people’s eyes. If you just build confidence by faking it a little bit, and just mentally tell yourself, “I have to find something I like.” It can be as simple as the nail color on my nails.

If we change our thoughts, we change everything.

Don’t Beat Yourself Up

Stop beating yourself up. It’s an awful feeling. I’m put back in my place 10 years ago: hating myself, not eating, taking all these Hydroxycut pills, working out like a crazy person, almost passing out. So many women are in that state. They think that’s the way to lose weight and change their bodies, by starving themselves or working overtime. It’s a horrible cycle.

New Lifestyle

I’m so grateful for this lifestyle where I don’t have to count calories. I can have real food. I’m not going to just feel better, but I can let go of this psycho control that we feel like we have to have. We can just start enjoying the journey a little more.

You can sign up for Emily’s 7-Day Challenge, launching November 28th, here.

Written by Shirley Ju

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Image Credit: Laura Mahony, instagram.com/emilyschromm, CrossFit

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