My life started with a ton of adversity. My father died on my eighth birthday and my mother died the following year on Mother’s Day. To say the least, my upbringing was far from “normal.” The kids of the family’s I lived with were always active, but my extracurricular activities were never a priority as I was the “extra” kid.
In high school, I managed to motivate myself with no support from parents to make sports teams. I became hooked on physical fitness at age 18 I actually over trained. A typical day would consist of riding my bike to the gym, training, attending physical education classes at University, and teaching aerobics at night.
I took pride in portraying the “jock” image, but most of all, what inspired me was my gym’s atmosphere. It was very hardcore there. Mr. Canada owned the gym. NHL and NFL athletes trained there, and even a few WWE wrestlers. There were very few women training there in the early 80s and I felt privileged.
