Stronger, Smarter and Loved, No Matter What
Written by Natasha Frisk
For over a decade, I have been a dedicated health and wellness professional—first as a fitness instructor, then as a wellness speaker, coach, and business owner.
Health has always been a part of my life, but not always from the perspective of wellness. I grew into this field because of my upbringing.
Looking back, health was an issue in my environment from the start. I grew up surrounded by family and friends dealing with medications, substance use, and chronic diseases. At age eight, I remember my Papa pricking his finger each morning to check his blood sugar. He had Type 2 diabetes, and though I didn’t fully understand, I saw him making changes that affected all of us. My brothers and I lived with my grandparents and other relatives on and off through childhood. Moving constantly—from house to house, from school to school—took a toll on my emotional, physical, and psychological health.
As a teenager, I developed irregular menstrual cycles, digestive issues, and depression. When you’re always saying goodbye to friends and adjusting to new schools, emotional strain often shows up as physical symptoms. I found comfort in writing, singing, and cooking. When I lived with my parents, they often worked two or three jobs, so I cooked for myself and my brothers. My mom wasn’t much of a cook so usually we had tv dinners, fast food, or what we could afford with our food stamps.
I found comfort in cooking and learning how to make what I called healthy food. I learned how to cook pasta, chicken with veggies and I loved baking. As I got older and started to work, I invested my money into what I thought was healthy, like Snackwells and anything that said healthy on it. My health started to take a turn at the age of 15 when my cycle came and it was very irregular. When this happens to a teen age girl the first thing a Dr/OBYN will do is prescribe birth control. This was prescribed to me for a number of reasons and one being to gain weight as I was severely under weight.
This has been a personal struggle for me all my life. As I moved forward into my teen age years, I started to develop digestive issues and more depression. Lots of tests were done. Group counseling was needed and medications were added. My health was an issue due to my upbringing and my constant environmental situation always changing. I leaned into music, nature, and writing more. This helped with my mind and my mental capacity. My teenage years were pretty hard and challenging but this is where my resilience came from.
When I turned 21, I met my now husband and we started our family. My health issues rose again after my daughter. My weight from her was not coming off as fast as her brother and my cycles were even more puzzling and hard. I joined a women’s club in 2009 and that’s when it clicked. I started to exercise, walk, run and meet up with other moms with similar health issues. In 2010 we moved with Warrenton and I volunteered in the kids club at a local gym and started to take Zumba classes and fell in love instantly!
Dancing always made me smile and feel so amazing. I later became a Zumba instructor and found my calling. From teaching group classes and meeting more women with health issues, asking me about my diet and for suggestions I decided to move forward into personal training. But that wasn’t enough. More questions would come not only for moms but for their kids as I started to work with kids and teach them movement.
From this I dedicated myself to go back to school for Holistic Nutrition, women's health and wellness and natural wellness. This all stemmed from seeing my papa battle his own health issues, my health issues, seeing my dad and his mom battle health issues, seeing my mom and family battle addiction and loss. I grew up in an environment that had all red flags, that may have seemed hopeless but through all of that I was also shown what not to do. I saw first hand what chronic disease does to a loved one and to the family as well. We either thrive and fight for our health and become our own health advocates or we give our power up to those who just look at us as another number for more pills, less health education and less help.
Our bodies do not betray us, instead we need to listen and ask questions. My body and mind was not connected but of surviving so with that mindset I promised myself that I would one day be Stronger, Smarter, and Loved no matter what.
I look at my life now and see that growing up that way helped pave the way for my soul's work and to help educate those who may be struggling and having a hard start like I did to know that you can change your environment, mindset; and your heart does not have to be bruised all your life. The one thing in this life we do have control over is how we Nourish ourselves day to day. By the company we work for. The people who we surround ourselves with and how we talk to ourselves and show up for ourselves day after day.
I have and will continue to support those who need health and wellness education and guidance. As someone who climbed out of the dark and into the light I can say that any and everyone can do this. We are made to heal and live a beautiful life even if you have some bumps in the road. Health is a badge of honor I gladly wear and will help those to put their badge on as well.
