I’m Health Coach Cristina.
I’m a Nationally Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC) who specializes in trauma-informed care practices and public health principles to support folks who are neurodiverse, a part of the LGBTQAI+ community and have experienced trauma. Learn more below about how I got here.
A little about this site
This website and blog like me, has evolved so much over the past decade.
When I started writing in 2014 to share my own journey (pre-coaching), I hadn’t realized how many things influenced my overall health, my motivations and my ability to make and be confident in my choices.
Since becoming a coach in 2016, this site is now a place for it all from health and nutrition education to lifestyle talk and how to work with me 1:1 as a coach and trainer.
I like numbers, and I’d be lying if I said that numbers didn’t help guide me before. The numbers that carry weight for me have changed though. It’s about being consistent.
It’s also about my confidence in my choices, the boundaries I set and how I use my voice. I recognize that it took a lot for me to get to this place and that’s ok.
I’ve had extreme weight gain, I’ve had extreme weight loss, I’ve competed as a bikini competitor and placed, I’ve cardio’d my heart out, I fell in love with lifting, I’ve experimented with different eating styles. I was diagnosed with binge eating disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in my early 20s related to childhood trauma. Recovery is interesting. It’s a lot of hard work and there are still symptoms present, but these diagnoses don’t run my life like they used to.
I’m telling you this because my health story isn’t just physical, and I know yours isn’t either.
Run, Sweat, Eat, Repeat. has always bridged reality when I started running in the very beginning to a metaphor for getting through life.
In 2016, I decided that my journey didn’t have to be just about me. After leaving my career in higher education, I obtained my associates in public health because I wanted to have a foundation of health sciences that I knew I wouldn’t get through a certification.
As I mentioned, I’m a Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach with NB-HWC. I’m also an ACE certified health coach and fitness nutrition specialist. I have a certification from USA Powerlifting as a club level coach, and a certificate the University of Indiana for trauma-informed care. In my practice, I focus primarily on behavior change because I truly believe that underneath everything our mental health is our foundation for being capable of making and executing healthy choices.
I’m working on a masters in public health (MPH) concentrating in nutrition from UNC’s Gillings School of Global Health. For more information about my credentials, please check out the page, Work with Cristina.
I’m a proponent for thorough and diverse health education that helps build connections for my clients so they can get involved and take ownership of their journeys with me as a partner.
I love being a health coach, and I’m excited for the future as I continue exploring how I can incorporate public health work.