About Me

"Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world, for that's all who ever have." 

- Margaret Mead

I remember seeing this quote at around 15 years of age and thinking to myself… “I want to be one of those few people that leave this world changed for the better…” and I can say with a sure heart that I had the intention to do so from that point forward… but just as so many other teenagers and young adults, I was lost as to how I would do so, who exactly I was… and what direction my life was to take… For much of my young twenties I floated… On whimsical dreams of fame and fortune, cotton candy friendships, and the comfort of knowing I had my whole life ahead of me…

At 23, I met my future husband… and fell deeply in love… We started to plan out our future together and I was really starting to push my life in the direction of my dreams… when just months later I got the shocking news that I was pregnant! All at once my world began to constrict and the bubble I lived in for years was popped by the mounting pressure of the challenges that now laid before me.

So lucky was I that God blessed me with the RIGHT man to be the future father of my child… however many of those “sweet” friendships of mine, soon turned sour and my career as a model/owner of ‘Bartending Bombshells’ seemed doomed due to my now ever expanding waistline and ever decreasing self-esteem. My independence soon lost the “in” and my entire life and well being laid dependent upon the the man whom I loved almost desperately so, because he was now carrying my weight… which as I mentioned, grew heavier as time went on…

Even though I had the constant love and support of Billy, pregnancy was a lonely time in my life… I no longer recognized myself as the “free-spirited, entrepreneurial woman” I once had… and all of the people who were once close to me, no longer seemed cross the path I was now on…

I felt as though my dreams would forever be just that… Dreams.

31 weeks into my pregnancy I began to feel terrible… I was exhausted all of the time… and one night I began to cramp. Worried, Billy told me that I should go see the doctor… I did, and to make a long story short, after 3 days in the hospital on bed rest, London Alana Hodges was born into the world via an emergency C-Section, 8 weeks premature at only 3lbs 15oz.

This was the start of a 7 week stay in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit), filled with anxiety lead by news that London had incurred a grade 3 of 4 brain bleed during birth… Doctors said she would more than likely need a feeding tube for the first 6 months of her life… and that she would be at high risk of cerebral palsy. I look back that the absolute emotional strength both Billy and I had during those first few months of her life… and I don’t know how we held it together, I suppose we had no other choice! I honestly believe that God laid His hand on the three of us and whispered daily, “Everything will be okay, I am here.”

And He was.

London began to feed normally the very day she came home from the hospital. She has defied EVERY odd stacked against her and as of today, she is but a month shy of her second birthday, and has zero risk of any delay or disorder. She is beyond a miracle, she is perfect.

I am…, however, not perfect… and once the chaos of her early arrival wound down, “the voice” in my head picked up to remind me just how far from perfect I now was…

Like every other woman who has had a baby… I now longed to have my “old body” back… and longing for it just didn’t seem to do much of anything but further depress me! However, it wasn’t as easy to get to the gym or find time to workout as it had once been… and even if I did find spare time to hit the gym… I couldn’t bare the thought running into someone from my past and having them see me as the frumpy person I now felt I was.

One late night, as I lay awake feeding London, I fell victim to the informercial world and found myself enamored by P90X. It looked too good to be true… and I hardly believed that the results shown were of actual P90X grads, but desperate, I decided to look on YouTube for “real” results… I was shocked to see the number of people who had posted their transformations! There were tons, albeit, not very many female before and afters, but there were enough to convince me out of my $120!

I awaited the delivery of my P90X system as if the UPS man were delivering my new ripped body to my doorstep!

As soon as it arrived I tore the box open and popped in the first dvd… Core Synergistics.

The warm up was a breeze! I thought to myself, “Man, it feels good to be active again!”

However, fast-forward just 15 minutes later and I laid panting on my yoga mat, defeated.

“The voice” began to jabber once again…

“I can’t do this…” “I’ll never make it through this whole dvd” “I can’t keep up with those people…” “I am sooo WEAK” “That was pathetic” “I might as well give up…”

I decided to try again the following day…

Day 2 – Cardio X… I made it half way through the yoga section (the very first section!) and found myself, once again, sprawled on the floor in exhaustion.

“Ughhh! This is ridiculous!” “I am never going to be able to finish these 90 days…”

Day 3 – Arms & Shoulders – I actually felt motivated by the fact that I was able to get through this entire video… that is, until I popped in Ab Ripper X and quit when I failed miserably at “crunchy frogs”… (move 4 of 16)

My only motivation in continuing on to day 4 was that it was YOGA… I rejoiced, “Ahh, FINALLY a REST DAY!” (I was painfully sore by this point!)

10 minutes in I was collapsing under the weight of my own body while in plank … I was irritated by the entire process, my lack of strength and ability… the constant failure… it was just too much and I officially gave up… not in the system, but in myself.

It took me 6 weeks of recovery and self-loathing to try again…

This time I made it a point to track my progress… and even went as far as posting my day one video on YouTube to give me some accountability!

This go round I was better prepared for the certain physical failures I would face… I made a conscious decision to press play… do what I could, STOP when I could NOT… brush it off… and move on to the next video the following day…

Once again that first week, 15-20 minutes was my max… and once again, I was sore beyond belief! BUT un-like the first time… I didn’t listen to “the voice”, rather I instead challenged myself to beat the time I had done that week the following week… and again and again I did JUST THAT!

15-20 minutes turned into 20-25… and then to 25-30 minutes…

The physical results didn’t happen over-night… but the mental satisfaction of knowing I was changing on the inside was enough to keep me going!

Day 30 came… so I re-measured myself… Completely shocked, I found that I had lost a combined total of 10 inches!

A new voice began to reign in my life around that time… a growing whisper that said I could do anything… be anything… change the world…

Ahh, so maybe this voice wasn’t so “new” after all, rather an old friend that had captained my life for so many years before…

I posted my new results video to YouTube… and in that moment, I was more determined than ever…

The new voice exclaimed, “I will never go back!!!” “I am going to do this to show other women they can too!!!” “This is the NEW, better than EVER me!!!”

Day 60 came and by that time 30 minutes had become 40, and 40 became 50… and so on until one day I was able to complete EVERY video (even YOGA!) in it’s entirety!!!

One day, while glancing in the mirror… I reunited with the girl from my past… There she was before me, as lean as I had remembered her… however there was one major difference in the image that I stood face to face with that day that I had never seen in the girl of my past… THIS girl was TONED! Not only that, I could see in her eyes that she was physically and mentally strong… She had weathered storms, she had worked for what she had… she had compassion and experience… she had grown into a woman… she was proud mommy, a good wife… and she was, more than EVER before, determined to change the world!

90 days of imperfection transformed my entire life.

When I accepted that I would fail…, when I agreed to run my own race…, when I decided to commit to chasing an extra rep instead of being run down by an extra pound…

I started to WIN! I started to CHANGE! I started to LIVE!

As I became more of myself throughout this process… I began to see what it is to create LASTING change, REAL friendships, and TRUE purpose in my life.

I look back while writing this and recall deep-set emotions of the “broken-time” in my life… and I know how hard that period of time was… but, I cannot THANK God enough for allowing me experience every ounce of that pain, as it was the missing puzzle pieces, the rounded corners, the foundation to which all the other pieces of my life have begun to find their place!

You MUST come to terms with and create a space in your life to fail, but large enough to fail-forward, not fall complacent… Remember that even a championship thoroughbred must first be broken to arrive at its destiny. It’s in the journey to become what you think you want, that you actually become who you are destined to be!

This isn’t a website about how to get ripped in 90 days… It is a website on how to create a foundation for success in ALL aspects of your life, simply by focusing on beating your own personal best!

Start where you are… start TODAY!