Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

When the subtitle started to shift

Yesterday, I found myself staring at the digital pages of my book, stuck on one thing: the subtitle. “The Unlikely Advocate.” I remember the moment I chose those words. At the time, it felt fitting. I mean, I am unlikely. Everything about my presence in this space: the size of my body, the sound of my voice, the way I move, defied the expectations most people have when they picture a CrossFit coach. I know what it means to be an outlier. I know what it feels like to be dismissed before you’ve even opened your mouth.

But as I stared at those words again, something stirred. It wasn’t regret. It was more like… a question. Did this still feel true? Was this still the phrase that captured everything this book had become? Because when I first chose it, it fit. But the book has changed. I’ve changed. There are chapters now that didn’t exist back then. Chapters that hold stories I couldn’t have told when I first started writing because they hadn’t happened yet.

The story I couldn’t forget

There’s one in particular that’s been sitting in my chest for years. It didn’t just shape me. It changed me. And if I trace it back, if I really try to figure out where this whole “advocate” thing started, it was with her. Patsy. That wasn’t her real name, but it’s the one I’ll use here.

She was a seasoned older woman at the very first CrossFit gym I ever belonged to. A little older than most, with a kind of strength you don’t measure in back squats. She had a weight loss goal. A big one. But more than that, she had a deep connection to our coach. She looked at our coach like a daughter. I knew they had a very close relationship. And when I was brand new, still trying to figure out how to hold a barbell and breathe at the same time, I remember thinking, God, I hope I get to have that kind of bond with a coach someday.

She was the poster girl. Literally. Her story was what the gym used to show what was possible. She had lost close to 80 pounds. Every time someone walked in with weight to lose, they’d say, “Talk to Patsy.” And they did. She cheered. She mentored.

What no one saw coming

One day, when we had started to grow closer, Patsy opened up to me. She told me she’d gained the weight back. She didn’t go into all the details right away, but I knew. I could feel it. The shame. The pain. The part no one puts in transformation ads. Then she told me she wasn’t training with our coach anymore but they still had a close relationship. That didn’t make sense. Their bond seemed unbreakable. So I asked her why. I wish I hadn’t.

She swallowed hard. Her eyes got glassy. Her voice cracked when she told me: our coach said she couldn’t train her anymore. Not because of injury. Not because of money. But because she didn’t want people thinking she had anything to do with Patsy’s weight gain. The horror of that moment still lives in me.

She had lost someone; maybe her husband, maybe through divorce. The exact detail escapes me now. But she had been grieving. She had lost someone, and in the middle of that grief, the weight crept back on. As it does. Because weight is never just about food. It’s about pain and survival. But to our coach, she became a liability. A stain on the brand. A body that no longer fit the story being sold.

The moment that changed everything

I didn’t have the words back then. I just remember sitting with the ache. I remember thinking, How can anyone do that to someone they claim to care about? And more importantly, If that’s what it means to be a coach, I want no part of it.

II drove home that night with a lump in my throat and a knot in my chest. Patsy had been made to believe that her grief disqualified her. That her body, now softer, rounder, heavier with mourning, made her unworthy of being coached. Our coach didn’t just withdraw support; she rewrote the narrative and made Patsy believe she had to shrink again before she was worth standing beside. And the worst part? Patsy believed her. She looked at me, eyes full of shame, and said, “She’s right. I need to lose the weight. It was my fault. That’s why she’s not my coach anymore.” I couldn’t make sense of it then. Honestly, I still can’t.

This was the same coach I wrote about in The Rise of the Vultures.

Patsy’s story, that heartbreak, wasn’t just hers. It became mine. It became the foundation for everything I started to question, everything I began to push back on.

When the fire started

I stayed, listened, and learned. And slowly, I began to understand. Not all coaches are like that. But too many are. And no one was saying anything. No one was holding them accountable. No one was protecting the Patsys of the world.

That’s when the fire started. I didn’t step into advocacy because I thought I was special. I stepped into it because silence felt like betrayal. Because watching it happen and doing nothing wasn’t an option anymore.

The unlikely advocate, reclaimed

So maybe the subtitle was right all along. Not because I was unlikely to succeed. But because I was unwilling to forget. I was unwilling to pretend I didn’t see it. I was unwilling to stay silent while people were discarded like expired testimonials.

That’s when it started. Not with a certification. Not with a post. With a woman who was grieving. With a coach who walked away. And with me, standing there, wide-eyed, taking it all in.

That’s when I became what no one expected and exactly what was needed. The unlikely advocate, indeed.