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Archives for Vanessa Bennington
Vanessa Bennington

About Vanessa Bennington

Vanessa Bennington found her wayin the health and fitness worlds through a unique combination of education, personal experience, and self-experimentation. During high school,she dropped from a weight of around 140lbs on her 5’4″frame, to barely 90lbs. As you may have correctly guessed, there was no small amount of anorexia and bulimia involved. Battling an endless fight with eating disorders, Vanessa eventually stumbled from fat-free diets and endless cardio to a more traditional "bodybuilding" diet and training plan. Things started to improve.

She fell in love with working out and exercising, but was weak, fatigued, depressed, anxious, and still unhappy with her body composition, despite trying everything she thought was correct. This pushed her to seek more knowledge and her first piece of traditional education was a Bachelor of Science in Exercise Science. As much as she enjoyed the idea of spending her days in the gym and training people as a career, she was concerned her small town inLouisianawould never provide enough clientele to support full time training.Back to school she went and back the eating disorders came. Still struggling with feeling physically awful and hating her body, Vanessa completed a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and continued through to earn a Masters in Nursing as a Family Nurse Practitioner.

While finishing graduate school Vanessa found CrossFit and the Paleo Diet, she also began working in physician’s office that specializes in balancing hormones. Things began to click. A lifetime of improper nutrition and eating disorders had created hormonal and metabolic chaos. It wasn't that she had spent almost two decades doing things wrong or not trying hard enough, it was that she had never tacked theentiretyof the issues. Adjustments to her exercise, nutrition, medication, and supplementation brought balance to her hormones and lifted the crippling depression and anxiety. She had the quality of life she always dreamed of, physical strength she never knew she was capable of, and the body she had worked a lifetime for started to show the results of her efforts.

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Vanessa Bennington

Fitness

  • Control Your Athletic Destiny With Hormone Replacement Therapy
  • The CrossFit Open: Is Your Head in Line With Your Goals?
  • Mental Games: Are You Ready for the CrossFit Open?
  • The Dirty Little Secret of the Female Athlete: Cellulite
  • Why I’m Not Giving Up My Muscles for Anyone
  • 4 Commitments You Can Make to Have Happy, Healthy Holidays
  • Group Flow: The Pathway to Peak Human Performance
  • Squats Now, Facebook Later: Stop Dreaming and Start Doing
  • 5 Tips on How to Find a Good Healthcare Practitioner
  • It’s Time to Make a Different Kind of Resolution
  • It’s Not Your Metabolism, It’s Your “NEAT” That’s Stopping Your Fat Loss
  • What Really Causes Irregular Menstrual Cycles in Female Athletes?
  • What Women Need to Know About Growth Hormone (and How to Maximize It)
  • Growth Hormone: How Does It Work and Why Do Women Have More?
  • 9 All-Natural Tips for Better Sleep
  • How Sleep Deprivation Fries Your Hormones, Your Immune System, and Your Brain
  • Cheryl Nasso: “Thank You CrossFit. You Saved My Life!”
  • 3 Natural Libido Enhancers (Especially for You Ladies)
  • Male Body Image and the Pressure to Use Steroids
  • Get Your Sexy Back: How Your Workouts Are Crushing Your Libido
  • What You Need to Know About Hormone Testing: Which Test to Get and Why
  • The Little Dirty Secret of the Female Athlete: Cellulite
  • How Meditation Can Heal Your Adrenal System
  • The Myth of Willpower: The 3 Step Way to Create Lasting Habits
  • There’s No Such Thing as Willpower: How to Identify Triggers of Bad Habits
  • The Top 3 Supplements for Improved Adrenal Health
  • Healing the Adrenal System: The Effectiveness of Massage Therapy
  • Healing the Adrenal System: Acupuncture and the HPA Axis
  • Join Me on My Journey to Heal My Adrenal System
  • What You Don’t Know About CRH Can Kill You
  • The Wrong Sunscreen Can Increase Cancer Risk: What You Need to Know
  • The Ups and Downs of Cortisol: What You Need to Know
  • A Primer on Peptides: What They Are and Why to Take Them
  • Understanding Our Adrenal System: Dopamine
  • Understanding Our Adrenal System: Epinephrine (Adrenaline)
  • Understanding Our Adrenal System: Norepinephrine
  • Understanding the Thyroid: Why You Should Check Your Free T3
  • Treating Cramps and Heavy or Irregular Cycles Without Birth Control
  • Non-Hormonal Birth Control for Athletes
  • Is My Birth Control Stopping My Progress in the Gym?

Healthy Eating

  • Curcumin for Athletes: Why You and Your Joints Might Like It
  • Why Natural Sugars Aren’t Any Better Than Artificial Sugars (and Neither Is Paleo!)
  • Do I Need to Take Vitamin B12 Shots?
  • Orthorexia: When Eating Healthy Food Becomes an Unhealthy Obsession
  • What’s Best for Vitamin D: Sunshine, Tanning Bed, or Supplement?

Reviews

  • Vanessa’s Valentine’s Day Gift Guide for Fit Females
  • Vanessa Bennington’s Female Athlete Holiday Wish List
  • Product Review: Progenex Cocoon
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