Background

Heidi is a mother of two boys and wife to a retired Air Force Officer. She works full time homeschooling her kids and helping people with their health and fitness through 90/10 Nutrition and other ventures.

How did you get into sports?

I was a high school athlete, competing in varsity gymnastics and diving. I had frequent headaches, so much so that my teammates called me “Heidiprofen”. After high school, I went on to a collegiate diving team, where I injured my back and ended my competitive athletic career.

From there, I lived with chronic back pain AND frequent headaches. Back pain that wouldn’t allow much fun or freedom, and headaches that made me vomit. That was my life; that was just “me”.

Was there a specific moment in your life that changed your trajectory?

One day, I woke up. My youngest child was 3 years old and I weighed the same as I weighed when I checked into the hospital to have him. I said, “This isn’t baby weight anymore, Heidi. It’s time to do something.”

I lost 30 pounds by doing Curves and cooking from Cooking Light magazine, but I was still 30 lbs overweight, I still had backaches, and I still had debilitating headaches.

At the end of 2011, I was introduced to 90/10 Nutrition. At that time, it was an 8 week challenge group. I joined with every intent of doing it for 8 weeks and then going back to “how I like to eat.”

Fast forward 8 weeks. I had lost 12 pounds in the challenge, broken through a 2 year long plateau, and had learned a lot about food. But the challenge was over, so I went back to Cooking Light. I was shocked at the difference. I guess I didn’t realize how good I felt on 90/10 until I went back to how it was before. I felt AWFUL for a full week, and then I said, “That’s it! I’m doing 90/10 from now on.”

How did you get started in triathlons?

I did my first ironman in Coeur d’Alene, ID in 2015. (That was the year it was super hot on race day!) My training partner and I were training for a 70.3, and on a long ride day we started talking about doing a full one day. The next day, I kind of decided that I wasn’t getting any younger (I was 42) and that that distance was only going to get harder. So, if I was going to do it, I ought to do it sooner than later. I was really only planning to do the one, you know, bucket list ironman. One and done, ironman forever. We decided on IMCDA because “it might be hilly, but at least it won’t be hot.” At least that’s what we told ourselves. Oh, how we were wrong.

Last year I was training with another friend, and she wanted to do a full, but didn’t want to do it alone. And somehow, I’m not really sure how, I was signed up for Ironman Arizona 2019. (I was 46).

Now, I had planned on being really really done this time, but my 16-year-old son has decided he wants to do a full ironman with his mom (!) when he turns 18. So, I might be doing one more in 2022.