My Story

Hi there!  Glad you stumbled upon my blog…or came to read it because you are related to me and felt you must.  I’m Jennie-Laurie Hope, health-conscious foodie, and founder of Hopeful Fitness.  I am a mom of two, a 6-year-old boy and almost 2-year-old girl, and a wife to my wonderful husband Matt, whom I have been married to for 12 years now.

I grew up with a very healthy relationship with food until high school.  During those years, I was very controlling over what I ate, counting carrot sticks and slices of turkey to the point that I was too thin, and borderline anorexic.  Luckily, it didn’t get any worse, and by college, I went off the deep end the other way, eating entire pints of ice cream in one sitting, pizza, fried food – your basic college eating nightmare.  My nickname was JLDBananafudge, after my love of the Bluebell Bananafudge pops at the cafeteria.  So, yeah…

By my senior year of college, I had gotten married and was living a basically healthy lifestyle, eating everything in moderation and exercising a fair amount.  Enter life curve number one…

After three years of marriage, my husband was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, which was a huge shock.  At first, his doctor thought it was Type 2, even though he was not overweight.  Things were not making sense.  When his meds stopped working, we finally found an endocrinologist who diagnosed him as Type 1, and he started taking insulin.  I was about 7 months pregnant with our first baby at that time, so to say we were stressed out would be an understatement.

After a few years of trying to get by eating a regular diet and taking insulin, he started having burning and numbness in his feet and legs, which turned out to be a complication called diabetic neuropathy, or nerve damage.  Major wake-up call.  Our son was 18 months old by now, and it was just crushing to think about what might happen if Matt’s health continued to decline.  So, we began to research everything we could find, and came across a book called “The Diabetes Solution”, which changed our lives.  We started taking his diet very seriously, and he started a low carb lifestyle.  

Since then, I have done as much research as possible about low carb cooking and nutrition in general. I found myself talking with other parents and spouses of diabetics about everything I had learned, and I loved being able to share life-changing information.  It energized me and gave me purpose.  I was a pension actuary before becoming a stay-at-home-mom, and that transition was difficult for me.  Being a stay-at-home-mom is a wonderful blessing, and I fully believe the most important job I will ever have. But there were days I wanted to be able to use other skills, other parts of my brain…I found myself stress eating chocolate every afternoon, and checking Facebook every five minutes for a link to the outside world.  I needed something positive to look forward to when the day was really dragging.  

Enter health and fitness coaching!  I had been thinking for years about how to turn all of this knowledge I had gained into a business, but it always seemed overwhelming and impossible.  I came across Beachbody through my coach’s Facebook page, and the rest is history.  I love helping people with their nutrition and fitness goals, and it gives me an outlet to share all the recipes I love and research I come across.  

A few months in to my coaching, I actually had a major health issue of my own that you can read about here.  My level of commitment was definitely deepened through that experience, and I can't say enough about how coaching really kept me focused on something other than myself during that time.  Having that added purpose to my life was truly a blessing.

So, now I get to help people through my private accountability groups, and stay in touch with them for as long as they need it!  It’s very fulfilling and keeps me positive on days when the diabetes and tantrums and life curve balls try to get me down.  I lucked out with my married name – Hope.  Some days, that’s all we have!  Thanks for stopping by Hopeful Fitness!  You can email me at jennielauriehope@gmail.com to join me in a group sometime…I’d love to meet you!

~Jennie-Laurie