CHPTR Coach
Amanda Burzio
Founder of CHPTR
(They/Them)
Amanda’s journey into health and fitness wasn’t an easy one. For a number of years their relationship with nutrition, exercise and body image was strained, unrealistic and unbalanced. For years they suffered the vicious cycle of over exercising and under eating, followed by exhaustion and overindulgence. This all or nothing mindset led to feelings of shame and self-criticism for not being able to maintain the strict routines they found on the internet and had a huge impact on how they viewed food. Like many, they prioritised the appearance they wanted to achieve over their health and wellbeing, and placed value on the numbers on a scale instead of whether they felt healthy, happy and energetic. As a result happiness and balance seemed elusive during this phase of their life as they constantly felt tired, unmotivated and disappointed when they couldn’t keep to their ambitious workout plans or new eating regime.
Amanda reached a point where they knew they didn’t want to continue in this way. They stepped away from signing up to rigid eating and workout programmes, counting calories and thinking of food as ‘good and bad’. Instead, they invested their time in learning about their hunger and appetite, and started to explore how society’s unrealistic expectations on our bodies was impacting their mindset.
Over time they healed their relationship with food and their body, and started to separate the concept of self-worth from appearance. They focused on finding out what they enjoyed doing which is when they fell in love with weight training and started setting goals that weren’t focused on appearance. They stopped trying to be smaller and realised they actually wanted to be stronger. Their focus on food shifted and they became curious about their hunger, started eating mindfully and no longer punished themself with exercise. Instead, movement became empowering, and food became not only nourishing but enjoyable!
There is, of course, a lot more to this story, but in essence Amanda stopped buying into the concept of needing to eat less, exercise more and make themself smaller and started to appreciate and celebrate the body they had whilst working towards getting stronger, faster, healthier and happier.
Amanda has a Level 3 Gym Instructor & Personal Trainer Specialist Diploma, as well as a BSc in Psychology. They founded CHPTR in order to help others find balance and enjoyment with their health and fitness. CHPTR focuses on self-care, flexible thinking and mindful based decision making to bring about manageable but sustainable long-term change.