“Having a son now has changed everything for me, and it’s really made me want to be sort of the best person that I can be and really live optimally, not really waste any days or even hours. To be the best version is very important to me, and not only for my career or sort of my side hustle with endurance in the gym, but mostly for my child.” —Maggie D.
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Maggie has a family with a three-year-old son. She’s also an architect working in New York City, a hybrid endurance athlete, and a customer of Balance of Nature.
Training for Races
Maggie has been training for the longest endurance race of her life: a triathlon!
Maggie started CrossFit around four years ago and slowly started working on her endurance as a hybrid athlete. She now trains for an upcoming event by doing CrossFit three times a week and strength and endurance training three or four days a week. The event includes 1.2 miles of open water swimming, 56 miles of biking, and a half marathon.
“Long Island is having their first half Ironman at Jones Beach at the end of September, so everything is kind of programmed for that particular race,” she says. “I’m usually not much of an endurance athlete. I’m more, you know, short-sprint power. I played college softball. I was a catcher so, you know, used to just run from base to base. So this is a lot longer than just running from base to base.”
Maggie says she is doing it for the challenge. It is her next goal. Plus, she had been wanting to add a little more cardio—longer distance endurance—to her workouts.
“A handful of us from my gym, we kind of got together, and we did a couple of sprints out east on Long Island,” she says. “Long Island has a ton of races that they do—triathlon races, shorter distance ones—and then it just escalated very quickly. And then the Long Island race presented itself, so we all signed up. Now we all get up at four o’clock in the morning. We meet on the weekends. We ride bikes and run for a couple of hours and then go home to our families and spend the rest of the day trying to be energetic around the family.”
Always Active: Work, Training, Diet, and Family
Maggie says she has always been fitness-oriented. “I’ve definitely always been athletic, mostly around sports. And then after, sort of post-college sports, I added the gym and a bunch of different goals and training opportunities into my regimen.”
She shares, “I have a very strict regimen of, like, diet. I really cut out a lot of the extra foods. I’d also say that I’m very stringent on every day getting some sort of workout in even if it may not be like a full-scale workout. At least I’m moving, and then maybe take one rest day. Since the summer, I’ve definitely upped my training, which can be exhausting because I also commute to the city.”
Maggie works between 50 to 60 hours a week in addition to training and family life. “My daily supplement regimen is very important with the food I eat and then keeping active. Those kinds of three things. I guess sleep too—sleep is pretty critical—but those are really the things that are sort of keeping me going, keeping me active, and allowing me to not only be productive in my career, but also be a good part of the family.”
She adds, “In my career, I get up very early; I get up usually at around 4:30 in the morning during the week. I take an early train, and I’m in the city by, you know, around 6:30, and then I usually work all day, and then I have to come home and have, you know, my three-and-a-half year old running around and take care of him and whatever his needs are.”
Taking Care of Herself Is Important
Maggie believes it is really important to take care of herself so she can be the best she can be.
“I’ve always, in my life, had certain goals like physical goals that I wanted to reach, like either races or back when I was playing sports—maybe it was making a certain team, maybe it was making some sort of stat,” she shares. “And it was always about, like, keeping in the best shape I could. And now that I have a child and a family in the equation, it has really sort of upped the meaning of keeping myself healthy and, you know, the best version of myself.”
Maggie adds that nutrition is an especially important aspect in her life. “Maybe a little over four years ago, I fell into a little bit of a span in my life where I wasn’t really eating the right things. We got kind of comfortable. I put on a bit of weight. So I definitely felt like sort of a shadow of myself. I wasn’t like the full version of Maggie, and I think I got to the realization that I really wasn’t living life or maximizing the life I could live. So from that I joined a gym, which helped me significantly improve. I also got a nutritionist who’s been able to guide me.”
Maggie says she didn’t know much about nutrition before getting a nutritionist. “It’s all about fueling me for optimization, for the daily, for my career, for my kid and my family, and all the extracurricular activities that I choose to have in my life.”
Being a mom especially encourages Maggie to be her best self. “Having a son now has changed everything for me, and it’s really made me want to be sort of the best person that I can be and really live optimally, not waste any days or even hours. To be the best version is very important to me, and not only for my career or sort of my side hustle with endurance in the gym, but mostly for my child. And actually, the next child on the way. It’s given it a whole new meaning of being the best version of myself.”
Where Balance of Nature Supplements Fit In
Maggie’s father was actually taking Balance of Nature supplements first. As far as she can remember, he has always had a Balance of Nature subscription. He had a good experience with it and recommended that her whole family take it. Maggie eventually decided to give it a try.
“So I started a subscription, and now I think my sister started, and now everybody is starting to become a believer,” she shares.
If you want to try Balance of Nature Fruits & Veggies supplements like Maggie, visit BalanceofNature.com.
