Hello athletes, welcome and thank you for tuning into the Coach Katie Danger Podcast recorded live from Omaha, Nebraska. I'm your host, Coach Katie Danger, U S army veteran, fitness coach and founder of Red H Nutrition. Here's a fact for you, 99% of us are not elite athletes. We're individuals from all backgrounds, juggling life priorities, including jobs, our families, their needs, and trying to find time to take care of ourselves every single week. When you tune in, I'll be discussing clear, concise and actionable strategies you can use to get the most from your fitness, nutrition, and mindset. So you can optimize your life without compromising your time. So athletes settle in and get comfortable. I'm here to educate, inspire, empower, and entertain you to help you enjoy the unique fitness journey that you are on.
(00:52): Hello. Hello again,
(00:54): Fam it is coach Katie danger. Here we are at episode number 36 of the coach cave danger podcast. And I just want to thank you again for joining me. It is so much fun to record these episodes from week to week and just dive into topics that I think are really, really fun, important, exciting, and they'll help you get better fitness results. That is what I'm about. How can I help set you guys up for a more positive experience? Because this is a fitness journey. There is always a light at the end of the tunnel, but it is always about putting one foot in front of the other. And you just simply can't quit last week's episode. Number 35 was, do you believe in yourself? And I got a lot, a lot of positive feedback about that, and my stance is exactly the same on it.
(01:40): The biggest supporter of anything that you will ever do is going to be yourself. So you have to have your own back. You've got to believe in yourself, please believe in yourself. And if you haven't listened to that episode yet, just go back. It's last week's episode, number 35, and it'll be a really, really great way to kind of get out of yourself and take a different perspective on what you got going on in your life. So here we are episode number 36, and I want to share with you what my fitness journey has looked like. Usually I don't really like to get, I have never talked about point a to point B what my journey has looked like. And the reason I want to dive into this journey of mine is not to talk about myself. I don't necessarily enjoy hearing myself speak for the sake of hearing my own story.
(02:24): I've lived it, I've gone through it. I really don't feel the need of like going back in time, reliving and rehashing. But what I'm doing here with you in this episode is giving you a sense of what you think your journey is going to look like. And then what it actually looks like and how, if you believe in yourself, you know, that it may not look exactly like what you thought it would be, but you are exactly where you're supposed to be at this very moment. So stick with me before I dive in, though, to my story, I want to tell you about the coach K danger.com website. I completely revamped it. I've redesigned it. And I'm working on some really, really awesome concepts for supplement programming. And I get questions all the time. Like 90% of my email inbox is questions like I'm a newb.
(03:12): I don't know how to use supplements. Can you help? And I realized there's a really big need. I give general advice. In fact, I just released a new supplement guide. It's a top 10 supplements that will help you get better and faster fitness results. If you go to coach Katie danger.com, you can get that right now. It's totally free. But while I was working on it, I realized like there is so much more to offer when it comes to the individuality and the specific puzzle pieces that make up somebody's complex fitness journey, just because protein might work for one person. It's not going to work for another or not the same dosage, not the same timing. So I saw a really great opportunity to do a different type of coaching. And it's a supplement nutrition programming. I look at everything you're already doing. It's goal oriented is individual and is based on honest assessments that you and I will have.
(03:59): So I'm going to be launching those very soon. But in the meantime, go check out the new website, coach Katie danger.com. Get that top 10 subs guide and then start adding supplements right now to get yourself better and faster fitness results. So, anyway, that was part of my journey this week, but where I'm at right now is I want to enlighten you to where I've been to, where I started, where my nearly 15 years of experience comes from. So I read a book a while ago. It is called the Alchemist. And the one line of this book that I can remember specifically verbatim is that the universe will use all its might to conspire to get you what you want. And I thought that was incredibly powerful. The world is not out to get us. The world is here to provide us what we need so we can be our best and get whatever we want.
(04:47): The limits that we have on ourselves, the limits we have in our mind, they may just be programs or in the background. They're from when we were kids, we were told, no, we weren't allowed to do certain things because maybe it wasn't safe or maybe somebody didn't have information, whatever it was. We have these programs in our minds that limit us and hold us back. And that's where the journey comes in. And that's where I can look back now, 15 years later and look at my experience and go, wow, like who would've thought that that was then? And this is now. So let me back up. When I was in high school, in fact, all of my childhood, all I can remember wanting to do with my life is I wanted to be a police officer. I wanted to be a police officer. I had a neighbor, he was a state patrol, but he didn't move in across the street until I was about, I think I was 13 at the time, 12 or 13, but when he moved in, like I was so cool to have a state patrol officer across the street.
(05:38): I asked him questions. I thought was so cool when he turned his lights on, you know, those little things as a kid that you enjoy. But when I got to college, I went to university of Nebraska Lincoln. I graduated high school, Norfolk, Nebraska, 2003. I wasn't a particularly, I was an active kid, my sister and I, we played outside all the time. I was a nineties kid. We played outside. We didn't play a lot of video games. We don't watch a lot of TV. We made our own fun, like play cops and robbers. And we would go and raise hell with the neighbor, kids and stuff. So I grew up on a street in Norfolk, Nebraska, very white, very middle class, 20, 20,000 people in my hometown. I had 63 in my graduating class. Might've been less than that. I know it wasn't very many, but I like to do my own thing.
(06:19): I didn't like organized sports. I didn't like having to get up at five in the morning and run sprints and all that stuff. So I never did varsity sports. I played golf. That was it. I mean, I think the only reason I've played it is because it was a new sport to school and girls got to play it. So I don't know, whatever I played golf. I was actually pretty good at it too, but I didn't lift. I didn't run like, okay, wait, I did cross country. But I guess what I'm saying is I never really took it seriously. Like it was always just a way to hang out with friends or do something social or like not have to go home and deal with parents at the end of the day or not have to do homework. It wasn't like, I love to fitness.
(06:53): That's not what was on my mind. And it really didn't hit my mind until I got to the university of Nebraska and they had a huge rec center there. And 2003, it has changed so much since then. But at the time for me, it was totally awesome. It was awesome. And I started getting on the elliptical. I was like, this is really cool and fun. So I'll get on the elliptical. I mean, I was 18 years old. I was a freshman in college and I didn't have any parents around. And it seemed like a really great place to meet people as well. If you know what I mean? So the gym kind of became a place I enjoyed being. But once again, I really didn't have like these crazy fitness goals. I was 18 year old girl who wanted to look, I want to look good in shorts.
(07:29): Okay. I'm going to just going to be honest with you. So I did stuff like that. And then I got kind of like a little competitive. I wanted to like start lifting weights. And I realized I had a pretty easy time with running like endurance sports. I liked those, you know, I didn't get hurt. It wasn't as intimidating as lifting weights. So I started to get into triathlons and this was Oh, 2005, 2006. I did a few Olympic distance triathlons. So they have sprint, they have Olympic, they have half Ironman and Ironman distances and Olympic can't quite remember, I think it's a 10 K 26 mile bike and just a little over a mile swim. So that was like my cup of tea. I love that stuff. Well then in 2007 I joined the army national guard and I was already three years into college.
(08:14): Okay. So this is 2009 to three four, you know? So I've got like three years of college under my belt and I did not know what I wanted to do. Okay. I just didn't know what I want to do. I still, I wanted to be a cop, but I wasn't doing anything that was going to like make my resume seem better than the next person who applied. Right. And these at the time, these jobs were incredibly competitive. We're talking 2007, 2008. We'll fast forward to 2010 here in a bit. But I joined the army because I didn't know what the hell I wanted to do with my life. I didn't know how I was going to get there. And I know that military experience looks great on a police resume. So I joined the army national guard. I enlisted in on may 29, 2007, a military police.
(08:51):
That was a private first class. And I went to Fort Leonard wood, Missouri. And I did my basic training and advanced individual training there as well. So as straight, like 18 weeks from October, 2007 to March of 2008. So I also took that school year off too. I got back from basic and I started taking summer classes right away because they were paid for. And also I got the GI bill. So as soon as I started school, school's paid for, and I get paid to go to school like touching, right. Especially his a 20 year old college student, 21 year old tooth. I was 21, 21. So here we are. We're in 2008 summer. I knew I wanted to join ROTC because I wanted to be an officer I wanted to, I wanted leadership and I wanted to be in those positions because I believed in my capacity to be a level headed leader.
(09:36): And I've always kind of felt like there's a lot of leadership out there who doesn't really deserve to be where they're at. So I want to change the tone. I'm a strong female and I wanted to be in a strong female leadership position. So I joined ROTC and that's a two year commitment. So I only had a year left of college, but I had to sign a two year contract, which is like no big thing. Cause my school was getting paid for, did ROTC. I graduated ROTC in August. So I also graduated college and I was commissioned as a military intelligence officer in August 14th of 2010. Actually, as of recording this podcast, it is August 14th. And I just realized it has been my God. You guys have spent 10 years, 10 years to the day, August 14th in 2010. And here we are August 14, 20, 20, 10 years ago today, I actually commissioned as a military intelligence officer.
(10:24): And here's the ironic thing. So I was in Nebraska when he received Breslin Lincoln, I had been hired on to the Austin police department. So I kind of got to go back in the story a little bit. Cause all these stories kind of overlap this timeline. I got into CrossFit when I joined ROTC. So that was back in 2007 that I found CrossFit and it was so new. It was such a baby. Everybody thought it was just crazy stuff. And I did my first workout and it was Cindy and Cindy is a 20 minute AMRAP, five pull-ups, 10 pushups, 20 air squats. It murdered me. I mean, I remember, I didn't know that you had to like count rounds it's time. But yeah, so that was Cindy. I didn't even go to class the next day. I was so messed up. But anyway, that's a fun story.
(11:03): I specifically remember like having to do strict pull ups and the guys were telling me that I was going to be dead the next day and I didn't believe him, but I had to show off, you know, I'm a girl I'm doing this CrossFit thing and trying to keep up with the guys, like, I don't know, just an army thing. I found CrossFit then. And that's when I started transition out of triathlons and get more of this competitive CrossFit. I joined CrossFit Lincoln when I did some workouts there, as they were getting started, they were one of the first CrossFit boxes in Nebraska to, Hey, how's your current training program? One of the most underrated ways to train his body, weight movements, squats, pushups, pull-ups anything without our barbell and just using your body as a resistance is a body weight movement because of their importance. I created the body weight muscles training program and the program consists of body weight workouts that anyone can do anywhere because you don't need a barbell or a gym to do these workouts. And the best part is the entire program is free and you get your copy@bodyweightmussels.com. So head on over to bodyweight muscles.com after this podcast is over and download the program and start adding body weight workouts, your routine. So you can build a real functional strength.
(12:13): So I was training for CrossFit and I started getting very, very competitive in that doing local competitions. When I commissioned and went down to Arizona for my training at Fort Huachuca, they had a CrossFit gym there. It was very new. So nobody was ever there. I was always doing CrossFit there, but let's go back a little bit. So I found CrossFit, but I was still on path to be a police officer. I had applied for the Austin police department in Austin, Texas, and they had, they were hiring and like the Academy, it would have been perfect because it was going to start in June. I was going to get done with my military training in March of 2010. It was gonna start in June of 2010 or excuse me, it was 2011 because I graduated in 2010. I did my military training down in Arizona.
(12:50): Graduated March was going to start in June. So in June of 2011, I was going to be a police cadet at the Austin police department. Their Academy that started was a nine month Academy. I believe that I finished really, really high on the list. I had went down there earlier, before I graduated college and finished up with testing, you know, drug testing, physical tests and all that stuff did my polygraph. First time I ever did polygraph secured living Jesus out of me, but I got all that done and I got offered the job and I was going to be a cop. You guys was going to be a cop. And then after I graduated in August, 2010 in October, I started down at Fort Huachuca Arizona for my military Intel training. That was six, seven months. So I'm down there and I get to come home.
(13:30): We get a Christmas leave. Of course I got two weeks leave. Well, instead of coming home, I went down to Austin because they were doing some ride alongs for incoming cadets over the next, I think they had an Academy going and then June would have been the next one. So they were doing right along and I'm like, well, hell yeah. Like this would be a great way to get myself one up over the competition as well. Right? I mean, you know, whatever it's egotistical world. Well, we did the ride alongs and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I just didn't like it. I had found CrossFit. I was so passionate about health and fitness and wellness. I had just got my CrossFit level one certification. I got my crossing endurance certification in Lincoln, Nebraska in 2010, just like a week before I graduated college, like CrossFit was awesome.
(14:09): And you know, I knew I could work out and stuff as a cop, but getting there, I realized that I was going to be a cop and more than I was going to be able to have a social life, at least for the first couple years. I mean, these ride alongs weren't fun. They weren't exciting either. It wasn't like that. It just was so boring. And the cops who were in the backseat and the cops who were riding along with, we're just like, well, get used to this. It's going to be two years of pretty much boring. And every now and then you get something exciting. And I was just like, just didn't think that's what I wanted to do anymore. Being a cop seemed like the way that I could show the world that I love it and I wanted to give back. And then as it turned out, as I fell more in love with fitness and health and putting self care first, because then if you take care of yourself, you can really take care of others.
(14:50): I just realized that being a police officer was not the way that I was going to fulfill my life's obligation. It was not the way that I could love the world in the best way that Katie danger could. So I did something crazy. I actually just recently threw this letter away, but I told my mom that I was going to turn down. My position had the Austin police department. She had no clue. I was even thinking about it. She was like, well, what are you going to do? And I had met a coach at the CrossFit endurance seminar at the time. And he was opening up the second CrossFit gym in Omaha and he invited me to be an intern there. And so I gave up a lifetime, at least at that point a lifetime dream to be a police officer for an unpaid internship in a new sport called CrossFit.
(15:32): So, you know, even saying it out loud, it's just kind of crazy, but it has led me right here. It has led me right here. I mean, I started as an intern at the CrossFit gym. I trained my butt off. I made it to CrossFit regionals as a team in 2012 as an individual in 13 and 14 and 15. And I just love the sport. I really love what it did for my own personal enlightenment and transformative journey. As a human CrossFit can be very, very egotistical. It's like everything that we do is very, very egotistical, especially in fitness. I mean, I don't understand when we go to competitions and when these competitors say they're doing it for like a group of people or they're doing it for serving others, I don't really understand that because there are very few things about competition that are greater than making sure that you're firing Allston a loader.
(16:25): So what I'm saying is like, to me, in my fitness journey, it started out very, very egocentric. And then I realized that as I transition out of my competitiveness, there's so much more than I can do with my knowledge and with my gifts to give back. I have all of this experience. I have been on a very, very unique journey. All of us are on unique journeys. I wanted to be a cop for as long as I can remember. And then I was going to be in the FBI and I want him to be the first female head of the federal Bureau of investigation. Like these were all dreams of mine, but yet here I am, coach Katie danger. And we're talking about supplements. We're talking about finding our best sells. We're talking about all of these things that are definitely not related to the journey that I had originally thought was for me.
(17:12): So the journey is very interesting. You can want to be one person and end up being another. And I'm very, very grateful for my journey. I'm grateful for all of these experiences. All of the people I've met all of my military experience. I mean, I've done so many cool things with my life. I've jumped out of airplanes. I have gone 15 days without showering before I've met some of the coolest people you'll ever meet in the military and done some of the coolest things. And I'm just so grateful for the journey I worked before. I decided to start ready to nutrition. I started to kind of like get off my path a little bit in 2015 when my competitive CrossFit career was, it's kind of like, you know, it's just really too difficult to work full time and try to train full time. So I pulled back on that and I started just to focus on my career.
(17:57): And at the time I worked at the social security administration and when that career did not fulfill me, like I thought it was going to fulfill, like I've always wanted to help people. And I thought I could help people in everything that I've done. That's always been the goal of how can I help people the most, what are my gifts and how can I share those the most? And I guess continuing to ask that question led me from wanting to be a cop to triathlons, to CrossFit, to the army, to the social security administration, to working for Berkshire Hathaway, to saying I am done with working for other people. And I decided to start ready to nutrition. It's a supplement company, but it is so much more than that to me because it is how I can love the world is how I can give my gifts to the world.
(18:39): I've used supplements for nearly every step of my fitness journey that you just heard about when I was training for the police Academy was training for triathlons. When I was definitely training for CrossFit, you can be damn sure that I had some sort of supplemental help because it did help me. And I realized there is so much misinformation about the benefits of supplements. In fact, some people are just absolutely unwilling to hear me out because they think they get everything they need from food. I'm not going to get into the debate on whether you should or shouldn't supplement. That's not the point of this episode. The point is I'm following what I believe is true. And what I believe is the way that I'm going to show the world that I love it. And I can leave something behind far greater when I'm gone, the people are still going to be benefiting from it.
(19:21): That's really what I want. Longevity from my gifts and red H nutrition, coach, Katie danger, being who I am providing supplement programs for people that are individual tailored goal specific. That is how I'm going to love the world the best way that I possibly can. So I hope you enjoyed it. Hope you enjoyed this a little bit of the journey. It was a trip down memory lane. I did it all improv. I haven't written anything for this episode. Usually I write down a few topics, sometimes couple pages just to keep myself on task. I don't want to get too far away and I don't want you to forget the message behind this entire episode is you've got to trust the journey, start believing yourself, put one foot in front of the other, and then trust where the journey is going to go for you. It will take you exactly where you're supposed to go, but you just gotta trust and you gotta have your own back.
(20:08): You guys, I hope that you got something really, really important from this. And I hope that you believe in yourself just a little bit more after you heard this. If you haven't already head over to Reddit, nutrition.com, you know that I partner with them, you know, that I fully believe in their entire line of supplements, head over there. If you're looking for any supplement or support right now, remember use code podcast, 20 podcast, two zero at checkout, we'll get you 20% off of your entire supplement order. So that is my gift to you. And also my gift to you is exactly how I love the world. And that's providing awesome supplements, providing valuable podcast content. And thanks again so much for sharing. Number 36 with me, I will talk to you again very, very soon in episode number 37. And in the meantime, this is coach Katie D athletes over and out.
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