A decade in professional fitness to full-time

Women’s Health &Wellness Coach

I believe that with the right guidance, anyone can achieve the “best life” they desire. A lifestyle with their version of balance, less stress and great confidence.

Okay, now what does that exactly mean?
I’ve spent many years trying to understand the “work life balance” mentality and what I’ve found is that (like most nutrition/fitness protocols) every person’s definition of balance is & should be different. If you absolutely love what you do for work, maybe your life balance structure is more geared to support more time spent within your work while also supporting your interpersonal relationships and self-care at a threshold you require. Some people might need more emphasis on self-care and less with their work. Whatever it is, let’s find what works for you, and figure out how to better achieve your goals.

Alright, now that you have an idea of what I stand behind professionally, I’d like to share my personal story with you!

I found my passion for health & wellness early in my life, I’m talking around the 4th grade…

I remember being 10 or so when I first began feeling self-conscious of my weight and many of my friends began talking about drinking diet teas, I still had baby fat around my belly because - growing up in a Filipino family - you were never underfed.
My grandfather was a fantastic chef, we were raised on home-cooked (& often very rich) foods and seconds was expected. This is also where I found my love for culinary, cooking quickly became an easy passion for me.

Unfortunately, when I turned 11, my grandfather passed from a battle with Type-II diabetes - a situation that could have been reversed at one point with nutrition adjustments and an overall change of lifestyle + nutrition. No matter how much my grandmother & father attempted to get him to adjust his poor habits, he loved cooking and indulgent foods which lead to his body finally giving out the day before I started the fourth grade.
At first I didn’t realize how much it affected me, but as I grew older and began grieving his passing (almost 3-4 years later, I was the bottle-it-up-think-about-it-later type) I was entering high school and discovered I was extremely passionate about health-oriented nutrition and it’s role in longevity as well as enjoyment.
I would think “If I could help other’s turn their lives around before the inevitable, that would be worth it tenfold.”

From this realization, I began researching in my free time healthy habits, various nutrition protocols, etc. I’m sure I was very annoying to my family with all of the things I would read and “practically swear it’s the only way to live” such as “eating 6 small meals a day” or “never eating fats because they’ll become fat!” which makes me giggle thinking about to this day. My junior year of high school I had quit competitive volleyball and began learning about the effects of puberty hormones + no exercise and suddenly was 15 pounds heavier than I had been 6th-10th grade and boy was that new for me!
I took to learning why young females can gain body fat rapidly during puberty and how it actually is a necessity for prepping for child-bearing - regardless of our personal desires. I knew that it was going to be an inevitable addition to my aging, but I also wanted to make sure it did'n’t get out of hand and that I took care of myself.

Junior year of high school, I began following fitness stars like Karina and Katrina from ToneItUp (back when they were still working out on the beach) and started doing their workouts in my bedroom 4-5 days a week. This is when I fell in love with strength training and when I saw the results, I decided I would hire a personal trainer to learn more. I started working with my trainer Tommy who taught me the basics - squats, curls, you know the drill. I learned the discipline and effort it took to get stronger and I loved it. I had continued learning up on various nutrition things and decided upon my entry into college I was going to major in kinesiology & nutrition sciences. I decided I wanted to run my own show, so I added a minor in Business - boy was that a smart choice!

Fast forward through college and I’ve completed my Bachelors of Science in Applied Kinesiology with an emphasis in Nutrition Coaching from the dual program with Oregon Health and Sciences University and Portland State University. I loved the fitness program there & was able to learn what niche I wanted to focus on upon graduation.
While in college, I decided not to wait and jumped into the personal training industry and became certified through the American College of Sports Medicine (since it’s the gold standard and oldest accredited certification for personal training) and had the privilege of working with over 10 different clientele in my first year. This experience helped me to realize I loved working with women’s strength training and health coaching.
I also enjoy working with men, I actually have about 40% men in my clientele these days. Specifically though, helping women gain confidence in their bodies, feel stronger & able to keep up with their jobs or families was extremely rewarding. In 2017 I had the pleasure of leading 35 sedentary women in a unique steady-pace strength training 12-week program that resulted in 5 of the women who were pre-diabetic dropping back down into health A1C blood sugar levels. I cried when they shared their success. Even if each person didn’t lose 20lbs (about 12 did actually) but the fact that they were able to reverse out of the very disease my grandfather had was more than rewarding for me.

I have ran various mom-focused strength boot-camps, women’s empowerment workouts, and women’s mindset workshops, and trained at the top facilities in Portland, OR. I am so grateful for the lives I’ve been able to touch and the lives that have touched me in the process up there!

Presently, I am located here in the gorgeous Monterey, CA.
Post-pandemic, I worked extremely hard to keep my business alive and help as many as possible keep their health strong amongst scary uncertain times for the world. As my grandmother (who raised me) was ailing, I made the tough decision to move home to help her in her final months. I had to say goodbye to my community, I had roughly 50 active clients at the time up there - along with great friends, colleagues and memories, and it was going to be so scary to relocate my life. Fortunately, what they say is true about “not starting from scratch, but starting from experience” - not only was I fortunate to have roughly 70% of my PDX clientele follow me virtually at the time, I also used the simple methods to bring my services to the Bay Area here in California in 2021. In 2022 we moved to the Monterey Peninsula (yet another relocation!) and I am absolutely in love with our little corner of the state.

It’s been such an amazing time coaching my in-person clients here in the Monterey area, and I recently launched my first Podcast Rebel Wellness to share everything I’ve learned and coach to a greater platform. I have been able to work with over 2,000 people in my career only a year away from 30 and I wouldn’t have imagined this business to be what it is now!

Through CBK’s years, my clients have reversed Type II diabetes, fixed heart problems, gained confidence across the board, found deeper sense of happiness and life balance, avoided major surgeries, finally felt relief after being told they would never be able to be active again and so much more. This is what keeps me going, and I would love to help you the same if you made it this far in my story and it resonated!