About Us
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Lacey PettiboneCo-Founder & CEO
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My fitness journey began with dance lessons starting at three years old, and competitive cheerleading throughout middle school and high school. Although I “maintained” these interests long enough to graduate highschool, I was also weighed down with alcoholism and addiction from a young age. Drugs and alcohol took me down a dark path from the ages of 12 to 22, until finally I realized I would die very young, or change my life, and I became willing to do whatever it took to get clean and sober.
When I got sober I had to change every single thing about my life. I changed my friends, my phone number, and the way I dressed. I slowly began working on myself from the inside out. It was during this time that I rediscovered my love for fitness that I had put on the backburner so many years ago. My beginning living room workouts were humble, but after saving up some money, I decided to join a CrossFit gym. Despite the challenges I stuck with CrossFit and loved it, and still incorporate those skills into my workouts today.
Crossfit was amazing, until the hunger kicked in! I was eating clean, but wasn’t controlling portion sizes, and would often overeat. Despite my dedication to the gym, I was gaining a lot of weight. On to Paleo, the Ketogenic diet, and then I found bodybuilding. My new coach introduced me to flexible dieting, where no foods are off limits as long as you're at a deficit and hit a prescribed amount of carbs, fats, and proteins. I couldn’t believe he was telling me I could eat carbs and even prescribed five times more than what I was eating when I went Keto. And, it actually worked, dropping 10 pounds almost immediately.
In order to prep for my first show, I had to keep cutting calories to push my body fat far beyond what is healthy - eating 700 calories a day by the end of prep. I competed in 4 bodybuilding shows, but did not place at my first one. In the next two, I took home 1st and 2nd. At my last show, I again placed 1st in my weight class then won the overall title. My year of hard work had finally paid off.
Without a new show date scheduled, I started eating freely and trust me, I did. I had cut my calories way too low for way too long. On top of eating everything, my metabolism was extremely compromised. I went from a stage weight of 84 lbs to 130 lbs in one month - no exaggeration. I was miserable.That girl who had worked so hard for an amazing physique had pretty much doubled in size overnight. It was during this time that I developed bulimia. This went on for some months before I made the decision to seek professional help.
Slowly but surely I started to build a healthier relationship with food, that I still maintain today. I began to get rid of my all-or-nothing mentality surrounding food, and started finding balance. I started utilizing all the nutrition knowledge I had acquired during prep and took a nutrition course at my college. Through a better understanding of food, I was able to start intuitively balancing my macronutrients for optimum performance and a healthy physique. I started training to gain strength and began feeling empowered after I saw what my body was capable of. I signed up for the state powerlifting meet and placed 2nd as a 52kg, then placed 1st as a 47kg at a local meet later in the year.
My training came to an abrupt stop when I landed in the hospital, which led to the discovery of a rare disorder called pseudotumor cerebri. I underwent countless hospitalizations, spinal taps and three brain surgeries. Thankfully I’m able to train with no limitations today, but being sick set back all the strength I had spent so much time building. Today I realize that I needed that ego check to become right-sized.
Now I know that I’m not defined by how much weight I can lift, the number on the scale, or the percentage of body fat I have. My gym sessions are now one hour instead of three, and I have time to pursue other things I’ve always wanted, whether it’s going back to school, learning how to play guitar or starting Pocketblonde Fitness. I’ve never felt more content in my entire life, and I’m ready to share my experience to help you achieve your goals.
When I got sober I had to change every single thing about my life. I changed my friends, my phone number, and the way I dressed. I slowly began working on myself from the inside out. It was during this time that I rediscovered my love for fitness that I had put on the backburner so many years ago. My beginning living room workouts were humble, but after saving up some money, I decided to join a CrossFit gym. Despite the challenges I stuck with CrossFit and loved it, and still incorporate those skills into my workouts today.
Crossfit was amazing, until the hunger kicked in! I was eating clean, but wasn’t controlling portion sizes, and would often overeat. Despite my dedication to the gym, I was gaining a lot of weight. On to Paleo, the Ketogenic diet, and then I found bodybuilding. My new coach introduced me to flexible dieting, where no foods are off limits as long as you're at a deficit and hit a prescribed amount of carbs, fats, and proteins. I couldn’t believe he was telling me I could eat carbs and even prescribed five times more than what I was eating when I went Keto. And, it actually worked, dropping 10 pounds almost immediately.
In order to prep for my first show, I had to keep cutting calories to push my body fat far beyond what is healthy - eating 700 calories a day by the end of prep. I competed in 4 bodybuilding shows, but did not place at my first one. In the next two, I took home 1st and 2nd. At my last show, I again placed 1st in my weight class then won the overall title. My year of hard work had finally paid off.
Without a new show date scheduled, I started eating freely and trust me, I did. I had cut my calories way too low for way too long. On top of eating everything, my metabolism was extremely compromised. I went from a stage weight of 84 lbs to 130 lbs in one month - no exaggeration. I was miserable.That girl who had worked so hard for an amazing physique had pretty much doubled in size overnight. It was during this time that I developed bulimia. This went on for some months before I made the decision to seek professional help.
Slowly but surely I started to build a healthier relationship with food, that I still maintain today. I began to get rid of my all-or-nothing mentality surrounding food, and started finding balance. I started utilizing all the nutrition knowledge I had acquired during prep and took a nutrition course at my college. Through a better understanding of food, I was able to start intuitively balancing my macronutrients for optimum performance and a healthy physique. I started training to gain strength and began feeling empowered after I saw what my body was capable of. I signed up for the state powerlifting meet and placed 2nd as a 52kg, then placed 1st as a 47kg at a local meet later in the year.
My training came to an abrupt stop when I landed in the hospital, which led to the discovery of a rare disorder called pseudotumor cerebri. I underwent countless hospitalizations, spinal taps and three brain surgeries. Thankfully I’m able to train with no limitations today, but being sick set back all the strength I had spent so much time building. Today I realize that I needed that ego check to become right-sized.
Now I know that I’m not defined by how much weight I can lift, the number on the scale, or the percentage of body fat I have. My gym sessions are now one hour instead of three, and I have time to pursue other things I’ve always wanted, whether it’s going back to school, learning how to play guitar or starting Pocketblonde Fitness. I’ve never felt more content in my entire life, and I’m ready to share my experience to help you achieve your goals.
Lila PettiboneCo-Founder & Content Contributor
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My fitness journey began dancing competitively at three years old. Dance consumed most of my life while I was growing up, and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Reality kicked in when I turned 18, and had to choose between moving to Los Angeles or New York to try to pursue my career as a dancer, or take the safe road and go to college. In the end, I chose college, and decided to attend a division three school about 30 minutes away from where I grew up. I joined their Cheerleading squad right away, and started making friends.
In college, going out every weekend, drinking beer, and eating in the school dining halls caught up quickly. I drank a lot of budweiser, went on late night Taco Bell runs, and knew nothing about the nutrition facts for any of the food in the dining halls. It didn’t help that I am a 4’ 10” female. I had put on the dreaded Freshman Fifteen despite the fact that I promised myself I wouldn’t at the beginning of the school year. It was hard for me to accept the fact that I wasn’t dancing anymore, and my body had never looked worse. The last day of my Freshman year I decided it was time to be serious about making changes, and I kicked it into gear.
When I started trying to get into shape as an adult, I thought I had to do extreme cardio and restrict carbs in order to lose the weight. Living at my parents’ house on summer break, I would run 3-6 miles every morning. I minimized my calorie intake and started avoiding carbs at all costs. After a few weeks of doing this consistently, I could see real changes. After a while I started to notice that I was losing muscle mass, but I was genuinely happy with my body. The only problem was I started to feel extremely lethargic and weak doing everyday tasks.
When I moved back to school I quickly realized that I didn’t have the energy or sharpness to concentrate on studying. I didn’t want to put the weight back on, and noticed some of my favorite fitness influencers on social media were lifting weights. I signed up for a college weightlifting course, and quickly started feeling comfortable in the gym and empowered by building strength. I quit spending hours on the treadmill, and supplemented with HITT training which only took 15-20 minutes. I still value cardio benefits, but I’ve learned that I don’t have to be consumed by it to look and feel great. I loved lifting so much that I switched my major to Health and Fitness Management.
Dieting as a college student presented its challenges. After my first low carb attempt, I started doing research on the Paleo diet. I quickly realized that eating naturally did not fit my college student budget, and it was difficult to find paleo friendly foods in the school food halls. I tried the Master Cleanse, which led to five days straight of no real food, and a lemonade mixture that tasted so bad I had to plug my nose to get it down.
Managing a restaurant at the time, I was constantly around food, and I began to binge and start drinking beer again. I fell back into the same depression I had experienced during my freshman year. After weeks of binge eating I became absolutely disgusted with myself and my relationship with food. I really just wanted a solution when it came to dieting. I decided to reach out to my sister who was training for a fitness competition at the time. She finally introduced me to something that worked - a macronutrients plan.
I become comfortable with tracking and weighing out my foods while continuing to weight train 4-6 days a week and getting some cardio in. I was the girl who brought her food scale to the dining halls and My Fitness Pal became my best friend. According to the scale, I was actually heavier than I had been on the low carb diet. But I had never felt more comfortable with the way I looked. I always had energy and I started seeing muscle definition that I was continuing to develop in the gym. I haven’t weighed myself since! I came to the realization that as long as I felt comfortable in my own skin, the scale did not matter anymore.
In May of 2018 I completed my Bachelors degree in Health and Fitness Management. I continue to meal prep weekly, track my macros every single day while weight training 5-6 days a week and cardio training at least 3 days a week. The macronutrient plan keeps me feeling energized, and allows me to enjoy the foods I love. I still enjoy going out with my friends every now and then - life is way too short not to enjoy a few drinks from time to time. I replaced my budweisers with vodka sodas so that drinking doesn’t completely ruin my progress. The next step for me is to share my experience and knowledge about nutrition and training with all of you. I’m so excited to help beautiful people feel confident and reach their goals!
When I started trying to get into shape as an adult, I thought I had to do extreme cardio and restrict carbs in order to lose the weight. Living at my parents’ house on summer break, I would run 3-6 miles every morning. I minimized my calorie intake and started avoiding carbs at all costs. After a few weeks of doing this consistently, I could see real changes. After a while I started to notice that I was losing muscle mass, but I was genuinely happy with my body. The only problem was I started to feel extremely lethargic and weak doing everyday tasks.
When I moved back to school I quickly realized that I didn’t have the energy or sharpness to concentrate on studying. I didn’t want to put the weight back on, and noticed some of my favorite fitness influencers on social media were lifting weights. I signed up for a college weightlifting course, and quickly started feeling comfortable in the gym and empowered by building strength. I quit spending hours on the treadmill, and supplemented with HITT training which only took 15-20 minutes. I still value cardio benefits, but I’ve learned that I don’t have to be consumed by it to look and feel great. I loved lifting so much that I switched my major to Health and Fitness Management.
Dieting as a college student presented its challenges. After my first low carb attempt, I started doing research on the Paleo diet. I quickly realized that eating naturally did not fit my college student budget, and it was difficult to find paleo friendly foods in the school food halls. I tried the Master Cleanse, which led to five days straight of no real food, and a lemonade mixture that tasted so bad I had to plug my nose to get it down.
Managing a restaurant at the time, I was constantly around food, and I began to binge and start drinking beer again. I fell back into the same depression I had experienced during my freshman year. After weeks of binge eating I became absolutely disgusted with myself and my relationship with food. I really just wanted a solution when it came to dieting. I decided to reach out to my sister who was training for a fitness competition at the time. She finally introduced me to something that worked - a macronutrients plan.
I become comfortable with tracking and weighing out my foods while continuing to weight train 4-6 days a week and getting some cardio in. I was the girl who brought her food scale to the dining halls and My Fitness Pal became my best friend. According to the scale, I was actually heavier than I had been on the low carb diet. But I had never felt more comfortable with the way I looked. I always had energy and I started seeing muscle definition that I was continuing to develop in the gym. I haven’t weighed myself since! I came to the realization that as long as I felt comfortable in my own skin, the scale did not matter anymore.
In May of 2018 I completed my Bachelors degree in Health and Fitness Management. I continue to meal prep weekly, track my macros every single day while weight training 5-6 days a week and cardio training at least 3 days a week. The macronutrient plan keeps me feeling energized, and allows me to enjoy the foods I love. I still enjoy going out with my friends every now and then - life is way too short not to enjoy a few drinks from time to time. I replaced my budweisers with vodka sodas so that drinking doesn’t completely ruin my progress. The next step for me is to share my experience and knowledge about nutrition and training with all of you. I’m so excited to help beautiful people feel confident and reach their goals!
The Why
We fell in love with fitness separately, as we each took our own unique path. It was our pain and discontent that brought us together on our journey to wellness from the inside out.
A few years ago we both found ourselves discontent and frustrated. Not just in our bodies but in the circumstances of our life. We came to realize that we were making the same mistakes We were following fad diets and losing weight only to gain it all back! We were both going into our workouts with the intention of losing weight, burning calories, and achieving the perfect body. More importantly we realized our happiness was based solely on what we achieved and how we looked!
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