Page 98 - Demo

98 || FITNESS MAGAZINE || JUNE 2015 || EDITION 1your hard work, who use you for motivation, who are inspired by you, is the best part of %u201cfitness modeling%u201d because you are a role model first. The glamour part and modeling part of it comes second. You also get to do many appearances and meet fans, and that is also one of the best parts. People saying, I lost 20 pounds because you motivated me. Everybody has their own story, and it%u2019s wonderful to be part of it.FMM: Do you visit Canada often where you were born and grew up? MLP: Not really, unfortunately. I travel up there for work in the winter, but that%u2019s when you don%u2019t want to be there! I travel so much throughout the year for my job, that when it slows down during the summer, I just want to stay home! I grew up in the Montreal, Quebec, area, and I miss some parts of it. I miss speaking French :) But we can all agree that%u2019s it%u2019s hard to beat FLORIDA!FMM: What was the most difficult aspect of your career thus far? MLP: Realizing fitness is not really a career and soon enough it%u2019s going to come to an end. If I could redo it all over again, I would do it differently. I went to school with a degree in kinesiology, and I wanted to pursue physical therapy, sports psychology, and have a master%u2019s degree, but fitness quickly took over. I didn%u2019t realize it back then since it was always a passion of mine, but you get sucked into some sort of dream that is so powerful that you want to accomplish it. I started competing in 2005, and I got so much attention out of my first show from the media, the fans, and it was something I would never expect. I did a couple shows winning the overall titles, then won fitness universe, fitness America, WBFF%u2026 all theses big shows will give you so much media and exposure. I quickly started fitness modeling for some of the biggest fitness magazines out there, got sponsorships, was traveling everywhere for appearances. You feel like a STAR! You are a star! To a lot of people you are so big, powerful, and strong, and you feel that you can accomplish anything. You have agents coming at you, you make television appearances, appear in movies, producers want to start new projects with you, etc. I went through all of this, but then what happens when you want to start a family, what happens when you want to settle down and focus on something else then just your body and your looks? All I did the past couple of years was appear on 50 different magazines, a few TV shows, and I have an X amount of fans.i am very happy with everything i%u2019ve accomplished so far, i couldn%u2019t be more blessed and i have no regrets. It was always a dream of mine to be a role model and a fitness model for others because i am so passionate about the fitness lifestyle. I wouldn%u2019t have met my husband if i didn%u2019t pursue fitness; everything happens for a reason ,and i can%u2019t wait to teach my daughter to chase her dreams....You never know what is at the end of the rainbow .FMM: At what age did you know that you were passionate about fitness and desired to make a career out of it? MLP: At a very young age, since I was always involved in sports. When I got my first knee injury around 17, I knew then that I wanted to be either a physical therapist or a sport psychologist to help athletes overcome their injuries and the mental breakdown that can come with getting injured. Because I actually went through that, and went through a depression phase because I couldn%u2019t workout or run for a while. I felt that a part of me was missing, and all I wanted to do is get on that track and run and train my butt off. So I started off with a bachelor%u2019s degree in Kinesiology; I didn%u2019t have to leave my city to go to school. I got accepted into a few Universities for psychology, but I was not prepared to leave my family and friends to go study in a different city at that time. And because fitness took over my life, I never did pursue psychology after my bachelor%u2019s degree. >>>