Every Friday I am going to feature a woman that I adore. They exude all the qualities of an Alpha Female and I want to dig into their lives to get some nuggets of knowledge to help us all live happier, healthier lives finding harmony between work and life.
Definition of an Alpha Female
An Alpha Female is a powerful and assertive woman. Her confidence is due to being an intelligent and intellectual problem-solver. Being an Alpha Female is a State of Mind based on choosing ambition and being proud of it. She strives for a happy and healthy work/life harmony.
Type A Alpha Females often come across as strong willed and selfish. When we stay true to our authentic selves and stay true to our mission we shine. A true Alpha Female puts the needs of herself first without sacrificing her principles or dignity. She fills up her cup or gas tank first so that she has enough energy for her friends, family, and coworkers. An Alpha Female strives for synergy with the world around her. She wants a perfect work/life balance but knows that it requires being true to your priorities and what makes you happy. She is never complacent about striving for better and nurtures relationships with the people in her life.
Meet Camy Kennedy!
Camy is a Diet Recovery Expert, Fitness Coach, Writer, and Network Marketing Pro integrating Fitness & Faith into her lifestyle programs and confidence coaching. As a recovering perfectionist, a born-again morning person, tom-boy and #rulebreakerforlife, Camy helps women on their health journeys by releasing them from expectations of perfection and allowing them to embrace a non-dieting lifestyle. She is passionate about designing a life you love and took the leap from the corporate world in 2015 on faith that the people, resources and opportunities would present themselves as she pursued her highest calling. Her alpha-ness and faith allowed her to take big risks with grace and confidence, despite many voices telling her that there was a safer route. Now, Camy uses her experience with extreme dieting, body image issues and negative self talk to coach women through their transformations by giving them what they think they want, and guiding them towards what they really need.
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How are you an Alpha Female?
The words that resonated most with me were that we are confident, and can come across as strong willed and selfish. When in fact we are the most loyal, best friends, partners, and teammates you can find. I’ve always had my own path and not been part of the crowd. I always did what I wanted and didn’t feel the need to do what everyone else was doing. Some people like and respect that strong-willed, straight forward nature and come along side you, but some shy away and are intimidated by it. I LOVE love love spending time with myself and have to put that first to recharge my batteries to bring the most to my work and my relationships.
What does work/life harmony look like for you?
To me work/life harmony means enjoying what you do – and actually looking forward to most of it. It also means making time for filling yourself back up whether that’s downtime just vegging out watching tv in your sweatpants, getting outdoors or just taking a day off from social media. As type A’s we can get so involved in our work that we forget about those relationships that are most important to us. Taking time each day to thank those who’ve supported us, friends, family, partners, etc. I have to constantly remind myself to reach out to friends to see how they are doing and make a point to remind my boyfriend how much his support means to me.
What are you most passionate about?
My biggest passion teaching women how to stop dieting and start loving their bodies. Like most women, I’ve struggled with body image issues and feeling “good enough.” I tried to use negative motivation – which will never work to get you positive results. Throw out the scale and start working on personal growth and mindset and the rest will come. I want women to stop dieting forever and break all the “rules” that they’ve been killing themselves to stick to. My mantra is #rulebreakerforlife and I created an online nutrition education course called The Better Method (balanced eating, training tough, enlighten & relax). Faith and friendship has gotten me through a lot, and I recreate that in a lot of my groups. Changing your environment and the people you hang around is huge!
What are you daily health habits that keep your immune system boosted?
Daily adaptogens are the most important thing in my toolkit. I’ve been using Isagenix nutritional system which has 2 products that keep me going – one is an adaptogen drink which I can add into my shakes, drink with water or make as a warm tea. Also as a caffeine lover, and a born-again morning person I used to use crazy thermogenics before I discovered an all natural toxin free lifestyle with Isagenix. I now live off of our energy shots that provide completely natural energy without the crash. It helps me start my day, focus for work, have energy for teaching classes and power through tough workouts. I have an agreement with myself that I will have 2 meal replacement shakes and this gives me the energy I need to make great choices later on. Ill throw isagenix fruits and greens powder in there to help me get all the vitamins and minerals I’m sure I’m lacking during the day. Sleep is the most important commitment I make to myself. I usually use sleep spray which a natural herbal spray that goes under the tongue with a little touch of melatonin to help me relax. I’m a night owl by nature but recently converted to getting up earlier because something like 93% of successful people wake up 3 hours before they have to start their day. I refrain from drinking alcohol usually because I feel that it really wrecks my body, but if I do, I will make sure to still continue the rest of what I’m doing and stay hydrated. After a long weekend or travel, I will usually schedule a cellular cleanse to remove those toxins.
What is your weekly fitness routine like?
Currently, Monday – Friday at least 3 times a week I will do fasted cardio as part of my power hour. This could just be walking or sometimes jogging or running stairs. I’ve been hitting Orangetheory 2x a week and lifting shoulders/back, legs, bis/tris once during the week. I like trying new classes to meet people and expand my network. If I’m not enjoying it I will find something else or rework my schedule until I do. I came from a bodybuilding/competitor background where I always felt like I “had” to be in the gym and do 2 a days and a certain amount of cardio. I hurt my back in 2013 and had to start over, and wanted to be more balanced, so I took some time off from the regular gym and was just doing OTF, but recently, I’ve made a new commitment with myself to be balanced, a rulebreaker and what I like to call “healthy lean.”
How do you challenge yourself fitness wise?
Every week I aim to take one 90 minute class at Orangetheory. I don’t love it – but I know I need it and it really does challenge me. I’ve gotten back into the “bodybuilding” type lifting style with a 4 day split, and I’m liking lifting heavy again. I love the feeling when your legs are so sore that it hurts to touch them. OTF is great because we keep track of our times on the rower, so it is really fun to see myself improve on the water rower. Even on the treadmills, I don’t consider myself a runner – so it’s cool to see my base pace, push pace and all out speeds go up. I’ve done a Spartan Sprint race last year without really training for it and it kicked my ass. I hurt my shoulder and couldn’t lift for a while. I like the race because my boyfriend is a Marine and it reminds me of what he has to do for his job, but I’m not gonna lie, I’m not looking forward to doing another one! I enjoy running outdoors, about 3-6 miles, so I’ve thought of getting into Xterra races. Funny, as an alpha, we like to do things we are good at so we can dominate – but I’m really feeling drawn towards learning how to dance – hip hop, pole dancing – something powerful and sexy – that’s where I feel really challenged because I am a tomboy. So that’s next on my list – getting outside my comfort zone!
What are you daily/weekly nutrition habits that keep you well nourished?
Wake up and have high ph lemon water, an eshot, or half of an all natural caffeine pill or isagenix low acidic coffee. L-cartatine and BCAAs if I am doing fasted cardio. Or my adaptogens if I am just going for my morning power hour walk. Usually I have a shake for breakfast, then a few hours later I have another breakfast usually gluten free waffles and egg whites, then another shake in the afternoon and dinner. I’m super lazy when it comes to making food so the same stuff usually – crock pot meals, turkey taco salad, something easy. My pre and post workout meals and supplements are all timed, and this allows me to have energy through the entire day without crashing after my workout. Water is huge! I don’t drink anything else but water. I cut out soda when I was like 12 years old so it’s been easy to keep off of that. If I want something sweet in my water I’ll used BCCAs or we have a great electrolyte powder that makes my water taste like kool-aid. I’ve gotta say that FRO-YO is a mainstay in my life. I make time for it at least 2x a month and it keeps me very well nourished and never deprived. I go all out with cookie dough on the bottom, 3 flavors of fro-yo, reeses PB cups, yogurt chips, m&ms and hot fudge usually. It’s amazing. And I usually end up taking a nap right after because of all the sugar, but it’s worth it. Especially great to go after a workout at OTF, and Illl have a protein shake, and then my fro-yo.
What are your daily habits for winding down at night and reducing stress?
Bedtime is 10pm, so at 9pm my computer is shut off. I have previously been a night owl, and naturally like to stay up late, but I’ve recently changed my habits to become a morning person so that I can start my day with a power hour, journaling, prayer, movement, get on my daily conference call. Before bed, I will put on my soft lights (Christmas lights in my bedroom like I had when I was a teenager LOL). I like to shower and be clean before bed because I’m a night time sweater J. Then I will usually warm up a few ounces of my cellular cleanse drink and sip on that and read a little bit. A bit of my sleep spray works well if I’m a little wound up from a late night workout, etc.
What are some pain points of being an Alpha Female that you have to problem solve for?
In the corporate world my confidence was mistaken for cockiness so that didn’t work too well with co-workers and bosses. I was in sales which required a confident attitude, but others didn’t always see it that way. My solution for that was to part ways from an environment that wasn’t matched to my strengths. It took me 6 years to navigate the work force and constantly finding that I was “too assertive” or “bossy” – now I found my perfect match in my partnering with other like minded women such as Carol Elizabeth who you’ve had on the podcast. We get each other! Network marketing takes a strong personality and confidence, because people don’t “get” what you are doing, but luckily I’ve been doing what I want my entire life and now I have a team that supports me and gets that I’m stubborn and will put my head down and work hard to build the life that I love. My part-time job of fitness coaching on a microphone at Orangetheory fitness works out very well for me too! It’s my calling to be on a microphone in front of a room full of people telling them what to do LOL. Daily, I have to present workouts that are very challenging, but make them seem fun and keep the energy high and motivation high. I think this is really congruent with life and I find myself saying random things during class like “goals don’t reach themselves.” In my entrepreneur endeavors, I find myself wanting to do everything, like host a retreat in Bali, start a podcast, and speak at churches, while creating content for all the social media platforms, coaching clients, and creating new programs. I know I can’t do it all and have to focus on those things that will create revenue and that I enjoy doing. We can’t do it all and we don’t know it all, so we really need people with experience to coach us and to gain knowledge from them. I just hired a biz coach for the next 90 days to really get focused. This shows the universe that we are serious. I’m in the process of hiring a VA as well to take care of all those little things that take up our time as online entrepreneurs.
What is your definition of happiness?
Years ago in the shower, I heard this voice of intuition or from God that said, “It’s not happy When, It’s happy now.” At the time I was struggling with body image issues and not feeling worthy of happiness. I hated my job, and I was having a really hard time in life. Looking back, I knew through those times that my faith was so important and it was the darkness before the dawn. Since then I believe that happiness is available to all of us if we just chose to be. We are not victims of circumstance and we don’t have to live miserable lives. Once we stop living for others and doing what they expect us to do, we are set free and can connect with our true selves and our happiness. I worked jobs I was not suited for for 6 years, and I knew there was a different path for me. Once I had the courage to go my own way, despite the struggles that come with big change, I feel a happiness and a peace that God and the Universe is supporting me to fulfill my purpose, whatever that is. To me then, happiness is following that path wherever it may lead and connecting with amazing people along the journey. It’s amazing to watch how everything comes together for good, even the things that seemed so bad at the time.
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