Get Dense: About Us

Charissa is an at-home daycare provider as well as stay-at-home mom to her energetic son, Noah. She is wife to her wonderful, geeky husband, Matt and a student at the Community College of RI(CCRI). She hopes to get into the sonography program. She is interested in becoming a personal trainer to help others reach their fitness goals. Personal interests include shooting pool, working out, reading, watching TV, hanging with friends and family, and sports (all Boston sports teams plus the Green Bay Packers!)

Melissa has been an athlete and health enthusiast since she was little. She graduated from University of Massachusetts, Lowell, with her B.A. in Psychology and minor in health, and also from Concordia Theological Seminary with an M.A. in Theology. Jobs she's had include milieu therapist, track and field coach, landlord (That was fun...pffft.), and deaconess/admissions counselor. Melissa was also formerly a certified EMT and personal trainer. She enjoys reading, teaching, and writing, alongside health and fitness. Melissa is a stay-at-home mom to her good-natured son, Knox, and married to Adam, a Lutheran pastor. (Who's also good natured.) They reside in New York. The content of this blog does not necessarily reflect the views of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod or even the American Muscle and Fitness Program, all of which I've been (or currently am) certified or rostered. These are simply our personal thoughts and experiences...

So, why the blog?

When you finally figure something out that's worked and able to sustain results, you want to share it, right? Well, that's what we've done. After losing a combined total of 150lbs in about a year, we aim to share our "good news," as we continue to follow a very similar philosophy regarding overall health and wellness in our journeys together.

Our general health philosophy (Always subject to adjustments!):

1. Take an honest inventory of what you eat in a given week. If your diet consists of many animal based products (meat and dairy) and highly processed foods, refined sugars and grains, start to minimize that slowly. It might take a year or more, but your body will thank you.

2. Eat more plant based foods. Raw is best. Organic whenever possible. In fact, if you just incorporate more fruits and veggies into your diet, your body will start to adjust and crave more of that good stuff. You'll tend to eat less over time, lose weight and feel better and more energized as a result. We believe that 75% or more of a balanced, raw food diet daily is optimal.

3. Smoothies and/or juicing is a must (for us) to get optimal, dense nutrition into our bodies. Especially greens.

4. Exercise! Interval training 2-3 times per week for 20 minutes (20 minutes!) and moderate exercise (walk/jog) the remainder of the week is best.

5. Support is essential. We have each other. Thus, we're continuously keeping each other on track, whining when it gets hard or boring, and basically listening to each other through the struggles. We hope you have at least one person like that, too.

Now, the moment you've all been waiting for! The heinous flashback BEFORE photos! It's actually great to see how far we've come. We sure don't want to go back to the unhealthy "us-es" ever again. Hope these inspire/motivate you as much as they do for us.

Salud!
Melissa and Charissa

MELISSA'S TRANSFORMATION