My Transformation:
When my mom first got sick in 2006, I was taking care of her and started slacking when it came to my own personal health. I had a few setbacks when I had surgery due to my Rheumatoid Arthritis. I began packing on the pounds, by the end of 2006 I had gained over 100lbs. My mom died December 2006, that was the day I started to work on getting myself back together. It was not easy, I was working out 2 hours a day and cutting out the bad food. After eliminating bad foods from my diet over the next several months, I began dropping weight and I lost 105lbs. I do not fluctuate anymore, as I did my entire life. I eat to live and think of food as fuel. IF I CAN DO IT, SO CAN YOU!!!!!!
Do not let another day go by, start living for your health and well being today!
Our mission as personal trainers & fitness instructors is to educate our clients about exercise, diet and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Our goal is to empower them to make the most of their abilities: through knowledge, direction and encouragement.
My Story:
Our Mission:
In 2006 NOW
Cindy,
You are such inspiration to me as how you hae lived your life with Rheumatoid Arthritis. You have shown me how productive I can also be living with this disease.- David Casey
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Our Mission:
My Story-
Cindy Lane Ross, formerly Cindy Celeste Lane, grew up in Mobile, Al where her father (B.B. Lane) was in the construction business and her mother (Nancy Lane) was a stay-at-home mom. She has two siblings Chance Lane & Chad Lane. Ross said, “I moved around a lot as a kid, with my dad being in construction, when one job would end we moved on to try and find another. We lived in apartments, trailers, and many rental houses through my childhood." Ross's father and brother both have Type I Diabetes (Juvenile). At the age of 38 her father became deathly ill and the family went bankrupt, this sent Cindy into a major depression at the age of 8, which led to a lot of emotional problems, fearing her dad was dying and led to her weight gain at an early age. Ross said, “after my family lost everything, including the trailer we were living in, we moved into Warren Village Apartments and this is where we met Javier."
"Javier worked at South Alabama at the time assisting the head tennis coach, he gave all the kids in the apartments free tennis lessons on this one single court amongst hundreds of apartments. My brother, Chad was one of the kids that participated. That was the summer when my childhood started turning around, Ross said." After watching her brother play tennis, she decided she wanted to play and her father took her to Sports Unlimited and bought a neon yellow Donnay tennis racquet (from the Andre Agassi line). Cindy was very uncoordinated and literally had two left feet on the tennis court, but after a couple of lessons, she joined the others in a junior tennis tournament across the bay and after only two weeks of playing tennis, Ross won her first tournament. Ross said, “I was a hard hitter, I had a very powerful game! I out powered my opponents. This began the great love affair with a sport that taught me about life!"
In middle and high school, Ross excelled as an outstanding tennis player. After her freshman year, Ross's family still struggled in the construction business but with her brother Chance who helped fund her tennis and one of her dad's best friend, Bill Smith that owned Keller-Smith, sponsoring her; she was able to travel around and continue to make her ranking grow. Ross hired a manager to help with the decision making of what to do next with her career. Ross was ranked #1 in Alabama and top 5 in the Southern division, she moved to Nick Bollettieri's Tennis Academy in Florida her ninth grade year. "I gave tennis lessons and taught camps to adults and kids to pay for my stay and trained with the best coaches and trainers in the world," said Ross, who received her high school diploma at age 16. There was strength and conditioning coach, Richard that worked with me on the side. I didn't have the money to pay him, but he said he saw a determination in me like no other and that made him smile. He would wake up at 4am with me and we would meet on the white gravel track behind the tennis courts every single morning. We ran sprint after sprint and lots of ropes, running back and forth, zig zagging in between. Being 10 years old when I started playing and not being very athletic, I had to work ten times harder than everyone else. My father told me, "practice makes perfect, so I ran with that and never looked back. I lived on campus in a condo with seven other girls and graduated at the age of 16 through home correspondence because I was traveling playing tennis tournaments." My mom always felt I was missing out on a normal childhood, not playing in the yard with friends after school, going to high school parties, having a boyfriend, or attending a regular graduation, Ross sacrificed to try and succeed with the love of her life, the game of tennis!
At 17, Ross turned professional at a tournament in Woodlands, Texas, before competing in a two-month circuit in Mexico. "I was truly living my dream, with not accepting any money over my expenses in tournament winnings; this allowed me to keep my amateur status," she said. "After a very grueling six months of being away from home and everything she knew, Cindy got some great advice in Mexico from a fellow tennis player, Sylvia Schenk, to go back to school and let tennis pay my way. So that's what I did, I decided to play college tennis. She told me to go enjoy life and have fun with the game, something I had lost sight of and I was trying to find the fun in again. With the pressures of family, sponsors, agents, and just life on the circuit, it's easy to forget the reason you started playing, because I enjoyed it and I had fun, Ross said." So many people were disappointed that I didn't continue my professional career, but in the end it was a blessing. Ross trained at Harvard the summer before she went back to school and lived in Cambridge for three months before accepting a scholarship to Union University in Jackson, TN. This was when the first signs of my illness began, I started having excruciating pain and loss of feeling in my wrist, and developing what doctors thought it to be, carpal tunnel syndrome from countless hours on the tennis court. After three opinions, and the option to do surgery, Ross had bilateral surgery in both hands. After months of recovery and rehab, she transferred to the University of Mobile and was part of a team that competed for the NAIA national championship and won.
However, her wrists went out again and after two more surgeries later doctors told her that her tennis days were over. “I had no clued what I wanted to do in my life because tennis was all I knew," Ross said. "I was still getting my basics in school but I did not really have a major set." She married her best friend, Jason Ross in 2000 and began working odd jobs. When she began experiencing stiff joints, she assumed it was from over-training in the gym. But it continued to get worse. “The doctors were still not sure of what I had," she said. "There was a point where I was taking 26 pills at night and 24 pills in the morning, and that was not including the chemotherapy I was taking." "When I found Dr. Thomas Myers, he was my Godsend, and diagnosed me with an inflammatory disease with overlapping symptoms of different autoimmune problems and treated me for rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. “She said Dr. Thomas Myers, a local rheumatologist, diagnosed her with an inflammatory disease and began treating her for rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, a chronic autoimmune disorder that can affect joints, major organs and tissues. She had to have a total hysterectomy at age 22 and a lumpectomy of her breast after a tumor was discovered. She also underwent surgery for a benign tumor in her spinal column. With her health issues and family members also experiencing major health crises, her father had an amputation, her brother lost both legs and her mother had a heart attack- Ross became severely depressed and her weight increased to 210 pounds. She continued caring for her mother, who died of congestive heart failure. Her mother's battle with heart disease inspired Ross to return to school and start training again. "I lost 30 pounds before teaching aerobics again in Jamaica, and my weight continued to drop, so I set a goal to get into the best shape of my life by my 30th birthday," she said. "I got down to 140 and felt great and I finally figured out that with good nutrition I did not have to work half as hard in the gym. By 2007, her weight was down to 110, and she was doing photo shoots as a model. Her brother, also a tennis player, had lost both of his legs to diabetes years earlier. He died in 2008 at the age of 34. Three months later, Ross graduated with a degree in exercise science with concentrations in exercise physiology at the age of 31. "I walked across that stage with diploma in hand in honor of my mom on the anniversary of her death and that was the greatest day of my life," she said. "Although after graduation, my father lost his leg to diabetes as well.”Ross is strong and has a very positive attitude each and every day, even though she continues to have surgeries on her joints and has to maintain on two chemotherapy shots a week for the rest of her life. "I am in good health and keep my disease under control with diet, exercise, medication, and great doctors," Ross said. "I love people and I live each day to the fullest. I get up each morning in the early am to work out for myself and leave the remaining of the day to help others."
Cindy Lane Ross has experienced her share of challenges in life. She has overcome weight issues, sickness and death in her family, and she finds a way to grow stronger despite ongoing problems with her
personal health. She has dealt with two partial joint replacements that caused her to lose most
of the use of her right hand along with 18 other surgeries throughout the past ten years. Ross currently takes two chemotherapy injections and an anti-malaria drug to suppress her immune system. The right medicine and a good exercise program is what gives Cindy the strength and will power to encourage others! "I embrace the fact that I have rheumatoid arthritis and it makes me a stronger and a more determined person." Ross said "I always put a smile on my face and make the most of my life, and I live each day like it could be my last," Ross said. "I have made fitness and health my lifestyle and I receive great benefits from it. While completing school I began personal training again, growing my clientele base. "Thinking that I was going into Exercise Physiology and I was going to work in a cardiac/pulmonary rehab unit". Ross said she realized during her intern that she would rather be on the preventive side, rather than the aftermath of a sickness". So after graduation she continued to personal train and in 2009 Cindy decided to start group classes outside of Anytime Fitness, the gym she was currently renting a space from. These gyms are nationwide and provide the convenience of being open 24 hours, so they are not able to have normal group classes. Ross put together a program called Bodies By Cindy Boot Camp that included accountability, nutrition, multiple options with time, and this concept exploded. After two short months of teaching boot camp, Cindy hired her first trainer. In April her husband, Jason Ross, was able to quit working for a large corporation of 14 years and joined her in the fitness industry. They have opened two personal training studios in 2010 and currently have 4 trainers that have joined their team. They have held boot camps in multiple cities with hopes of reaching more and more people.
In Sept. 2010 Cindy was featured on the cover of Arthritis Today magazine. Ross is currently finishing her first book and it will be available in the early months of 2011. Over the past year she began speaking out to more people on different topics. Cindy Ross has become a recognized leader in the Fitness Industry and with her collegiate and professional tennis career, living with arthritis for 11 years, having over 19 surgeries, losing her mother to Scleroderma, a brother to Type I Diabetes, and through her own self-discovery, Cindy shows great fortitude and is motivating audiences nationwide! Cindy will leave you in Amazement as she unfolds her story of illness, accomplishments, knowledge of health, fitness, and nutrition!
Ross said, "I pride myself in having an open door policy with my clients, when they walk into my studio, I let them know they can call, text, or email me 24/7 if they need me". "I want to be there at all times to help them reach their fitness goals". Cindy and her team strive to help their clientele achieve a healthy lifestyle change. With three books coming out in 2011 and speaking around the nation, Ross wants to continue to inspire people to lead a healthier more productive life! Ross said, “I am blessed because I love what I do and I have a wonderful team of trainers that have the same vision, motivating one person at a time!"
Ross has been teaching fitness and working as a personal trainer since she was 18. She has taught at several local fitness centers in Mobile, including the YMCA, Cory Everson's Power House, World Gym, Springhill Athletic Club, Omni Health Club, REC Center at the University of South Alabama, and Anytime Fitness, and now owning her own studio, Bodies By Cindy, INC. Bodies By Cindy Boot Camp & Personal Training studio just got voted #1 Boot Camp & Best Workout in Mobile, AL. Cindy also teaches group fitness, spinning, kickboxing, boot camp, yoga and aqua aerobics in the Caribbean working with a company called Fitbodies. This concept is to bring fitness and health awareness around the world!
To learn more about Cindy Lane Ross, and her compelling story that will not only move you emotionally, but it will make you want to jump up out of your seat and go accomplish that goal you have been struggling to meet, you can buy a copy of her book, Body Type Blueprint which will be available in 2011.
www.bodiesbycindy.com
