CASSANDRA CONTRERAS 
I started my fitness journey back in 2011, I was a single mom and drinking daily wine after work, going out on weekends and eating like crap… after a few blackouts and embarrassing moments from drinking I decided I didn’t want to be that person and bad mom, my friend had signed up for a 10K and encouraged me to sign up and train w her. Well that was it, I trained from couch to 10K in 6 months and did the Sedona 10K in 2012 and I was hooked!
My next goal was a half marathon, which I dedicated to my son Austin, I had him at 15 yrs old teenage mom and he was born with severe epilepsy and had to be ventilated, had g-tube, tracheomalasia, and blind. He lived longer than expected but passed in 2000 at the age of 6, I donated his tissue and tried to deal with my loss only to feel lost alone, and numb. I was married at the time and we fought and almost divorced but I got pregnant again at 24 and had my beautiful boy Julian which will be 21 in May! (Wow) fast forward to eventually divorcing when Julian was 4 yrs old and juggling everything. Anyways I wasn’t dealing with everything well and running races was the first time I’ve felt proud of what my body could do! From my first half marathon I started training for fulls the big 26.2! I was hooked! I did a race every 4-5 weeks ever since!
My entire being revolves around running till I rolled my ankle in 2016 on a trail, I couldn’t run or spin which is like death to me! My local YMCA had a trainer that just finished her first figure competition and that struck a cord w me, I needed to do something active if I couldn’t run for a while, she opened up a world of lifting and taught me about macros and how to calculate them! The first time I understood how to feed my body, I trained for my first figure competition in November 2017 and kept up weight training ever since.
Since then I met my now husband in 2018 and married in 2021, he has a special needs little girl that I absolutely adore and love, we fought for full custody after bio-mom got into drugs and abused and neglected her. I felt since I had previous experience with special needs kids that I could definitely raise and advocate for her.
My husband got hit on his motorcycle 3 weeks after we got his daughter full time and ended up losing his left leg from the knee down, this was in 2020, and honestly our lives have been a whirlwind of obstacles but triumph as well ever since. I feel the only thing that kept me sane and felt like I could be strong mentally for my loved ones was my fitness lifestyle. My husband is now back to work on his new leg and doing great, we are both equally impressed with eachothers strength to fight and overcome life’s challenges.
I feel bodybuilding specifically has really helped me deal with my depression, and helps me be the best version of myself for my loved ones. Lots of details around my journey are left out but this is the short version to sum up my “why”. We all have a why and I believe I was meant to go through certain things early in my life that actually helped me help others down the road.
I hope that I can inspire and motivate people to be the best version of themselves as well. My step daughters name is Shealynn and she has made a complete healthy turnaround in our care, no feeding tube anymore, no tracheotomy, it’s closed up since last June, and has gained 35+ lbs! I used my knowledge from macros to come up with her nutrition plan!
My fitness journey and knowledge has helped not just me but Shea as well, and her dad my husband has wanted to live a healthier lifestyle as well.💗
