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How I adjusted to a healthier lifestyle with a bit of hard work

During summer in 2014, when school was out, I woke up from my phone ringing; it was my dad, telling me he had talked to my auntie.

"Do you want to go to Anchorage for the summer and have a personal trainer?" he asked.

"Yes!" I answered.

I started to count down days until I went. Eventually I started getting nervous, so I spent time with my family and then several days with my nephew and my closest friend, Helen. I was getting sad to leave home for almost three months. I was especially sad not being able to see my nephew and being with my friends and not having the freedom I enjoy in Kotzebue.

All of a sudden, the day arrived to leave for Anchorage. I boarded the jet, and one and a half hours later, I landed in Anchorage, on June 11, 2014. In Anchorage, my Auntie Minnie told me just after I arrived that I had to meet up with my trainer the next day.

The next morning I woke up early for my fitness test. When I met my trainer, Lena Leemhuis at Body Renew Alaska, I was scared, but of what I don't know. I went there to do my fitness test. I was thinking, "What did I get myself into?" I went back to my auntie's house.

"Someone messed up your schedule with Lena," Auntie Minnie said. "So what we just did in thirty minutes usually takes an hour to do."

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That kind of made sense, so I wasn't so worried or scared of my trainer anymore. The next morning, I woke up at 5:30, walked down the hallway to the kitchen, and then waited for my auntie to get ready so we could leave and head to my first training session, where we started talking about eating right and finding food that's healthy.

"Eating right gives nutrients to your body," Lena said, and I read later in a magazine that proper nutrition "helps keep your heart beating, your brain active, and your muscles working."

Soon we were working out. It was hard for me because I'm not used to working out in front of lots of people; it was a struggle. After my training was done, we returned to Auntie Minnie's house, where she informed me we were going to go to the grocery store after work. When I got there, I was to choose healthy food, such as flat bread, wheat bread and a new type of healthy salad.

At my auntie's place, I was eager to try the new food, but I don't like any of it. Nevertheless, I finally stopped eating six meals a day and started to eat only twice a day. I then got a call from my hometown, Kotzebue, in Northwest Arctic Alaska. It was my aana (grandmother) Else, saying she was proud of me, and they just got done eating Native food. I didn't talk for a while, and I noticed how homesick I was. I started to cry; I missed going to my grandparents' house and eating my aana's food. The fact that I was having trouble finding food I liked made me miss home even more.

At the end of my summer, however, I had lost more than 12 pounds. I found out that adjusting to new things takes a while, and you have to be committed to doing something like that. It takes time to do something as big as this.

In the end, it was worth all the effort!

Chloe Naylor is a senior at Kotzebue High School. She plans to attend UAF's fairbanks campus next fall, majoring in political science and minoring in photography. This fall she interned in Kotzebue on Alaska Sen. Mark Begich's re-election campaign. Upon graduation, she plans to work in politics.

The preceding essay is part of a series written by volunteer students participating in the Chukchi College Honors Program, a dual-credit partnership between the Northwest Arctic Borough School District and Chukchi College, the Kotzebue branch of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. This essay is distributed by Chukchi News & Information Service, an award-winning publication project of Chukchi College.

The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.

Chloe Naylor

Chloe Naylor is a senior at Kotzebue High School. She plans to attend UAF's main campus in Fairbanks next fall, majoring in political science and minoring in photography. This fall she interned in Kotzebue on Alaska Sen. Mark Begich’s re-election campaign. Upon graduation, she plans to work in politics.

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