Angela Ursprung

Let me tell you first of all that I was raised very poor. As a child of a welfare mother, I never had proper nutrition growing up and never really knew what muscle was. In short, I was not a healthy person. In fact, I was thin as a young woman, but not because of a healthy lifestyle, it was because of malnutrition and my own personal anquish over how to make ends meet.

I never exercised. I didn't know how to.

In fact, I was the one leading people to the party -- attending keggers, passing the beer bong, and then being so hungover I couldn't move for 2-3 days afterward. No, I wasn't at all healthy and I didn't even know what being healthy really meant...that is, until I nearly lost my life.

Within 3 months of graduating from college, without any family or financial support to speak of as I was independent from the age of 17, I was fatally injured in an automobile accident. By God's grace I was revived, but suffered two terribly shattered ankles and multiple other contusions and abrasions. I was in very serious condition and was told by the doctor that I might never walk again, and that if I did, I would have a permanent and lifelong disability. In fact, for a long time, the only way I could get around without help was to slide myself along the floor and pull myself up on to things by using my arms. My legs were completely useless.

Well, what that doctor didn't realize is that I had nothing and no one to fall back on. I had to take care of myself and I certainly couldn't do that from a bed. Besides, I was just beginning a life that I thought held promise and I wanted it. As soon as I could, which was about 4 months, I left my wheelchair behind and began to walk with two casts and on crutches, and it was not easy. But I was determined.

After finally getting both casts off I had a pretty bad limp and resulting pain and nerve damage for a long long time thereafter. In addition, I had accumulated many tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills, and since I had no family support and no insurance as a young co-ed, I had to file bankruptcy, which was humiliating and heartbreaking.

As I did manage to eventually walk sufficiently and began my corporate career and started earning a living, I started to eat all kinds of things. As a deprived person for the 1st 2 decades of my life, I was very happy to begin to be able to afford chips and burgers and pizza and ice cream and whatever else I wanted, when I wanted it, and my body began to change in ways I wasn't happy with. So I bought into the low-fat-to-lose-weight thing, and started baking fresh muffins and eating healthier, at least as far as American standards dictated. And what happened? That's right, my back side just kept getting bigger and bigger. I even worked my way up to running a mile at a time and kept eating low-fat foods and my weight kept going up. I saw the scale increasing steadily, felt like I was doing all the right things, and was confused and frustrated with my results--or lack of them! I began, in fact, to believe that I had no choice to but to accept the steady increase of body fat as an aging female.

This pretty much continued until I met and began dating someone who had transformed from a slug himself, into something like "The Man With The Helmet" up on my logo. His transformation was total, amazing, and inspiring. And I believed that if he could do it, I could, too. I learned everything I could from him. As our relationship ended, I decided to leave my high-paying management job in corporate America and finally pursue health in my life, and as I began to practice what I had learned, my body began to change as well--and so drastically that people began asking me for help. My new life as a personal trainer had begun!

I became certified through The American College of Sports Medicine in April of 2000 and learned that I had a real passion for helping women become better than they ever dreamed possible. I knew the way, I wanted to share it, and I found new meaning for the word "joy" as I helped them fulfill their dreams.

I became "The Body Sculptress."

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