As an adolescent Terri Lynn Cole faced many eating disorders including anorexia, athletic bulimia and body dysmorphia. After overcoming all of these challenges herself, Terri decided to help others with eating and exercise disorders. Terri is now a clinical exercise physiologist, owner of The Metabolic Treatment Center and author of Fit, Fat or Just Plain Full of It? (HealthyBeat 2012). She works with her clients to help them develop healthy relationships with food and exercise. “I inspire them to trust food again and to reconnect with their bodies–engaging in mindful eating and physical activity,” Terri said.

Terri’s goal is to design the best, most targeted exercise prescriptions she can to help her clients. One of the ways she does this is by working with a colleague to create a prediction equation to determine ideal lean body mass. This helps her to better identify “a more truly accurate ideal weight range for this patient population.”

Outside of her work, Terri enjoys competing in beauty pageants. She uses them as a platform for changing stereotypical ideals of beauty, weight and size. She also spends time teaching circuit classes; giving lectures on fitness myths, fads, facts and fallacies; and speaking about the pitfalls of eating and exercise disorders at local schools.