Vanetta Fenton, a certified personal trainer living with MG, shares how exercise has shaped her life with the disease and what she wants others to know.
Transcript
At the time it was thought that exercise was just the Kryptonite for myasthenia gravis, so it was always important that I kept moving as much as possible.
My name is Vanetta Fenton. I’ve been living with myasthenia gravis since 2003, when I was 16 years old. Right now, I am a mom of an eight year old, and my husband and I have been married for about 12 years now. My husband, Christian. Apart from my day job, I also am the founder and operator of But I’m Strong LLC, which is a personal training company that is geared towards providing sustainable fitness and nutrition guidance for people that are living with neuromuscular diseases like myasthenia gravis.
I was diagnosed in 2003, and my first symptom was the inability to chew. I remember having dinner with my mom and complaining that I think something was wrong with my jaw because I couldn’t chew through my food. I went from kind of like, you know, enjoying my summer and relaxing to being very active. So initially we thought that, you know, maybe it’s just my muscles just trying to get acclimated with the new routine. But I remember one morning getting up for school and I couldn’t physically sit up in bed and my mom sat me up, but immediately I was like a ragdoll, and I kind of fell slumped over to the side. It was a lot for me because I went again from being this very vibrant, active person to being unable to even, you know, get myself up out of bed in the morning. I do remember having at home physical therapist come in and work with me, and I think that was the first time I really understood the importance of just movement.
Ultimately, I ended up working at a company that was fairly close to my home and didn’t require a lot of traveling, just your basic 9 to 5. When I was there, I met Christian, my husband, and Christian was very much into fitness. and he was just really big on just working out, going to the gym and all the good stuff. We’re dating and I want to impress him. So I was just like, yeah, let’s go to the gym together. And I have to say, I almost died the first time I went to the gym with him. But, you know, he was very patient with me, and he kind of guided me through what he knew about working out and exercising. And I quickly realized that while exercising didn’t, I wouldn’t say it cured the MG, but I would say it delayed how sudden my symptoms came on, and even when I was symptomatic, it was not nearly as bad as it was in the past.
After going through this process, I realized that there was something to this working out with myasthenia gravis. And I started just thinking about how I can help others with this information. You know, I started meeting people with this disease and with other neuromuscular diseases. And I realized that there wasn’t a lot of conversation going on about how just simple fitness can help recover your body. And so, I became so passionate about this that I decided to take a leap of faith. And I literally quit my job in corporate America and decided to start my LLC, But I’m Strong.
From there, my goal was really to get as many people as possible to realize that, hey, personal training doesn’t have to be drop down and give me 50. Personal training It could just be someone guiding you through simple movements so that you feel safe and secure. Literally, what Christian did for me, just having someone there to know that, okay, if I do something wrong, someone’s going to call me out on it. Or if I start to feel a little tired, someone’s going to run and give me something to drink.
Personal training doesn’t have to be about, no pain, no gain and pushing to failure. I want it to redefine what personal training looked like, especially for people with neuromuscular diseases like myasthenia gravis. So I really wanted to start my own business and really cater to people That were living with these diseases. And I wanted it to be easy, affordable and sustainable.
For me, you know, brushing my teeth, taking a shower without having to take a break, doing my hair, all of that was signs of strength to me. And so that’s why I named my company “But I’m strong” because despite all that we go through, we still have this hidden strength that I would like to argue to say that even like the world’s greatest bodybuilders don’t have. Right. Because it takes a lot of mental and physical strength to kind of look this disease in the eye and say that, hey, I’m going to try to fight, I’m going to try to do better I am going to invest in myself. I’m going to do things that feel uncomfortable, but I’m going to do it because I do believe it’s going to make me better.
My number one advice to people living with myasthenia gravis, who’s starting any type of fitness or nutrition regimen is to give yourself grace. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Every little bit counts. If it’s just taking a walk for five minutes, it counts. You have to redefine what fitness looks like and what nutrition looks like for yourself.
