My personal story of the ups and downs associated with working a stressful nightshift position while training for multiple fitness shows & becoming an a Fitness Model.

Dear Nurses,

My name is Lauren D Kagan and I wanted to share my personal struggles & success story of becoming a professional fitness model all while working a stressful night shift nursing job. Both my peers & personal training clients have asked me countless times how I did it, how I dealt with all the struggles related to working as a nurse, while working night shift, while having a “life” or being a spouse or etc. How did I find the time to work out, how did I keep my diet on point, how did I deal with stress at work or unhealthy temptations? Well, here is how I did it – and I hope many of you can relate to my own experiences.

I have been a registered nurse for almost 9 years now. I have been in healthcare since I was 15 years old working as a secretary, a telemetry technician, a CNA, and eventually I graduated with my BSN in nursing. When I turned 21, I started working as a RN on a medical/surgical telemetry floor and fell in love with Cardiology. I went on to work on a cardiac step-down unit learning some very advanced cardiac technology and skills such as how to manage patients with L-VAD (left ventricular assisted device that does the heart pumping even if the patient is in a V-fib electrical rhythm). I cared for cardiac/cardiothoracic surgery patients for about 7 years when I decided to expand my knowledge and skillset to the RN Float position. I am ACLS/AED certified and have been for 8 of my 9 years of nursing. I have worked every shift: days, evenings and eventually settled for nights. I have worked as a charge nurse on all the units I’ve worked on including when I floated. I wanted to share my story of how my nursing career led to a lot of stress in my life and how I decided to overcome it. I wanted to improve my physical health, my energy levels, aesthetics and overall happiness. (more…)