All About Me — Remi Ishizuka

Hiii, it’s me, Remi!

Today, I want to take a minute to tell you all about ME! This post is going to give you some of the behind-the-scenes details of my story and how I came to be a blogger/IGer/health coach!

My story took a lot of unexpected turns and looking back — certain chapters of my life had to close so the next chapter could start — even if that means hitting lowest low in my career. Now I can say  I’m grateful for all of the experiences because they led me to where I am today.

I hope that by sharing my story, I can peel back layers to show you who I really am. And for those of you who are new here, I hope to give you some insight into how I got started! Wherever you are in your journey, trust the process and keep chipping away at your goals. I wholeheartedly believe, the universe wants you to succeed and everything happens for a reason.

If any part of my story resonates with you, please share that with me! Find me on @rrayyme. I always love hearing from you. So don’t hesitate to reach out and tell me what your biggest takeaways from this post were! Now let’s get started! <3

Growing Up I Wasn’t the Healthiest… 

I’ve never been the athletic type. At school during PE or sports games, I was rarely ever called to the courts to play. I was never the competitive type by nature and would much rather do something creative with my hands like paint or draw. I was (and still am) very uncoordinated.

Growing up — especially in my teen years — I had a really hard time putting on weight. It didn’t matter how much I ate — my metabolism worked at 100 mph, and I was always self-conscious about the way my legs and arms looked. People would always make fun of me for being anorexic when I wasn’t, and it made me super uncomfortable with my body. 

On Sunday mornings, my mom would wake me up to go to the gym together. It was a weekly ritual of ours to take a fitness class together and work out. You know how every teen girl has their girl crush? Mine at the time was Jessica Alba in the movie, Honey. I loved how toned and athletic her body was, and I even had a magazine cut out of the movie poster on my bedroom wall. 

Eating healthy Japanese food was the norm growing up. My mom was always buying organic produce, making bone broth and fresh-squeezed juices, and going to the farmers’ market, but I never appreciated it until I was much older. All I wanted to do was binge eat chips, Cup of Noodles, hot Cheetos, pizza, Coke, and burgers — everything I wasn’t allowed to have under my parents’ watch. I was so jealous of the kids who had a pantry full of snacks growing up. That was def not the case in my household.

My College Experience

When I got to college at UC Irvine and lived an hour away from home, I was totally free from my parents’ restrictions — I ate whatever I wanted. The cafeteria was stocked with unhealthy choices that I naturally gravitated towards because they were things I never could have. I ate like crap, and I gained the freshman 20, but I was actually quite proud of it. 

During college, going to the gym felt like a chore. I’d roll in after partying all night around 2 PM, stretch, talk with my girlfriend for most of the time, and jog around the track a few times. I was mindlessly just getting it done to get it done. At my peak, I went once every 2 weeks.

I got all the partying out of my system in college. I lived in a house with 4 other guys, and it was the party house. Beer pong and drinking games every night and going to sleep at 5 AM was the norm. During my junior year, I studied abroad in Tokyo and had the time of my life — clubbing every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, ditching class, drinking between classes, and staying up all night at Izakayas during the week.

My First Job!!

Straight out of college, I got a job working for Tadashi Shoji. My mom was his right-hand man and designer there back in the days before she got pregnant with me. They were really close, and he became a close family friend. He offered me a job as his executive assistant, and I immediately took it with gratitude. I was excited to start a real office job and settle down.

As I acquainted myself with the company, he started tasking me with more and more — throwing me into situations that had no real structure and leaving me to figure out what to do. I was managing women older than me at the retail stores as their district manager (yes, he sprung this role on me shortly after starting), and they did not listen to or respect me as someone fresh out of college with no experience. I was in charge of keeping them motivated to sell and get sales UP. Additionally, as district manager, they came to me with their HR issues. There was a lot of drama that I had to handle, and it was very stressful.

On top of that, Tadashi asked me to start doing the retail store windows every season. So, I hand-made window displays and hung them up behind the mannequins, as if being an executive assistant and district manager wasn’t enough :) I took it on with gratitude though because it meant I got to do something creative. I was being pulled in so many different directions at this point (he also had me doing social media, marketing, and jewelry buying) so stress was making me frail and thin, and I just looked sunken in and pale all the time. I was back to feeling like I did growing up — unhealthily thin.

I hit rock bottom after working there for three years and wearing several different hats while not being acknowledged for any of my efforts. I would get yelled at in front of all the employees for things falling through the cracks, and nothing I did was right. I felt like I was being shoved into the corner of the room and eventually out of the company. After spending every lunch period crying in the bathroom and being approached by HR to be demoted from my positions to customer service, I quit. I didn’t have a plan, and I didn’t know what was next, but when I left that parking garage, I felt a HUGE weight lifted off my shoulders. I was fully empowered by my decision to leave.

What Would I Do Next?

During this period, I was in the dark about what to do next. I took about a year off, lived with my parents to save money, and lived off $12 a day. I was good at creating excel sheets and budgeting from my previous job, so I made a budget sheet and even saved enough money to go to the movies at the end of the week. Less money spent during the week = more money to spend with friends on the weekend. 

I spent my days reading and helping out my dad at work. He owns an import-export company for artificial flowers, and I helped him upload new pictures to his website and do other admin work, including creating excel sheets to help him be better organized. In all transparency, they did not support me financially at all except free rent — which was a huge help. I didn’t worry too much about my next steps though — I just trusted the process and knew the right opportunity would come to me one day, and it did.

I had just finished reading The Alchemist, and in that moment, I realized my calling in interior design. Ever since I was a kid, I’d had my nose deep into interior design books at libraries every day after school and loved rearranging my parents’ furniture. They would leave the house for a few hours and come back to a completely different theme or arrangement from me getting creative with what they had. I remembered how much I loved interior design, and in that moment I decided to pursue it. 

I searched on Craigslist for job openings in interior design firms. I had zero experience, so I knew I had to just get my foot in the door and work my way up. That’s when I interviewed for a design build firm for hospitality projects in Los Angeles and got the job as office manager. I also enrolled in night school at Santa Monica College to get my degree in interior architecture. I worked from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM and went to school from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM. I went from being unemployed to busy again, but I was happy to find my calling. I gave both work and school my all.

My Second Job!! (and the Beginning of My Career!)

I LOVED my job. My boss, Kris, was the coolest boss (huge change from first job), and the office vibes were like a NYC loft. Plus, everyone was very laid back.

I was happy, but after two years, I felt a little too comfortable. I lived paycheck to paycheck, and I admired people who were able to make enough to have a savings account and not live month to month. This made me wonder what my next step would be. Would I eventually finish my degree, become an architect, and make more money? The path to getting there seemed so far away, and the work I was doing as an office manager at the moment was far from creative.

Then one day, my story took a turn that I wasn’t expecting. My coworker showed me Kayla Itsines’ Bikini Body Guide that she and her roommate tried to get into. At the time, I was doing a mix of hot yoga and heavy lifting at the gym on my own. I was interested in this guide because I was getting bored of my routine. I was also 100% inspired after seeing the transformations of the women who finished the guide on Kayla’s Instagram. You guys know ;)

But I knew there was more to it, and this time around I wanted to do it right. I wanted to eat healthy AND workout. I knew that if I did the guide but still ate like shit (pardon my language), I wouldn’t feel any better. I had to change my ENTIRE lifestyle and mentality, and start cooking, eating more greens, drinking plenty of water, and experimenting with new recipes, etc. This was all very new to me at the time.

I committed to a healthier lifestyle that day and jumped in right away. For me, that meant starting off the day with a homemade breakfast bowl. My motto on my bio at the time was "bowls + buns" — do you remember that? Ha! Buns for my bunny (not my butt), so now you know :P

My breakfast bowls ranged from yogurt parfaits, 50 different flavored oatmeals, açai bowls, green bowls, chia puddings, etc. I made it a point to make a different bowl each morning because I didn’t want to bore you guys following me. JK — not really — but it was also just FUN. I looked forward to breakfast every night, and it was the first time I spent that much time in the kitchen… ever. I also remember apologizing to my friends who were following me because all of a sudden — with no warning — I went from silent to “HEY, I POST PRETTY BOWLS NOW, HOPE YOU ENJOY!” ;P

It was my way of funneling my creativity, and I wanted to share my discoveries with my friends. And before I knew it, I was inspiring many of my friends to make breakfast bowls (muahaha), and it made me so happy when I would get snaps or texts of bowl ingredients or final masterpiece creations. Literally #daymade.

Finally Being ME and Getting HEALTHY!!

Finally, I was the most productive I'd ever been, and it felt incredible. I was doing something that was 100% ME. I actually looked forward to waking up at 6:00 AM, getting my BBG workout in, showering, making my breakfast bowl, shooting it downstairs in my lobby — at that time — on a concrete bench (I miss that bench lol), and uploading it to my IG with the recipe — all before going into work at 9:00 AM.

Three or four weeks after this lifestyle change and healthy bowl obsession, I felt like a completely different person. Who was this new Remi!? Cooking in the kitchen, buying fresh produce, inspiring my friends to eat healthy, trying Kayla’s workout guide, and buying bowls and spoons as props for photos?? I was having so much fun and no one was gonna stop me :P

Soon after, something I never ever expected happened...brands started to approach me. They wanted to support what I was creating, and I was very grateful for it! I remember my first free product was organic mushroom powder. I couldn't believe that I got to try something new in my recipe and test it out for free!

I worked with a lot of vegan protein powders, açai packs, pitaya packs, granola, bowl toppings, and more. Any brand that aligned with what I was creating, I was into trying. It was crazy humbling to partner with brands I would see and love in the aisles of Whole Foods. It motivated me to be super creative and keep making recipes that were both delicious and beautiful.

12 weeks later, I finished the Bikini Body Guide without skipping a single workout! To clarify, that was all that I did. I didn’t add in any additional workouts! BBG is really high intensity, so I couldn’t imagine adding anything on top of it at the time. I noticed a huge difference in my body when I put my “then” and “now” photos side by side. I had abs, arm muscles, I could do 15 pushups in a row(?!), and I felt so strong! Anyone who’s been through a transformation can relate, but it’s such an amazing feeling to accomplish something like this for yourself.

It took a lot of nerve for me to post my transformation photo, but I wanted to share it. Sure, it might scare away some people since a majority knew me for colorful fruit bowls, but hey, I put 12 weeks of sweat into it. And lastly, I thought if I could do it, anyone could.

The next morning, Kayla Itsines re-posted my transformation photo on her page. I was so shocked! I remember answering every single question that came in through comments, DMs, messages, and emails.

I wanted to connect with my new followers and say “Hi,” so I posted a pic of my workout schedule for the past 12 weeks. I wanted everyone to know that if you stay dedicated and put your health first, anyone can and will look and feel their best!

Becoming a Health Coach and My Big Brand Deal!!

After some thought, I decided to incorporate more fitness & overall healthy lifestyle tips in addition to my recipes on my Instagram. After all, it was a lifestyle, not just healthy eating! I started incorporating more quotes, recipes, workout routines, and beauty content (bc self-care is important and part of overall wellness, too) in hopes that what I put out there, would help people jump-start or continue their health journey.

A couple of months later —I remember I was getting on the treadmill after work — I got an intro email from Adidas. I jumped off and covered my mouth in shock because I couldn't believe what I just saw. A huge brand like Adidas wanted to support me for the year in my journey?! Was this real life? It felt surreal — this "blog & Instagram gig" I started on the side for fun was turning into something more than I could have ever imagined. I still get goosebumps thinking about it! 

Around this point, I started transitioning out of my job at Spacecraft because my Instagram and blog were becoming more and more time-consuming. The few hours before work and weekend days were not enough. Between my growing IG projects, interior design school, and working nine-five, I was spreading myself too thin. In January 2016, I decided that I needed to choose one over the other in order to dedicate all my time and energy into something I was really passionate about. That’s officially when I chose to pursue my IG/blog opportunities, become a health coach, and continue sharing my healthy lifestyle journey!

Where I Am Today (and Launching Hōmebodies!!)

What a journey, right?! I definitely did not expect some of those twists and turns. From getting my first job to stumbling upon my amazing career through posting pictures of beautiful breakfast bowls, I could never have imagined I would end up here! But here I am, and I am SO GRATEFUL every day. I don't think it could ever get old to wake up and do what you love. 

Of course, I couldn’t have done any of this without all of you out there reading this. Without you guys and all your love and support, I wouldn’t be here.

I have loved creating this blog and continuing to post on Instagram, and my mission has always been and will always be to inspire you and push you to be your happiest and best self.

The last 2 years of being a content creator, it’s always been on the back of my mind to do something outside of Instagram . I wanted to create something more impactful — I just wasn’t sure what that was.

Creating Hōmebodies (you can read the whole story here) was another one of those — did not expect this to happen — type of situations. Nate and I didn’t plan on creating Hōmebodies this year — our subscription-based workout program — it just happened through our passion for daily sweat and connecting with you all every single day during lockdowns. We saw there was a need for one hour of destressing during a very uncertain time, so we showed up no matter what and we are so grateful for the community we built out of it. 

Now I am so passionate about this program!! We are building Hōmebodies as we go, filming one new workout every single day — for an entire year. We’ve recently started incorporating pop-up live workouts and the energy that we get from the community makes me SO HAPPY. We are high from it for days and we can’t wait for the next. 

Looking Back… 

Coming full circle, I look back at these past couple of years and frequently pinch myself. Had I stayed at my very first job and taken the demotion because i was scared to not know what was next, I would have gone down a very different path. 

Our intuitions know — and if we follow our passions and put in the work, day in and day out — we will be successful and the universe will support us. Sorry if this sounds a little woo woo, but I do believe this 100 %. You have to believe you deserve it #1, you have to be consistent #2, and you have to trust the process #3. 

You can start guiding your own journey now. Don’t downplay anything that you love to do — know the things that light you up make you unique! Make yourself and your happiness a priority every day, and you’ll be able to look back and be thankful that you did —no matter what.

Thank you so SO much for joining me today! If you’ve read this far, congratulations haha! I hope you enjoyed hearing a little more about my story~

Until next time — LOVE YOU MUCH!!!