Team WILD Welcomes Ginger Vieira to its Powerhouse Team of Diabetes Coaches & Educators

Nov. 3, 2011 - PRLog -- Team WILD, an integrated athletic training system for people with diabetes, is excited to welcome Ginger Vieira, Mental Skills Coach, to its expert roster of coaches, diabetes educators, and sports dietitians. Team WILD is committed to serving people with diabetes who are ready and want to take charge of their health by becoming active and eventually becoming endurance athletes.

The Mission at Team WILD: We Inspire Life with Diabetes,  is to empower people with diabetes to take charge of their health by teaching how to be an athlete first, and a person with diabetes second. Our motto is Set A Goal. Join Our Team. Change Your Life. From diabetic to athlete with diabetes.

Whether a person with diabetes is just starting to add walking into their life, or they’re taking on the challenge of a marathon, Team WILD will absolutely help them reach that goal. “We believe that being an athlete shifts our mental mindset to one of optimal performance of the body, rather than being in a mindset of disease and fear,” says Mari Ruddy, Director of Team WILD, two-time breast-cancer survivor and type 1 diabetic for over 30 years.

Ginger Vieira, the newest addition to the already impressive powerhouse group of coaches and educators at Team WILD, is coming on board with her own unique set of skills and athletic prowess. At 26 years old, she’s lived with type 1 diabetes and Celiac disease for half of her life. After diagnosing herself at age 13 during a 7th grade health fair, Vieira has spent the last decade showing the world and others living with this disease, that anything is possible in life with diabetes.

Team WILD is bringing Vieira to the team to serve as the mental skills coach in both the on-going Team WILD training programs and at the team training camps. Vieira’s teaching and mental skills coaching will be integrated into the training plans. WILD has 12 to 18 week programs in cycling, running, triathlon and walking. Training camps will be held in San Diego, California and in Boulder, Colorado in 2012. For more information about training programs and camps, please visit the Team WILD website.

Despite her disarming giggle and infectious smile, Vieira packs quite a punch with a variety of expertise. In fact, she is already known well in the diabetes online community for her diabetes advocacy and enthusiasm for living a great life with diabetes.

While completing a Bachelor’s of Science in Professional Writing during 2008 in Burlington, Vermont, Vieira attained her certification in both personal training, and Ashtanga yoga instruction. During 2009 and 2010, she set 15 records in drug-tested powerlifting with personal best lifts of a 190-pound bench press, 265-pound squat, and a 308-pound deadlift.

In 2010, she took on David Rock’s Results Coaching Training to be a cognitive coach for people with diabetes, and founded her business, Living In Progress.

“My passion in health coaching lies within supporting people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, and helping people understand that the way we think absolutely impacts the way we take care of our health,” explains Vieira. “More specifically, I help people create room in their lives for exercise, build a healthy relationship with food, and help them get to a place in their diabetes management where they feel empowered by their disease.”

,As Scott, one of Ginger’s clients said about working with her, “I had major revelations about my diabetes management.” We are confident at WILD that our athletes and members will have powerful, transformative experiences working with Ginger.

In January 2011, Vieira published her first book, “Your Diabetes Science Experiment”--a easy-to-understand guide to help people better understand their own insulin sensitivity, how to balance insulin around nutrition and exercise, and how to take on challenges around day-to-day diabetes management. Today, Vieira is also known well in the diabetes online community for her video blogs, often humorous, moving, and poignant. You can find Ginger on YouTube under her name.

“While I was in the hospital during my diagnosis,” says Vieira of her perspective on life with diabetes, “I remember realizing that all of my friends had challenges they faced every day. I decided diabetes was one of my challenges in life. It has never stopped me from accomplishing anything I’ve ever set my mind to. Team WILD encompasses that attitude towards diabetes, and I am so proud to be a part of the team!”

Team WILD is deeply committed to bringing experts of the highest caliber together to educate, empower, inspire, support and teach people with diabetes how to live the happiest, fullest, most healthy lives possible. Toward that goal, Team WILD welcomes Mental Skills Coach, Ginger Vieira to the WILD team!

To learn more about Ginger and Team WILD please visit us on Facebook, Twitter and on our website.

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Team WILD is an integrated endurance sports training system that empowers people with diabetes to see themselves as athletes first.