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Meet Mary Frances Foran of Manicured Meatheads

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Mary Frances Foran.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Alright, I’m going to take you way back…by all intents & purposes, everything about my childhood seemed normal. I was raised in the beautiful little mountain town of Woodland Park, Colorado, my dad worked hard, always as an entrepreneur of some sort to provide a good living for us. My mom worked part-time at the local grocer while she raised my brother & I. He & I were always involved in sports and/or extracurricular activities & for the most part maintained good grades. We weren’t well to do by any means but we certainly never went without. That’s the funny thing about being on the outside looking in though, it’s never exactly what it seems. Looking back, I had a pretty good childhood, it is filled with many fond memories but like anything, its also filled with not so fond memories as well. In reality, it was littered with drug & alcohol abuse as well as many, many bouts of domestic violence.

I often joke now, simply because I’ve had an appropriate amount of therapy, that I grew up on an episode of Cops. Week after week after week, the police were at my house responding to some sort of domestic disturbance, my dad always at the center of controversy with his cut off jean shorts, his signature curly mullet, no shirt on & a Budweiser in hand. He was a hot head who would lose his temper at the drop of a hat & when he drank, it only got worse. My mom & brother took the brunt of the physical abuse, thankfully he never laid a hand on me but having to watch your mom get dragged down the stairs by her hair or your brother get beaten so badly he couldn’t go to school for days at a time, was just as bad.

My mom finally found the courage to leave one day. She packed up our suburban while he was at work & we left, just like that. I’ll never forget how terrified she was, but she put on a brave face & followed through unlike so many times before. She & I spent the next year or so living at a women’s shelter for abused & battered women while we picked up the pieces & figured out how to move forward. & move forward we did, there was really no other option. I’d venture to say that my teenage years were my most “typical” or uneventful, after a few years of divorce proceedings & custody battles, new chapters were finally being written & there weren’t a whole lot of waves. My mom got remarried & though my dad never did, he did have another child, which is something that has played a very significant role in who I am today.

Fast forward to the start of my 20’s; two major life events happened within a relatively short time of one another. The first, my little sister’s mom lost her battle with cancer. Brianna was nine at the time & had only ever known living with her mom. My dad was her next of kin so the only option was to uproot her from Colorado & move her down to Phoenix where he was currently living. I too was in Phoenix. The second event I mentioned above happened a few months later, what felt like four minutes after turning 21, I got a DUI & not just any DUI because that would have been too easy, nope, I got into a car accident at the same time. No one was hurt thank goodness but obviously, there was some damage done, literally & figuratively. At the time I was a full-time college student & working as a technician at an optometrist office making about $11/hour which wasn’t going to cover the some odd $30,000 in fines & fees that I had just racked up overnight. My solution? Go to where the money was which meant I applied to be a waitress at a strip club where I was not only hired but spent the next six years working. Yes, I have stories for days & I will probably write a book about it someday but I won’t get into those details here.

Working there was actually a bigger blessing that I could have ever imagined at the tome. For one it quickly paid for all of my court fines & fees as well as the rest of my undergrad degree in a fairly short amount of time. But more importantly, it allowed me to be way more present for my little sister who was in desperate need of a mother figure, a role that regardless of if either one of us wanted or not, I was fulfilling. My dad had refused to get her any help, i.e., grievance counseling or therapy claiming that she would be fine (he’d always had the ‘rub some dirt on it’ mentality) but without her mom, she began spiraling into a deep & dark depression which included no less than three suicide attempts & countless stints in the ICU as well as behavioral clinics all over AZ. So outside of work & school I spent the next five years fighting for custody of her because if this wasn’t clear before, my dad was unfit to be a parent. Sounds weird, I know, living with them while also trying to get custody of her, it was certainly a delicate balance like I was living behind enemy lines or something but it was the best option at the time. CPS was overworked & underpaid so our case kept getting overlooked; we lived in Scottsdale which meant she had a roof over her head, clothes on her body & food on her plate and that was good enough for them.

It was in this season of my life that I found CrossFit, something I desperately needed in order to work off some major stress. When I realized the positive benefits it had on my mood/situation, I knew without hesitation that I wanted to be able to provide that same type of space/feeling for other people one day.

After what felt like a never ending cycle, CPS finally ended up taking full custody of my sister away from my dad she was made a ward of the state which was a very good thing for us. I, thankfully, quit working at the strip club and went on to graduate from ASU with my Bachelors Degree in Exercise & Wellness & in 2015, I opened up a Crossfit gym where I got to see my vision of having a space where people could converge & work on themselves & their stresses come to life. I very recently sold my stake in the company & am moving onto my next venture within the health & wellness space.

In conclusion, I grew up with a mom who was beaten regularly, right in front of my face & she still suffers the consequences of those actions to this day. I then put myself in a situation where I was surrounded by 100’s of females day in & day out who not only had body image issues but also had absolutely no self-worth & would let a countless number of men take advantage of them in order to earn a couple of dollars. Top it off with watching my sister grow up the way she did… Because of the trajectory of my life, a huge passion project for me now is utilizing the platform I have & empowering women as much as I possibly can. Finding my physical strength through Crossfit really helped me find strength in other areas of my life as well & I want nothing more than to be able to bestow that onto other women who are struggling like I was. That’s the basic idea behind Manicured Meatheads.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Absolutely not, there has been a lot of failing forward if you will & a lot of self-discovery within that; not just about the things I like & dislike but also figuring out what I can & cannot handle…I wrote about this in my novella from the above question, but getting a DUI at the ripe old age of 21 & the work I chose into after that were not easy situations to navigate. Having to take care of my baby sister when I felt like I was still a baby was another huge struggle. Starting a business from the ground up with two individuals whose personalities varied greatly from mine was an everyday struggle. Work-life balance is also currently a struggle.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with CrossFit North Phoenix + Manicured Meatheads – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
I’ve had the absolute pleasure of helping people better their lives through fitness & community! I specialize in group fitness & high intensity interval training. Basically, I teach people how to move functionally well so they can be the best them that they can be inside & outside of the gym. Being able to say that I help improve people’s lives is pretty neat. We only have one body & it’s only going to treat us as well as we treat it. In turn, it’s important to learn how to make it last as long as possible so you can be as healthy as possible throughout that time.

What’s your outlook for the industry in our city?
According to our census data, Phoenix is home to over 1.6 million people & in my experience, it’s very culturally diverse so I would 1000% recommend if you have an idea for a health and wellness based business, starting it here gives you an opportunity to be very fruitful. I think we all know someone who is looking to improve that area of their life so the business model, in my opinion, is always going to be in demand.

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
Kinsey Ball, Elizabeth Marie, Preslie Hirsch, Rebecca Sasnett, Bree Cota

Getting in touch: VoyagePhoenix is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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