April Sutton

e Cosmopolitan and many more. She wasn't raised in a family household influenced to make healthy choices and stay active however. Even though her parents were very hard workers, they barely had any time to cook. For convenience and budget reasons they relied on highly processed foods and fast food. Things took a toll on her emotionally at and had a breaking point in her late teens. Her mother was diagnosed with skin cancer two times, high blood pressure and had multiple thyroid problems. Her father was diagnosed with high blood pressure and diabetes. Around the same time her uncle passed away due to heart complications. At a young age she realized that she didn't want to live a life around prescription drugs and weekly doctor visits. She took the initiative to invest in a trainer who taught her the importance of eating clean food, how to strength train correctly and how to balance a healthy living. Eventually realizing her passion she pursued a fitness career in downtown Chicago at Robert Morris University and finished with a degree in Fitness and Exercise. She obtained the following certifications such as the National Association of Sports Medicine, Sports Medicine Nutrition Specialist, TRX and the International Kettlebell and Fitness Federation. With an ambitious passion to succeed she worked her way up the corporate ladder at Bally Total Fitness and was devastated when she became laid off. Jumping to different jobs gave her a hard time to get back on her feet. She humbly had to borrow money from clients and peers, was kicked out of her home due to eviction notices and had to live in her car for almost a month until she landed a stable enough job to help her get by. Still during the challenging times she was trying to start up her own personal training business that had a hard time taking off. To fight off depression due to her uncertainty in a continued career in personal training she decided to pursue her second passion in arts. She went to study digital film and production at the Illinois Institute of Art in Chicago. Her studies led her to an internship opportunity at Cinespace, which was a silver lining to her hardships. Divergent was holding a casting call at Cinespace for full-featured extras. She was casted and her physical fitness opened up a door to do stunts for the movie. After filming, she trained for several months with LPB stunts to develop her skill set as a professional stuntwoman. Since Divergent she joined SAG-AFTRA and has 30 plus credits to her name including Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, Chicago Med, Chiraq, The Chicago Project, Supernatural, APB and Empire along with commercials and a few indies. She has trained the following celebrities including Divergent’s Amy Newbold, Empire’s Serayah, Big Fred of Kiss FM and many more. Her next big projects include to open a full gym at Cinespace. She is also producing independent tv/film projects including a new tv series called No Regrets on the Life Creative Network on Comcast and a web series called Working Out With on her Suttonstrong YouTube channel. You can also listen to her new podcast she is developing called The April Sutton show with a purpose to motivate and inspire listeners. April hopes to grow her platform where she can use it to make a difference in her hometown Chicago. She wants her story to inspire others that with a healthy life, a strong work ethic and a positive attitude they can achieve anything.