Growing up, Ava Biesterfeld had a plan for exactly what she wanted to do...
after finishing high school: she was going to take her gymnastics career as far as she possibly could, and pursue a pre-medical degree that would allow her to eventually become a doctor. But life had other plans - a stress fracture in Ava’s lumbar spine followed by a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes (T1D) brought her gymnastics career, something she had been training diligently for since the age of 5, to a screeching halt. After taking her doctors’ advice to leave gymnastics, she decided to turn her focus to school sports, dabbling in tennis, volleyball, basketball, and track and field before deciding to pursue volleyball exclusively in high school.
While Ava was thrilled to have a new sports outlet to occupy her spare time, another unexpected challenge began competing for her attention: managing her blood sugars. She found herself falling asleep in class and after lunch often, and as a result, her grades began to slip and her aspirations of eventually becoming a surgeon faded away. “At the time, I was eating a standard American diet…lots of convenience foods and processed foods,” Ava recalled. “Then during my junior year of high school, I started playing around with my diet. It was much more balanced, I was eating lots of quinoa, salmon, and fruits and veggies. Suddenly, things got much better and that really excited me; it was the first time I felt like I had an avenue to gain control and focus in my classes.”
Ava began to lean into her nutrition and experiment more with her diet under the guidance of her doctors. They recommended that she try a very strict low carbohydrate approach, which helped to significantly lower her A1C (glycated hemoglobin), or average blood glucose levels over time. Utilizing her nutrition to gain control of her life and feel healthy again brought Ava an excitement she had not experienced in a long time, and is ultimately what led her to pursue dietetics as a career. “I got excited about my future as a professional again,” she said.
“Dietetics gives a very holistic approach to nutrition,” she explained....
“Dietitians don’t just study how nutrition affects our bodies, they study how it affects us on a societal level.” This is done through three main pillars: food service, clinical nutrition, and community. Within these three pillars, dietitians can hold a wide variety of roles in many different settings such as clinics, restaurants, cafeterias, and food banks, where people can be reached and helped on a large scale.
And so, Ava began to forge a new career path: after high school, she would stay in her hometown of St. Louis, MO to begin the dietetics program at Fontbonne University while playing volleyball for the small D3 school. But the challenge of managing her T1D persisted, and she ultimately decided to forego playing volleyball to focus on her health and education. As she dove into her dietetics program, she began to realize that her initial approach to her diet might have been “a little unhealthy.” “I was heavily influenced by my doctors and social media influencers who advocated for the strict low carb diet I was on, but I was still so insulin resistant. I thought ‘if I’m going to be a scholar and a high performing athlete, I need to shift this approach a little bit,” she said. So, Ava transitioned to a plant-based diet and began using a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) that was integrated with her insulin pump, also known as a “closed-loop system,” which slowly helped her regain control over her blood sugars again.
She credits the CGM with being “the key to unlocking her diabetes management; it’s a life-saving medical tool and also a life-enhancing medical tool.”
Yet, she still lacked confidence in her ability to finish her degree program until her sophomore year, when she stepped foot into an Olympic weightlifting gym for the first time.
“Weightlifting gave me my confidence back...
because I saw myself do something new and challenging. It completely changed my mindset because I had an outlet to push myself, then that spilled over into my education so from then until now I have been all in on finishing my education and becoming a Registered Dietitian,” said Ava. Since that first session in the gym back in the Fall of 2021, Ava has competed on a national platform multiple times, including the Arnold Classic in 2023 where she earned her first medals. She recently competed internationally for the first time in her weightlifting career in Colombia, where she brought home a first place finish. Now, Ava is setting her sights high, aiming to earn a spot on a senior international team, make Team USA, and qualify for Worlds in Norway later this year.
Between her weightlifting aspirations and her education, 2025 is set to be a big year for Ava. She is currently completing a three-part internship as one of the final requirements for her degree program, mirroring dietetics’ three-pillar approach to nutrition: first she will spend time working under a food service director for a school district, then she will transition to a clinical setting followed by several community-based initiatives. She is also working to offer sports performance nutrition services at her current gym, especially for those interested in plant-based diets, and will transition to that full time once she has earned both her bachelors and masters degrees in Dietetics this August. But, her ultimate goal is to offer nutrition counseling to clients with T1D, drawing from both her own personal experiences and her education to make an impact on those who are struggling to navigate diabetes management.
“For me, the most impactful part of my journey was the idea that I needed to put diabetes before anything else because if I didn’t, it would control what I was able to do.
Putting diabetes first helped me be able to live more limitless, which is the key to being successful in the different areas of your life.
You may need to restructure your management before leaning into your education or sports performance, but in the end you will be far less limited by your diabetes. Just remind yourself that it is going to be hard but it is possible and it will be worth it.”
Quick Facts About Ava:
HOMETOWN: St. Louis, MO
FAVORITE HOBBIES: weightlifting, cooking, spending time with family, writing, making social media content, reading health-related books
FAVORITE PLANT-BASED MEALS/SNACKS: chili, air-fried extra-firm tofu, Medjool dates with melted chocolate and sea salt, Be Amazing vegan birthday cake protein
WHAT SHE’S MOST PROUD OF: her overall commitment to her health throughout being a college student and high-performing/elite athlete
MEMORABLE WEIGHTLIFTING MOMENT: taking out the USAW banner hanging behind her during the jerk of her third clean and jerk attempt at Nationals in Colorado in 2023; “that showed me that it was okay to just be a clown sometimes and not take myself super seriously, I can make mistakes and people will still cheer me on”
Written by Kaycee Glattke
Kaycee is a dual-discipline engineer with a passion for sports science and educating athletes. She earned her BS in mechanical engineering with a minor in biomechanics from the University of Florida and her MS & PhD in biomedical engineering from Arizona State University. She has experience working with athletes of all ages and levels in both a clinical and research setting from her pre- and post-doctoral training in Sports Medicine at Mayo Clinic Arizona.
She is currently the Chief Research and Development Officer of Visven, LLC, an Arizona-based start-up that lays claim to the most accurate markerless single-camera motion analysis system for injury prevention, rehabilitation, and sports performance. She is also a coach and personal trainer at Legacy Gym in Milwaukee, WI. When she's not trying to develop the next big thing in biomechanics, you can usually find Kaycee lifting, climbing, baking, or hanging out with her dog, Gibson.
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