Today I’m answering a question that I get asked ALL THE TIME. And I’m answering it for you in two ways! First in a Vlog which you can watch below, and here in this blog. Anddddd the big question is…
Fun facts about how I started my fitness journey
Alright, so as I said above… I get asked this question all the time… And I decided it was time to go wayyyy back beyond my competing years to tell you how I really got started in the fitness industry at all! Usually, when I tell people how or when I got started in fitness, I start with my first competition.
But not today… Today I’m taking you all the way back to when I first started going to the gym, back in Brazil.
Growing up in Brazil I was always very interested in doing sports… but since it wasn’t common for sports to really be played at school, you had to be a part of a club if you wanted to participate. And my mom didn’t really want to pay for me to play sports at different clubs so she stuck me in swimming since the club we were members of already had swimming as an option. 🏊🏽♀️
I ended up swimming for 12 years… and no offense to swimmers… but I hated it! 😡
To this day I’m a bit traumatized… You wouldn’t catch me dead doing laps in a pool 😂.
Back to how I got started in fitness though… When I was 14 I saw women on TV with these powerful strong legs and great bodies and I thought… yeah! I want to look like that. However… 14 and broke I knew I was going to have to figure out some way to pay for the gym.
In order to afford the gym, I had to save my allowance for 1 ½ month to afford 1 month at the gym. So every other month, I could afford to pay my gym membership and I would take the bus to the gym and spend hours there, trying to make sure I got my money’s worth.
From the age of 14, I was taking the bus to the gym, then swimming and then back home. And I think that’s really where it all began for me. I loved having the power and control to change the way I looked.
Not to mention being a rebellious teenager made me want to go to the gym even more… just because my mom didn’t want me to go 😂 (I can’t say I’m looking forward to my kids becoming teenagers!).
Fast forward…
Fast forward to when I was 19, I moved to the US and immediately began putting on weight… I wasn’t eating healthy and I had no schedules or idea of how I should properly be training. I was eating burgers every night and
I’ll never forget the night I was about to bite into a bacon cheeseburger when my friend looked at me and said,
“You’ve been complaining that you can’t fit in your pants… Do you think you should be eating burgers every night?!”
I had been living in denial… I was telling myself that I wasn’t putting on weight… the store was just making smaller and smaller sizes! (Nope ladies. I was gaining weight!)
That night I decided to put the burger down and start focusing on my health and fitness again.
This was all taking place around 2008 and that’s really when I first heard about fitness competitions.
I entered and won my first competition and it all snowballed from there. I won a few more competitions and gained pro status.
Not long after starting my fitness career I was being featured on the covers of magazines and it all started to become a lot more serious.
In 2012 I won the Bikini Olympia and for those of you who don’t know, that is the most prestigious bodybuilding competition in the world.
Winning the Bikini Olympia brought so many opportunities into my life and one thing I realized that I loved was teaching others about leading a healthier lifestyle. I realized very quickly that I didn’t want to train other competitors. Instead, I was passionate about helping everyone start leading a healthier life that they loved.
However, it wasn’t until I became pregnant with my son that I really found my calling.
My jam was helping women who were moms, or who wanted to become moms, get healthy and feel their best! I always say, if it’s not a HELL YEAH then it’s a NO and when I started working with women and moms, it was a HELLLLL YEAH!
Being pregnant and having a fairly large following on social media made me realize that I had a new moral responsibility not only to train safely for my son but also to take care of him and make sure that I was putting his health first… but also to make sure that I was providing the people following me with accurate information.
I always think of it this way… just because you have a vagina doesn’t mean that you are a gynecologist. And in the same way, just because you’ve had a baby, doesn’t make you a pre and postnatal personal trainer. I threw myself into studying everything I could and taking every course known to man to make sure that I was abiding by this new moral responsibility to my baby and my followers.
I talk about this A LOT but becoming a mom completely changed the game for me. Finally, I had found my passion. I get to teach ladies how to eat ice cream with their kids and still find time for a workout, even if it’s making the most out of 15 minutes at home before the kids get up.
All of these experiences have led me to be the trainer that I am today. I went from crazy yo-yo diets and training for HOURS a day to finding a plan that works for busy MOMS, just like me. No more hours in the gym… no more crazy diets… but still getting consistent results!
And I’ve been able to fine-tune these methods and create my own, which has helped over 2,000 women around the world.
Reflecting back on my fitness journey has brought back so many memories! I love sharing what my journey has been like, to inspire your journey, no matter what stage of that you are in!
And if you’ve loved learning a bit more about me and you want to learn more about my methods, then I want to encourage you to join my free class! The 3 Secrets to a Flatter Tummy Post Baby! In this hour-long class, I’ll be teaching you the exact methods that I’ve used to help women around the world. Click here to join.
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