Written By Marzena Janasik

“Look at the strong kicorki!”* 

My youngest son squealed gleefully as he wrapped his arms around the mid part of my thigh. Lounging together on the couch, his four-year-old hands began to karate chop my leg the way an expert massage therapist would. 

“Super strong kicorki!”* he repeated. I smiled; forever delighted that the Polish slant term I pieced together to describe his chunky baby thighs when he was just months old has solidified itself as our family’s very own, special Polish term of endearment. 

“Mamus does SQUATS!…”** he exclaimed, standing up and moving to the center of the living room carpet, “…like this!” For a four-year-old, he shows surprisingly good form…weight over center foot, hinging at the hips and bending his knees as he lowers his upper body with a straight back. ‘I guess that’s what happens when your mom is a fitness professional,’ I thought to myself as I joined him. Sometimes, when I truly lose myself in the moment of time I am experiencing with a true sense of awareness, I am amazed of where I landed in life. Then I remember that more important than the destination you arrive at is the journey that brought you there.

* kicorki is a made up word created by combining a collection of Polish syllables

**Mamus is Polish for Mommy 

After our set of 10, I scoop him up in my arms and squeeze him as I spin us around and tell him I love him. He is a big part of the joy I found in life, and it is very important to me he knows how special he is to me. It’s very important that I say as such…that I verbalize it, so he clearly knows, and that I tell him I love every chance I have.

This is a bit of a departure from the way I was raised growing up in Poland. I knew my father loved us, although he may have not said it aloud. He showed it in his actions…by just being there. Being a single father of two adolescent girls was no easy task, but he showed up for us every day.  My mother, eager to make a better life for herself, left for America when my sister and I were just kids. Even now, almost 30 years later, I am just starting to truly comprehend the impact her abandonment had on me. 

But back then, as a young teenager in Poland, I loved showing off the hottest style my mom would send us from America. The boys in the neighborhood were always coming by to borrow our NBA basketballs because my sister and I had the best sports gear. Besides, at that time I had better things to focus my time and energy on with a big chunk of my young life being dominated by volleyball. Playing since elementary school, my involvement with volleyball intensified in high school once my team began traveling internationally for competitions. On the court, I could control my situation…unlike my life off the court, and something I realized I could take control of was my image…and my weight.

I began saving every scrap of information I could find on diet and nutrition in a small notebook that I would carry with me everywhere. I would refer to my notebook before eating anything to make sure it was “healthy”, and afterwards, I would log everything I ate to make sure I had control of the amount I was consuming for a day. What started as a healthy drive to better prepare myself for success in a competitive volleyball environment morphed into an obsessive compulsion to control and strictly monitor every calorie that went into my body. 

From there the onset of my eating disorder developed gradually. Each day I would ever so slightly tighten the restriction on how many calories I would allow myself. Every entry I logged into my notebook gave me an additional piece of evidence proving I could survive off the food I was eating. I was creating a story that I would use to convince myself that I was fine. I wasn’t. It got to the point where, for the day, I would space out eating three small apples…150 calories.

I was 17 years old and weighed 42 kilos, or 92 pounds, when my father took me to the hospital. I was hospitalized for months, and my father brought in tutors to make sure I didn’t fall behind in school. I finished the last semester of high school in person after leaving the hospital, but volleyball was finished for me. 

After high school, my mindset regarding food changed from being overly critical of what I ate to not caring at all about what or how much I was eating…and I started to gain weight. Two years after being hospitalized for an eating disorder I almost doubled my weight to 180 lbs. I was unhealthy, unhappy, and depressed…self-conscious of how I looked, hiding my body under oversized clothes, and becoming anti-social to avoid personal interactions. 

Looking back, I realized the unhappiness I was experiencing stemmed from living a life that did not align with my personal values. My desire to change, but in the right way, brought me to fitness. I started taking aerobic classes at my local gym but saw no real change because I continued my poor eating habits. I was scared being overly restrictive with my diet would lead to a relapse of my eating disorder. 

I didn’t see real change until coming to America right before my 21^st birthday and it didn’t happen overnight. My transformation happened gradually as I started increasing my focus on fitness through the small incremental changes. I realized the transformation I was looking for came down to a change in mindset. 

It’s not about the goals you set…it’s about the habits you create. For me, it came down to creating habits that align with a healthy lifestyle, leading to a life that was in line with my personal values. This shift was a huge boost for me to uncover the right balance…finding and cultivating healthy eating habits vs obsessing about tracking a diet.

With the new mindset that came from thinking ‘what would a healthy person do’ came a new way of living my daily life. Again, this was a gradual process…spending a little more time at the gym, taking more aerobic classes, making new friends. Then, I was introduced to Zumba which perfectly combined my love of music and dance with my growing interest in fitness. It wasn’t long before I was certified as a Zumba instructor. From there certifications in TRX, personal training, and group fitness instruction soon followed. 

That was the catalyst of my passion for sharing fitness with others and the genesis of my personal fitness philosophy. I feel incredibly lucky, grateful, and humbled to find the life I currently live. I found a healthy bond and the right balance between diet and exercise and have sustained a healthy body weight since giving birth to my second child. I am a private personal trainer and a Group Fitness Instructor at one of the world’s largest luxury fitness gyms and find fulfillment in my career by sharing my fitness philosophy with others. 

For me, the joy that comes from my career stems from something more than just demonstrating proper form to a class or counting reps for my clients. The satisfaction I derive from my professional life lies in helping people find their own personal limits and teaching them how to appreciate the growth that comes from pushing past them in a safe, balanced way. As opposed to persuading people to become gym rats, I love helping them discover what balance looks like for them and showing them how to build the habits that create their own joyful, sustainable, and health-focused way of life. Fitness is not something you do…it’s something you are. You are a healthy person…now live a life aligned with who you are!