A Little More About Me

My name is Ilona, and I’ve been a certified personal trainer and athlete for over 18 years. I started my fitness journey after the birth of my first child at age 19—but my love for fitness began long before that! When I was just a few years old, I’d do daily workouts to Jane Fonda videos in front of the TV at my aunt’s house in Poland while my mom was at work. It was a daily affair, and I still remember some of the moves! In elementary school, I was obsessed with watching fitness competitions on TV. I wanted to be just like those super fit girls with abs, doing all the flips.

Then in high school, I joined a weightlifting class full of football players—my friend and I were the only girls in the class! On top of those workouts, we also met up at 11 p.m. every night to train at the 24-hour neighborhood Powerhouse gym. Needless to say, I dabbled in fitness and stayed athletic throughout my younger years, but it wasn’t until I gained a lot of weight and experienced postpartum depression that fitness became a necessity.

Long story short, after falling off the wagon for several years, getting pregnant with my son, and gaining about 75 lbs., I became very depressed and hopeless. A series of events—which is a whole other story—led me to pick up the weights again. Since then, I’ve had many ups and downs in my fitness journey. I’ve celebrated victories through training and maintaining a healthy lifestyle: healing from postpartum depression, staying super fit through my second pregnancy, competing in numerous figure competitions, and building a successful fitness business.

But there were also plenty of obstacles and periods of downtime—when I got injured, struggled with body image issues, and suffered from anxiety and panic attacks. I even experienced complete burnout and had to close my business temporarily. There were times I couldn’t step foot inside a gym without having a panic attack; time off was absolutely necessary.

I know that staying fit and healthy doesn’t come in a perfectly packaged box. The journey can get messy. It may bring frustrating moments—even entire seasons where things feel off track. But even then, it's worth pursuing. Every stumble, every fall—even the ones that leave us sore and questioning—are part of the process. What matters most is returning to the path, again and again, with compassion and commitment.

Blessings,

Ilona