My Journey

Hello, my name is Joe Abadilla and I'm a certified personal fitness trainer.  Why did I become a certified personal fitness trainer?  Well let's go back two years into the past.  In June of 2010, my wife of not even 3 years walked out of my life forever.  I was so devastated to the point that I couldn't do anything.  I couldn't sleep, get out of the house, and even get out of bed.  After a few days, I forced myself to go back to my old routine and added a new healthy outlet, exercising.  This was how I started exercising.

In the summer of 2010, I was an unhealthy 230-pound man.  I had developed diabetes with uncontrollable blood glucose, high blood pressure, and my cholesterol was through the roof.  I was very unhappy with myself so I had to do something.  Roughly a week after my wife separated with me, I started exercising to relieve that negative emotion.  I told myself; somehow I am going to convert this negative energy into a positive one.  So every time I felt lonesome I started jogging.  I guess you can say that was a very unique way of relieving an emotion.

After a few weeks the weight started to come off and that feeling was very empowering.  I was very motivated to the point that I got myself my very first set of dumbbells and a heart rate watch to kick my workout routine up a notch.  I started lifting my dumbbells after work four times a week and jogged three times a week with my heart rate watch.  My weekly weight loss at this point was at one to two pounds a week and my energy level was up as I expected.

My eating habits weren't great at this point.  I'm not going to say that I ate like there is no tomorrow, but it was pretty unhealthy.  I could eat a whole loaf of French bread and could drink a whole liter of regular soda in just one sitting.  I had to do something or else my weight loss could suffer and not be permanent.  I've read online that five to six small balanced meals a day will boost your metabolism, so I tried it and it worked.  My metabolism went up, my weight loss per week was at two to four pounds, and my energy level during workouts skyrocketed.  

My doctor had not seen me for a while.  He had no idea that I had lost so much weight.  When It was time for my appointment, if I remember correctly, he did a double take and at the same time his jaw dropped and said, "Seriously!?"  His reaction just made my day.  He even called in some of his colleagues to show me off.  After a few days of my diabetes routine checkup my results came in, all of my numbers were in the normal range especially my blood glucose.  It was so perfect that my doctor took me off insulin for good.  No more injecting myself twice a day! That was a huge accomplishment. 

Let's go back to that question in the first paragraph, "Why did I become a certified personal fitness trainer?"  In the beginning, I had no intentions of becoming a trainer.  It only crossed my mind after I had lost the weight and after someone mentioned that I should be a personal trainer.  After much research, I decided to do it.  I enrolled in National Exercise  & Sports Trainers Association Personal Fitness Trainer (NESTA -PFT) program and after a few short months I took the test and passed it.  As of August 2012, I'm a certified personal fitness trainer and loving it.  Now my next step is to motivate and help people reach their goals by teaching techniques that I learned professionally at NESTA and personally from my own experience.

As you have read, my healthy lifestyle started after an unfortunate event.  Somehow I saw an opportunity to begin a new life, a better life.  I managed to lose all of my weight, changed my lifestyle, got off of insulin, became a certified personal fitness trainer, and am now happy again after my worst nightmare came true.  That having been said, I know it's a cliché, but if I can do it, you most definitely can do it too!

Thank You.