Hi all, my name is Erika and I work as Customer Experience Manager here at Freeletics, since 2020.
I grew up in Italy where my mom had a very simple rule: every year you have to choose a sport; it doesn’t matter if it is the same every year or if it is always a different one, but every year you need to move, because sport is important for a healthy lifestyle.
She was obviously right and from the age of 2 till the age of 19 I have been super constant with it (at the beginning it was not really my decision, of course, but you get the idea 
). I went to swimming courses till I was 7, then I tried different types of gymnastics and dance until I was 13. Then swimming once again until the end of high school.
As you surely noticed, I had no experience in training at the gym and when I started college in a new city and, later, in a new country, I didn’t really manage to keep my consistency.
I’ve always been quite thin, I was not paying much attention to my nutrition and suddenly after the pandemic I realized I had gained weight. I was 10 kg more than I used to be and to be honest, I didn’t really change my habits straight away, so I kept gaining weight. It was 2020 and I was 28 years old.
In November of that same year I started working here at Freeletics. I kept my life more or less as it was until September 2022. What did happen, you are probably wondering.
Well to be honest the trigger for me was very trivial: we had a great party, I had a lot of fun and the next week I checked out the party pictures. I struggled to accept that the person in the pictures was me. My face and my body had changed so much and I couldn’t cope with that.
At Freeletics we have an amazing team. I’ve always felt everybody here is cheering for you and will help you achieve your goals and I know some colleagues where training together every week but I felt so unfit I didn’t dare to join them. Instead I started training with the app, at home, by myself. At this point I was 16 kg more than I was used to: 74.7 kg.
After 6 months I was feeling way better and I decided it was time to try to join some training sessions in the Office. I have kept training consistently with them (and of course with the App) since then! I lost around 6kg from September 2022 till May 2024. I was now a little less than 69 kg. I was still not paying much attention to the nutrition part, but the movement was already having a great impact. Also my body was reshaping because I was finally building muscles again and I was feeling so much better even psychological. You might know already but it is worth remembering that sport is great for mental health!
While I was going ahead with a bit healthier lifestyle I started seeing more and more colleagues and friends joining the Freeletics Transformation Challenge (former Bootcamp. You can already find some of their stories here on the Forum.) and I started wondering if that could be the right next step for me.
It was not immediate, you need the right mindset to join because consistency is key so you need to be able to commit. I trained 4 times per week, twice by myself and twice with the rest of the group for 5 months. I adapted my diet and changed my mindset a lot. I was keeping track of my progress with photos and videos and the results started showing so fast that I could not believe that was happening for real.
In 5 months I lost almost 10 kg. But not only that! I grow muscles, strength, and resistance. I managed to perform exercises I didn’t even think I could perform. From not being able to do a negative pull up to being able to do 4 consecutive pull ups with the help of a resistance band (and if you think it doesn’t count…try for yourself and you will see!). By the end of the Transformation Challenge I even switched to a less resistant band. I’ve never felt better or more proud of myself.
But the best thing is how my mindset changed because now I look at obstacles in a different way. I’m not afraid of physical exertion anymore. I know now that my body can do amazing things if I give it the right energy to do them.
So as you can see it was not a fast path and it took time to make the right decisions, but it is never too late. I’m now 60kg (before joining the bootcamp I had regained some weight, around 1.5 kg) and a lot more strength and muscle!
Hope my story may be what you needed to hear to start making some steps towards your big goal, you got it!
First picture 2016 - 58kg
Second picture 2021 - 74kg
Third picture 2024 - 60kg
It’s not easy to stay so consistent and disciplined.
