Monica Di Giacomo weighed 320 pounds and no trainer would take her on. Now, after 10 years of work, the Miami woman takes the stage for bodybuilding competition.<\/p>\n
The after photo is the one that gets all the likes, the congratulations, the one where everyone tells her how great she looks.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s the before photo that makes Monica Di Giacomo the proudest.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the woman who at 37 had wanted to kill herself, the woman who felt she was unlovable, the one who at 320 pounds thought she was worthless.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s also the woman who walked into a gym to ask for help. All the trainers said no.<\/p>\n
She was too big. She was too much of a health risk. She would quit soon enough anyway.<\/p>\n
But that was also the woman who didn\u2019t give up.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the woman who kept showing up and found a coach that would change her life in more ways than one. That’s the woman who returned the next day when she was sore and tired.<\/p>\n
That’s the woman who came back again, the woman who didn’t give up.<\/p>\n
In September, 10 years after that photo, she will compete in her first bodybuilding competition. She will walk across the stage of a convention center in Fort Lauderdale in a royal blue sparkly bikini, a spray tan highlighting each muscle. Her husband and friends will cheer for her. And a photographer will capture the moment.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s the Day 1 photo \u2212 the before \u2212 that makes her smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s the reason I\u2019m alive,\u201d Di Giacomo says. \u201cShe did the work. She\u2019s why I\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fitting into a world that celebrates tiny women<\/p>\n
Di Giacomo grew up in Miami in the 1980s in a world that told girls that tiny was better.<\/p>\n
She never was small and struggled to fit into the neon miniskirts and off-the-shoulder tops girls wore at school.<\/p>\n
She read magazines that promised thinner thighs in 30 days, worked out with Jane Fonda on a VHS tape, and tried to find her buns of steel. Like many women, she starved herself.<\/p>\n
And then she binged. (Like many who hid that, too.)<\/p>\n
She found comfort in food when her grandfather killed himself in front of her, when she held her mother as she died of cancer, and later when her decades-long partner never introduced her to his friends. An entire package of Oreos at 2 a.m. made the pain go away, at least temporarily.<\/p>\n
She hid behind black baggy sweatpants and oversize T-shirts and hoodies. Her weight kept going up, in a way she almost didn\u2019t notice.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get to be a size where people don\u2019t see you as a person because you are so big, so fat,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
She felt as if she no longer mattered.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought about suicide. I was so unhappy. I felt so worthless and like I added no value to anything or anyone in my life,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
The 320-pound truth<\/p>\n
On her 37th birthday, Di Giacomo was about to leave her annual physical after a routine blood draw.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cSee you in three months, doc,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cI won\u2019t see you next visit,\u201d she remembers her longtime doctor telling her in the fall of 2015.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you moving?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, you are going to die if you don\u2019t make changes,\u201d her doctor told her.<\/p>\n
Her cholesterol was in the 400s, more than double a healthy range. Her blood pressure was sky high at 155\/110. She was prediabetic. She weighed 320 pounds.<\/p>\n
The statistics weren\u2019t new, but her doctor\u2019s bluntness was.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was when I knew. My doctor told me she was afraid I was going to have a heart attack,\u201d she says. \u201cShe told me that if I didn\u2019t do something, this was it.\u201d<\/p>\n
They discussed a plan. Di Giacomo needed to work with a registered dietician, undergo gastric sleeve weight loss surgery, and change her lifestyle.<\/p>\n
By spring, she had surgery.<\/p>\n
Like any medical intervention such as weight loss drugs or surgery, they won’t work without lifestyle changes. Coupled together, they can be more effective than diet and exercise alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople think oh it\u2019s just have the surgery and you\u2019re good,\u201d she says. \u201cBut that\u2019s not the way it goes. It\u2019s not some magic surgery you have and then everything is fine. You need to change your life.\u201d<\/p>\n
‘Everything I knew about food and dieting was a lie.’<\/p>\n
Di Giacomo walked into to a Miami gym to try to find a trainer.<\/p>\n
Amid the blaring reggaeton and techno music in the background, \u201ceach one said no,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were afraid to work with me. I was this morbidly obese woman with high blood pressure, all the bad conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
She started working out two days a week \u2212 riding a stationary bicycle and walking on a treadmill.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cMy goal wasn\u2019t to look good,\u201d she says. \u201cI just wanted to be alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, she found a coach to take her on.<\/p>\n
She arrived quiet, reserved. She hid not just her body, but her emotions.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe barely said a word,\u201d her coach says. \u201cShe didn\u2019t smile for maybe the first year, until she lost 100 pounds. But she kept showing up.\u201d<\/p>\n
He asked for lab work and created a plan \u2013 from lifting weights to nutrition. It would go against everything that Di Giacomo and women had been taught for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything I knew about food and dieting was a lie,\u201d Di Giacomo says. \u201cI had this perception that \u2018oh you lift weights; you\u2019re going to look like a man.\u2019 \u00a0I thought you needed to eat like a little bird.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now we know that weight loss is more complicated<\/a>; it\u2019s more than eating less and exercising more.<\/p>\n Back then, it felt like her own personal failure.<\/p>\n For decades, women would undereat, still gain weight and blame themselves. Di Giacomo would find out what more women in midlife are now learning: Food could be her friend.<\/p>\n More women are counting macros (protein, carbohydrates and fat) instead of calories. They are learning they shouldn\u2019t skip meals, that overly simplistic calorie deficits<\/a> don\u2019t always lead to weight loss. And, that they certainly aren’t always synonymous with health.<\/p>\n Cardio might lead to an energy expenditure that triggers weight loss, but it won’t make their bodies looked toned. To look like the women they dream of, they have to push like Olympian Ilona Maher<\/a> who squats twice her bodyweight.<\/p>\n So, instead of spending hours on treadmills and elliptical machines, women are lifting weights. Gyms are taking notice, with some reducing their cardio equipment<\/a> by 40% in some locations to make room for more free weights.<\/p>\n Her coach taught her about strength training. Some weeks it was about building muscle. Sometimes building a belief in herself.<\/p>\n The lessons came slowly. Instead of eating a package of Oreos, her coach told her to eat two cookies before bed and put two cookies on her nightstand. If she woke up with cravings, she could eat two.<\/p>\n After a few weeks, there were still two cookies on the nightstand in the morning.<\/p>\n Instead, she learned to eat real food \u2212 and in copious amounts. Several meals a day of chicken or beef, veggies and fats like avocado. All of this also meant becoming friends with women’s biggest foe: carbs.<\/p>\n Most days Di Giacomo eats 147 grams of protein and 321 grams of carbs. She eats around 2,500 calories, a number most women would be afraid of.<\/p>\n Eat more \u2212 not less \u2212 to get lean is what the science says. It’s key to balancing hormones and staving metabolic issues. Protein keeps people fuller and supports fat loss. Carbs fuel workouts and protect lean muscle. Women who aren’t bodybuilders, still often need to eat more.<\/a><\/p>\n Crying at the gym<\/p>\n Still, there were days Di Giacomo would cry through reps.<\/p>\n She doubted herself. She saw the girl in high school who couldn\u2019t fit into the tiny miniskirts. There were days she would leave the gym mad, when she measured everything in pounds lost instead of muscle added.<\/p>\n Her coach reminded her that small progress was progress. It moved her forward.<\/p>\n She kept showing up, through a break up with her partner, through a job loss. It was just her and the barbell, which doesn\u2019t care if you are grumpy or got yelled at during work. It showed her she had the strength to build herself a new life, one she’d been too afraid to deserve.<\/p>\n The time in the gym became the alone time she needed to think, time she looked forward to, time she could see progress. It became as important for her mental health as it was her physical health.<\/p>\n Underneath the Smith machine, she learned to love the person who had always been there, who’d always needed it the most: herself.<\/p>\n There was also something innate to showing up to take care of herself that broke with everything she had been taught. Discipline was the purest form of courage.<\/p>\n Over several years, slowly, she lost 120 pounds and gained muscle. She had her excess skin removed and her stomach tightened. She no longer needed blood pressure medication, diabetes medication or a statin.<\/p>\n She shed the hoodies and more weight. She kept training. And after falling back in love with who she was, with the Monica who was always there, she fell for the person who had stood by her side the entire time, the one who saw something in her that none of the others did.<\/p>\n Her coach. In the summer of 2022, she married Marino Di Giacomo.<\/p>\n