Transcript: From Morbidly Obese Teenager to Fitness Expert: Domenic Angelino's Story

So you're like really, really smart. What's up

you guys, famous Asha Grant here. Welcome to

More Movement Please, the podcast where I hope

to inspire you to move your body more. Today

I have a voice note for you from Dominic Angelino

and he was on our show recently and I asked him

to come back on because I find his fitness journey

absolutely fascinating and I want to just share

it with you as is and then we'll go from there.

So here's what Dominic had to say. So I actually

grew up morbidly obese and when I was about 14

years old I lost over 130 pounds in a pretty

short period of time. And so when this happened,

all of my friends and like, you know, the other

people around me in high school saw that and

they were like, hmm, you must know a lot about

fitness stuff because like clearly you did a

fitnessy thing that worked. And so they all started

asking me for advice. But, you know, being a

high schooler, I had no idea what the heck I

was doing. So I just Googled a bunch of stuff

and tried to help them as best I could and started

pseudo personal training them. And that eventually

led me to study exercise science in college.

When I was an undergrad, I studied kinesiology

was like the first thing I focused on. But one

thing you kind of had to do when you're earning

that degree was take a few psych classes. And

I found that when I had to take psych classes,

they really worked naturally the way my brain

worked. I was like, you know, I want to take

more psych classes. So I ended up double majoring

in exercise science and psychology, which ended

up working out because when it comes to fitness,

personal training, etc., both like the psychosocial

and physiologic aspects do matter for facilitating

the type of outcomes that, you know, you want

to facilitate when working with people. But after

that, I went to grad school twice. Did kind of

want to cover both by bases. I had a degree in

physiology, master's in physiology, and then

I also did a master's in public health focused

on health communication and health behavior change.

So, again, kind of balancing out things with

the physiology and psych perspective. And, yeah,

I mean, I also went the public health route ultimately

because I found it to be a lot more fulfilling

for me to... have a larger scale impact on a

lot of people at the same time, as opposed to

just working one -on -one with somebody. Like,

I know that, you know, a lot of people start

their fitness career working with individual

clients primarily, like through personal training,

and you can have like a very, very big impact

on somebody's life in a very personal and intimate

way. And that is valuable. But for me personally,

I found that I liked having a less intimate impact

on a much larger number of people. That just

felt very valuable to me. So with the public

health route, I've worked in all areas of the

field. I've worked with research teams. I've

worked with AI -type labs. I've done a lot of

writing, ghostwriting. I've worked with a lot

of YouTubers, influencers, content creators,

all that sort of stuff. I've done research. You

know, just been all over the place. Worked on

like product design, et cetera, et cetera. And

I do like that I'm able to have a positive impact

through a variety of different channels. I mean,

like personally, I do really like that I get

to do different things with my day. I find it

fun, valuable. I get to always like problem solve

and get better. Because there's always this sort

of like diminishing return thing that comes up

when you work in one narrow area over time, right?

You tend to improve less quickly as your skill

sets look more saturated. So one way that I kind

of like sort of that is just by doing a bunch

of different things, you're getting better at

a bunch of niche things, which then allow me

to, you know, translate what I learned and what

I get better at from. one thing like working

on x fitness app to like then working on y fitness

game or whatever it is um and also i find it's

nice right because it gives you a much more uh

nuanced understanding of the industry and all

of its aspects including like that not just like

from the business side and from the like professional

side but from the audience side right like there

are totally different clients and types of people

that rely on benefiting from let's say a certain

type of fitness app that's designed for people

new to fitness as and that's different than the

audience that might be passionately following

a really big fitness youtuber and working in

both those areas you get to understand both types

of people who are you know both real and have

their own unique spaces within the industry and

can be served by the industry in different ways.

So can you believe that Dominic actually started

his fitness journey when he was a teenager? I

mean, how cool is that to, you know, basically

decide at that young of an age that you wanted

to do something in fitness? I have to confess

that it's kind of crazy to me because I didn't

really get serious about fitness until I was

about to turn 41. And, you know, it's not to

say that I didn't move before then, because I

said before on this podcast that whenever I was

in my youth, I was actually really big into dance.

I was a dancer for 12 years. And then after dance,

I was obsessed with all things taekwondo. I think

the reason that I became kind of obsessed with

Taekwondo was twofold. It was first because a

lot of people don't know this, or I think I've

shared it on the podcast before, but I can't

really remember. I was actually bullied quite

a bit in high school and middle school. And that's

actually why I started doing Taekwondo is I had

some mean girls that I was kind of afraid of.

My parents decided to put me in Taekwondo because

they wanted me to be able to defend myself, which

is a sad reason to join something like that.

But it was good for me at the time. And so, you

know, all through grade school, I was pretty

active. And then it seemed to basically come

to a halt whenever I got to college. And I guess

that's somewhat normal. But I regret that I ever

let myself become inactive. Because I feel like

I would have been in much better shape throughout

my life if I had continued on with being active.

And so it did take me a really long time to find

my way back to fitness. And I did have a couple

of, I guess you'd call them bumpy starts trying

to get back into it. I've said before on this

podcast that about like 12 years ago, I tried

doing the... pills and shots and all that crap.

And, and at that time I was also trying to do

like bootcamp and I was trying to do Zumba and

I was trying to do a bunch of different things,

but nothing really stuck. And I know a lot of

that had to do with the fact that I was so out

of shape and so, well, yeah, I'll just say I

was so out of shape that I just had a hard time

committing, but that's not a good excuse. And

so I'm really glad that about a year ago, my

instructor kind of said something to me that

she had said before, but it finally took. And

I'm really grateful that I started putting in

the work because it really has changed my life.

It has changed my life in a way that I never

expected. I never knew I was going to start a

fitness podcast. I was never, I never knew that

I was going to do so much in the fitness space.

I'm grateful to be a contributor to this space.

And so, Dominic, I want to thank you for sending

in your voice note, sharing your journey, because

I find these things absolutely fascinating. I

mean, I don't know about you guys, but I find

learning how people got into fitness just fascinating.

And so I want to hear from you all, too. Head

over to FamousSashaGrant .com backslash fitness.

I would love for you to send me a voice note

sharing your fitness journey, how you got into

fitness. what it is that inspires you to keep

going. If you work in fitness, I want to know

about that. Or if you're just trying to get fit