A Fitness Journey: Kelly Bonatsakis
We’re proud to bring you your next post in our Ambassador Spotlight series from Cupcake Kelly’s blogger, Kelly Bonatsakis. Read more to learn about her fitness journey.
Hi everyone! My name is Kelly; I am 30 years old, a wife, a 
stay-at-home-mom, and a lover of all things fitness. I haven’t always been super active and into fitness, but once I started planning my wedding I started making fitness a priority and haven’t looked back.
I used to spend the majority of my time in the gym, working with trainers, weights and machines. Slowly my interest switched to running. I started doing a lot of track workouts and eventually bit the bullet and started entering into races. I started with 5K’s because there was no way I was ever going to be able to run more than that.
Then I found out I was pregnant with my son. This led to constant exhaustion and the never-ending “morning” sickness. I was losing weight because I couldn’t eat or keep anything down, so I stopped working out, let my gym membership expire, and I felt like I deserved the break. But once my son was born and I was cleared to work out again, I felt zero motivation. I hadn’t worked out in so long, and I felt like it would be too hard, but I knew that I needed to get back into it.
It was a long process back to my pre-pregnancy self. Instead of getting overwhelmed and frustrated, I decided to do the irrational thing and sign up for a half-marathon with Team In Training (TNT). I signed up for six months of training and I ended up running not one, but TWO half-marathons during this time, one as a training run, and the race I was training for the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in San Francisco. I felt extremely proud and accomplished.
As I was starting to accomplish goals and set new ones and getting into the best shape of my life, I went through a series of hard events, including a miscarriage, that side tracked all of my progress.
Unfortunately I associated a lot of my grief with my gym and it made it hard for me to return. To take a break from the gym, I started going to classes at local studios, including barre, pound fit, yoga, pilates, poise, zumba, etc. I tried everything that could fit into my schedule. These classes really helped me fall back in love with fitness.
In November I found out I was pregnant and put on bed rest. I had vowed to not push fitness aside when I was able to get pregnant again so the bed rest was unfortunate, but necessary. The most I was allowed to do was grocery shop, and even then I had to ask for help with bags and lifting. Finally, at the end of my first trimester I was cleared to work out again, but limited to low impact exercises. I knew that I needed to work out, and get back into a routine. At first I started doing easy yoga videos at home, and then I attended my first studio class, a barre class, and it was so humbling. I am a proud 100-club member at my local Pure Barre, and I felt like I had lost all technique during my period of rest. I know that I can get the majority back and the muscle memory will help, buy boy was that first class humbling.
While I know that plenty of people are able to run far into pregnancy, and sometimes even the day they give birth, all of our journeys are unique and we have to do what’s best for our bodies and babies. For me that means no running, but lots of yoga and barre! I can’t wait to start introducing more workouts into my weekly routine!
To keep up with Kelly on her pregnancy journey in the next few months, check out her blog at Cupcake Kellys or follow her @cupcakekellys on Instagram and Twitter!
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