About ANA
“Take care of your body, your mind and your spirit and everything else will fall into place. Make your own health and happiness your number one priority, because only then you truly take care of and make others in your life happy.”
Ana has a unique background in fitness, hypnotherapy and working in various leadership roles in the corporate environment. This gives her outstanding qualifications on the subject of fitness, overall wellness and how to motivate others to achieve success. Since a young age and during her time working in executive management, she has been passionate about helping women reach their fitness, personal and professional goals.
She is the founder of Build My Body Beautiful, and a co-founder of The Social Woman – a community for Canadian women to socialize, network with other women in their city, and attend social events.
She created Build My Body Beautiful with the purpose of helping women build self-confidence through fitness. She started The Social Woman with a friend due to a personal desire to expand her own social network and meet new friends during a period she lived in Montreal.
After many years of working as a marketing professional and running The Social Woman part time, Ana finally made a decision to follow her dream and pursue a full time career in her passion of helping and connecting people and fitness.
Ana has an Honors Degree in Business from University of Western Ontario, and has completed a minor in Psychology. She is a professional Certified Personal Training Specialist, and a Certified Bootcamp Instructor. She holds a black belt in karate and has over 15 years experience in martial arts, including kickboxing. Ana is an award winning fitness competitor and coach and has placed top three with various organizations: IDFA (International Drug Free Athletics Association) and OPA (Ontario Physique Association). She has received multiple awards as a top personal trainer and for her fitness programs from BlogTo, Muscle Insider, The Best of Toronto, CanFit Pro to name a few.
Ana got her Professional Consulting Hypnotist Certification at the Hypno Healing Institute and is a student of Debbie Papadakis – one of the nation’s leading hypnotherapist, who has been featured in Oprah’s books and magazines, Elle Magazine, and Toronto Sun (to name a few).
Ana has received a Recognition of Excellence from the Continental Who is Who – an exclusive registry of professionals and executives who have demonstrated outstanding leadership and achievement in their occupation, industry or profession. She is a full member in good standing of The National Guild of Hypnotists and Can-Fit Pro and follows the NGH & CanFitPro of Ethics and Standards of Practice.
HOW I GOT STARTED IN FITNESS
I have been very active since I was very young (I got my black belt in karate in my teens and spent many years in gymnastics, Muay Thai and kickboxing). However, I really became interested in fitness after I experienced first hand what happened to my body after just six months of being inactive. Half way through my first year of university (and not working out at all), I gained over 25 lbs.
My confidence, body image and self-esteem left me feeling depressed and helpless. I started going on fad diets, off and on exercise regimes, only to lose a few pounds and gain more back. Finally after two years of this battle, and “playing” in a gym, I finally hired a personal trainer to help me.
My life changed. My trainer believed in me, supported me, coached me through hard times and taught me proper training for my body. My confidence grew, I learned to love my body and I achieved a physique I never thought I could have.
Training and proper nutrition became a regular part of my everyday life. Forever grateful for conquering my weight and self-image battle, and taking my fitness beyond imaginable limits, I was inspired to help others achieve their goals. I dedicated myself to learning everything I could about fitness and nutrition and mastering the art of understanding the human body.
I became certified as personal trainer, a fitness trainer and a bootcamp instructor and started working with clients both on a one-on-one basis and through teaching classes.
HOW I GOT STARTED WITH BUILD MY BODY BEAUTIFUL
I spent many years working in the corporate world as a marketing professional and doing personal training, teaching kickboxing and running social events for women part time. While I enjoyed my full time career, I always looked forward to the evenings and weekends to see my training clients, watch them transform their bodies and see the shift in their overall happiness and attitude.
I finally made a decision to dedicate myself and pursue my passion for fitness and helping other people, so I left my job as a marketing director and began focusing on Build My Body Beautiful full time. When I created Build My Body Beautiful, I wanted to take it beyond just fitness training and approach fitness from a holistic point of view, bringing together all the principles I had learned. I wanted to work with women, because I felt I could relate to what it’s like to deal with all the expectations from being a woman today.
A woman is expected to be: independent, but not too intimidating; social, but always make time for family; a career woman, but also head of the home; always look great, but never look like she is trying too hard; and of course she is always expected to keep it together. So I created programs that will not only help women lose weight and get fit, but empower them, build their self-confidence and create a better self-image so they can succeed in many other areas of their life. I also wanted to maintain a comfortable, social environment by running group training and monthly social events where women can help, motivate and inspire each other as well as expand their own networks.
Today there are over 1500 members in The Social Woman across Canada and I have met many of them through the social events, my boot camp classes, as well as one-on-one training. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to do what I love and help change people’s lives for the better.