Look at Danielle Girdano today, and calling her a fitness guru wouldn't be inaccurate. She holds multiple world records in cycling, is the president of the Texas-based D'fine Sculpting & Nutrition company and is a certified master personal trainer. She is also on the Medical and Fitness Advisory Board for a Detroit-based program, First Responders 4 Fitness — a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to maintaining the health of federal, state and municipal first responders. On Feb. 8 and 9, she'll be campaigning for that organization around the Detroit area, including on the "Ask Dr. Nandi" show.
However, rewind the clock 20 years, and she was fighting for her life. Girdano, an out lesbian, went through a long and difficult journey before she got involved with her current career.
"At my very heaviest, I topped out at 396, almost 400 pounds, and it was a conversation when I was in my 20s. It was, 'If you keep going in this direction, then you're probably not going to live to see 35,'" Girdano said. "At the time, all I knew was, 'move more, eat less' – I was a two-pack-a-day smoker as well. I got laid off from a job that I had had, and I moved, and I ate differently. It was to the point where I would actually wheeze going up the stairwell, I couldn't get up a full flight of stairs without being out of breath."
Girdano at one of her heaviest weights.
Girdano said that the secret to her success was a combination of hard work and education. She not only became a regular at the gym, she made sure to understand the methods that worked for her. Eventually, she joined a spin class that gave her a long-term goal.
"As I was upstairs one night I was working (out), there was a spin instructor who kept saying, 'Come on and start spin!' At this time, I was still a pretty big, big girl — I was still around 250. I didn't want to do it and finally I went in," Girdano said. "The first class, I could barely do anything but just keep the pedals moving, and so I kept going back and kept going back and I said one day, 'I'm going to ride my bike across the country and I'm going to do it for equal rights!'"
Girdano said that at first, her trainer simply humored her, but she began training hard, and in less than a year — from fall to the summer of 2010 — she began the Ride the Arc bicycle project.
"It was a cycle project across the U.S. for GLBT equality and rights. Specifically, I was talking about suicide prevention and the high rate of suicide among GLBT youth, also marriage equality and also hate crimes," she said. "We went through some of the highest hate crime areas in the country."
Though she was spreading a message of love, Girdano's ride was far from simple.
"When we were riding, I had a homemade bomb thrown at me, people tried to run me off the road, we ran into people who were very hateful along the way," Girdano said. "It wasn't the most pleasant of rides, and we actually got to the point where we weren't disclosing where we were at, and we were posting things on social media on a few days afterward. Every time we did an interview, we asked that they post it a few days afterward, so that we could try to get ahead a little bit."
That ride was where she got her first world record, and, a year later, she got involved with the First Responders 4 Fitness Program. She said that when 9/11 was approaching, she was looking for a way to give back to the community that would be meaningful. She got into contact with the organization's president, Roger Harper.
"Eventually, I was offered a position on their Medical and Fitness Advisory Board," she said. "I have been working with them ever since, and really working on the longevity of first responders, prevention of injury, as well as prevention of chronic illness and, really, the overall health of first responders."
On Feb. 9, Girdano will also appear on the "Ask Dr. Nandi" show to talk about her own fitness journey and how people can get involved to help first responders maintain their physical health.
"If they're not healthy we might all be in trouble," she said. "When they're healthy they can help us better, and it's really an honor to be associated with them in general."
For more information about First Responders 4 Fitness and Girdano's appearance on the "Ask Dr. Nandi" show, visit askdrnandi.com and fr4f.org.
