Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Romano
Hi Ashley, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up as the fat girl. The last one picked in gym class and the butt of a lot of jokes. I wanted to play sports and signed up to try one each year, soccer, softball & basketball, but I was always the slowest and playing just didn’t come natural to me. It messed with my confidence and I decided physical activity just wasn’t for me.
Then I grew up and decided I wanted to lose weight. I lost over 100lbs and with all of the working out I did, realized I did, in fact, have some athletic ability. I tried things that I’d never had the confidence to try before and had so much fun doing races and obstacle courses.
Unfortunately, through this process I ended up creating a dysfunctional relationship with eating and exercise. My entire life revolved around calories in vs calories out & I no longer wanted to go to social events or eat at restaurants. Although I looked like an athlete, I oddly became super insecure about every physical imperfection, to the point of having a few plastic surgeries to “fix” them. It didn’t work. I still had so much anxiety about my body and the lifestyle I had to live to upkeep it.
Eventually I broke down. It felt like I only existed to lose weight and my life’s purpose was to look a certain way. I knew I was made for more than that and my relationship with food, exercise & myself was suffering because of it. Add that to some mental health struggles and 10 years after losing it, I gained all of the weight back. I not only felt ashamed, but also pretty sad because I didn’t believe I was capable of doing the fun things i used to do with my body anymore. I wanted to be able to be physically active, but without obsessing over it and basing my self worth on how my body looked or moved.
I decided to get back into moving my body, but with a different mindset. I wanted to move in ways that not only kept my heart healthy, but also felt good and that I enjoyed instead of being focused on being the fastest, strongest, fittest & thinnest. I started doing workouts that brought me joy and spending time outside again. I realized that my body was capable of doing a lot of the fun activities it used to, even at my new, big size. I could still kayak and weight lift and hike and swim and ride bikes and do obstacle course races. Ar 300lbs I even became a triathlete, climbed the infamous Angel’s Landing at Zion and recently joined a rugby league. I can see now that my worth and abilities are not dependent on being a certain size. I am a worthy and capable human at every size I’ve been.
I use social media to share my story with the intention of rewriting the narrative that says big people are lazy and their bodies are inherently bad. Most big people have been told their body is “wrong” for their entire lives so I want to help repair that relationship. There are a million reasons a person may be fat & it’s not our job to judge them. Someone has to help them see they have value no matter where their body is on their life journey. I aim to inspire women to try the physical activities they’ve always kept on the shelf for “someday” when they are thinner or more brave. I also host women’s retreats that are intended to show women of all sizes what their body is capable of. Over the past few years I’ve hosted 3 retreats here in Miami, 5 in Belize, and most recently, one in souther Utah. We hike and swim and kayak and jump off waterfalls and do group workouts and yoga. The participants leave knowing that their body is capable of so much more than they realized and that it’s worthy of love and respect at every size on life’s journey. They know that they don’t have to wait until theyre a certain size or weight to live life and do many of the fun and athletic things they’ve dreamed of trying, even if they have to do it at their own pace.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
When hosting retreats I do have to make sure all of our activities have accommodations for people of size. A lot of places don’t expect or experience fat people wanting to partake, so they’re just not ready for it. This has been a learning curve at times. For example, we may need kayaks or exercise equipment that can accommodate people of a certain size. These things usually exist, I just have to make sure they’re available. I also have to carefully choose our tour guides to ensure that they will not make any assumptions about what our bodies can do and yoga teachers to make sure they offer modifications for different abilities.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
When I’m not at a retreat or on social media I work as a hairdresser in a private beauty suite. Living in my body helps me to be more accommodating and sets me apart because I think about what the fat experience is like. For example, the salon chair I use is 23” wide (rather than the standard 19) and has telescoping arms that can add an additional 3” to each side. Its pump also supports up to 500lbs, making it easy to pump them up and down. A lot of larger women worry about these things and might avoid the salon because of it. Every woman deserves to be pampered, regardless of the body they live in.
Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
Summer time! Waking up to the smell of fresh cut grass, roller skating, playing with the neighborhood kids, or swimming or all day & then having a slumber party and watching movies in the cold AC at night.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @biggirlfitgirl @ashdidmyhair
- Other: TikTok @biggirlfitgirl
