Today we’d like to introduce you to Kathleen Day.
Hi Kathleen, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My name, Kathleen Day, may as well be an synonym for “movement.” For real, I’m convinced that if you looked up the word “movement” in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of yours truly directly below the definition. I’m a movement freak – always have been always will be.
As a kid, I lived for summer break. As in, you mean to tell me I could spend all day long racing my friends in the backyard, or swimming in our (above ground) swimming pool, or hiking in the woods behind my house – say yes.
Of course, I played sports. Club soccer, karate, track and field ( you’re looking at the 2007 captain of the Mount Olive High School pole vaulting squad right here – brushing my shoulders off as I conjure this and hoping you also pick up that I don’t take myself too seriously), those were my bag, baby.
Sports, exercise, movement were and still are the things in life that make me feel the most free – soccer especially. Being a part of a team where I can be strong, I can be confident; I can have esteem for others as well as myself has been the greatest gift of my life as well as my greatest catalyst.
I’ve been a lifelong student of the game, having played so long I don’t even remember my first memories of my first game. It is the one thing in life that has consistently been there through the ebbs and flows of life – the ups and downs and will always be there to catch my fall.
I took a year off between college and graduate school in 2011. In that time, I landed my first job in health and fitness as soccer trainer for clinics and a U-10 and U-13 girls club team in Northern New Jersey.
In July of 2012, I moved to San Diego to attend the Master’s Program at the School of Communication at San Diego State University. I was 23 and did not know a single soul, and that didn’t matter because the city embraced me, and it was awesome.
In 2013, during my second semester of grad school, I was the survivor of an outside-inflicted auto accident in which I endured a major concussion and fractured my cervical spine. This means that the facture was delicate – if my neck had been subject to more force or impact the outcome of the accident would have been much different for me. The doctor required I wear a brace for about two months and not lift anything more than two pounds as any lateral movement or excessive force could cause the fracture to crack and lead to life-altering circumstances. My roommate at the time used to pack and unpack my laptop in and out of roller backpack every day because even my laptop at the time was too heavy.
This is actually turning point of my as it what lead down my current path in life. I was in school pursuing my Masters in Communication – my end goal was to land a job at a public relations firm later lateral jumping my way into a Hollywood agent (think Ari Gold’s arch nemesis Babs from season 3 of “Entourage,” oddly specific but true). That was the dream that was the goal. But first, I had to do something about my absolutely terrible posture that hanging out in a neck brace for two months with no prescribed PT after the fact left me with.
I remember working extra shifts at the bar I was waitressing at so I could hire a personal trainer at Fit Athletic to help me gain my strength back and correct some of my imbalances caused my the accident. I worked extra shifts at the bar that I was working at at the time to pay for it. My trainer, while amazing, had had to move on to a new environment, so he set me up with my first Bikini Coach, Alexis Tietelbaum. She had suggested competing to me as I had a natural gift for movement and a frame that would do well in the sport. So I did it! I took Fifth Place out of forty – not bad for my first (and only) only competition, and that is what launched my gym rat era.
Upon graduating, I had landed a six-month contract as a public relations associate for a firm here in San Diego and hated every second of it. I hated being strapped to a desk for eight hours a day. I hated being too tired after a full day of work and an hour commute home to get a good quality workout in. SO when my contract had expired, it was a visceral, full-body no thank you to staying in the industry.
I’d sent resumes out to different rolls – environmental public help, teaching – I was just throwing ideas at the wall. One job I applied to was for a soccer trainer, that I was grossly underqualified for. They wanted someone who had played for four years in college with prior experience in adult soccer training; training certification prefered. I had neither of those – but what I did have was knowledge of how to construct a proper strength and conditioning program and experience teaching and facilitating for groups and organizations. I sent them my resume; fingers crossed that would somehow stand out, and crickets…
I had honestly forgotten I’d submitted my resume to them until I received an email for the owner while I was backpacking Spain with a friend during my quarter-life crisis. We set up a WhatsApp interview; I guess they were intrigued and then asked to come in for a live practical literally the day after I returned. Apparently, they liked me because I was hired the next day, and the rest, as they say, is history.
That was, and still is one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. I learned so much about how to work with athletes, how to think of movement for complexly, how to pull the best out of the people and help them build their sense of self-esteem, and it gave me a direction. I worked there for two years before the owners decided to sell the facility and move on to their next adventure. From there, it made the most sense to me to make a lateral jump into personal training. I had a foot in the door at Fit Athletic, leveraged that, got certified, and was hired in November of 2016.
It was a goal of mine to have my own business before I was 30, so when I was 29, I decided to make the jump and have had my own successful business for six years running, and some of my clients I’ve been training for nearly eight years.
It’s been a really unique experience, and every day is an invitation to learn and flow with life. I started out renting space in a large gym in Point Loma, which served me for almost two years when I decided to terminate my contract to train out of the gym in my apartment complex since it had state-of-the-art equipment, and the building manager thought it would add value to the community. This was actually about a month before the pandemic, which was just incredible timing.
The apartment complex had shut down access to the facilities, so from there, I shifted to a mobile platform, meeting my clients in places where we could safely socially distance in spaces like backyards, garages, sidewalks – one of my clients I’d trained in a foreclosed driveway.
Here is where I pause and express just how grateful and fortunate I am to have such supportive clients who were willing to place their trust in me that I would help keep them safe and healthy in such unsettling times. It did, though, become increasingly wearing to have to continently adapt to CDC regulations around where and when I could train my clients.
Ultimately, I knew I had to create something from nothing. I found an amazing apartment one block from the beach with a front yard and a garage. I converted the garage into an open-air full-functioning gym where I could continue to provide my clients with even better training in a more comfortable atmosphere.
Since opening back up, I’ve gone on a hybrid model hosting some clients in my residence and some clients I meet at their homes – I’ve also had the opportunity to coach at some amazing group fitness studios like Wicked Fit in South Park and Renegade Fit Camp.
I love fitness, and I always will; I am also into a new era of life, and it is time for me to expand into something new. Currently, I am attending school part-time to get my associate’s degree in interior design.
Most recently, I launched a food blog called Calitalia as my own passion project, where I share delicious and healthy recipes inspired by my Italian heritage and ingredients local to Southern California. My clients always ask for recipes (I love to cook) or about what I eat in a day, so I thought this would be a fun way to serve more people, have a little fun, and let everyone know that healthy eating doesn’t have to suck! You can find my recipes at http://www.calitaliaeats.com
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Some time ago, a colleague of mine told me that my greatest strength is my ability to dance my way out of any situation, and while the road turns rocky sometimes, the smooth waters that lay ahead are often even better.
The biggest question I had to answer in my business to date was during the thick of the pandemic. How can I continue to show up for my clients the way they need me to while keeping them safe, keeping them healthy, and giving them something to look forward to hopefully find hope in?
The word “personal” in personal training is not a hyperbole – especially when you step out into the private space where it’s just you and your client. The energy of the gym and the fragmented time with coworkers just isn’t there – so the relationships you build with your clients does become personal they invest faith and trust that you will continue to show up for them, and oftentimes, you meet them in challenging times of their lives so it is absolutely essential to be that consistent presence. I wanted to be able to provide that from human to human when times got pretty grim for most people.
I found an apartment with a garage in a beautiful, open, and sunny space, which was a real turning point and often the highlight of many of our days during that time. The space was big enough to socially distance. I was able to find a lot of great quality equipment that worked with my budget, and the element of a working in a tightly designed space really helped me to stretch my creativity with what I can do with my surroundings to make it a thriving, comfortable and fun space where people can feel good about themselves.
On a personal level, living as a self-employed person is a unique path. It presents a unique set of challenges that help you grow and develop into newer and wiser version of self. A few years ago, I allowed my job to become all-consuming – like, I was booked and busy, sometimes working thirteen hours a day and doing backend work on the weekends. I had become so “successful” that the things that make life beautiful and give life meaning got neglected. My physical and mental health started to decline to the point where I could no longer support the volume at which I was working.
What that did for me was allow me to take a step back and see the forest through the trees and ask myself if this is how I really wanted to live. It was an invitation to redefine success and begin to see my worthiness as a birthright rather than something that needed to be measured by a yardstick. Through that thickness, I got to ask myself what freedom looked like to me, which I don’t think most people get to examine for themselves, and so it became an incredible gift.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My industry is personal training, my greatest skill is educating. And I’m known for delivering an ass-kicking that you’re going to have fun with and maybe learn a little something.
I’m most proud of facilitating an environment where people can actualize and grow in confidence. My client result that makes me smile the most is a former collegiate distance runner for Texas A&M who set her sights on qualifying for the Boston Marathon. She had her mileage and runs totally dialed, but a quality lifting program was missing. Runner are often hesitant to start lifting for fear of adding muscle to the frame and slowing down their pace. The truth is the right program will help support all of the mileage put on the body and make your stride and step stronger and faster.
After programming for her for sixth months, she not only qualified for the Boston Marathon but also made it to the Olympic trials. It turned out that the lifting program was the secret sauce.
The experience that was most meaningful for me was a couple of years ago when a parent of a neurodivergent child contacted me to help her son develop some skills that might help him feel more confident when playing soccer at school. He’d really loved to play but often felt discouraged to the point of giving up because he didn’t have much guidance on how to play or how to handle the ball. We spent a great deal of time focusing on fine motor skills and learning how to feel more confident in decisions both on and off the ball. It was truly a blessing to see him build healthy esteem for himself while gaining confidence through his interactions with our drills and activities. It was one of the proudest moments I have ever had as a professional when he made the decision to try out for a competitive soccer league in his community.
Oh, and lastly, I love training brides and pregnant women. They just have this added layer of joy and excitement which is really fun to watch.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Someone asked once, if you could be the best in the world at anything, what would you want to be the best at? To which I responded, “I would be the best listener in the world because I don’t think people feel heard enough.”
I joke often that the reason why I have such good retention is because so much that I am the world’s best trainer but because my clients want to hang out and chat – and don’t get me wrong, my clients always get the workout that they need, and I encourage them to be greater, but we have a great time while doing it, and I’ve build great relationships with my clients because I think, or at least I hope, they know that I deeply care about them.
Also, I’m going to flex a little. I’m dynamic. Because of my lived experience training for different things, having different and multiple types of training jobs, from group fitness to sport-specific training, to personal training, I have a lot of tools in my toolbox. I am able to help guide clients through all the iterations of self, their varying and changing goals and meeting them where they’re at that day.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.calitaliaeats.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/k_dayallday/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleen-day-3b04a418
Image Credits
Talia Lopez
Manny Lauria
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