It's Not About Being Smaller. It's About Being Stronger.

Oct 1

Episode 31 of Wellness Me Up — Wellness Me Up Diary Entry
with Women's Personal Trainer Vanesa (Vane) Nicolosi
Written and hosted by Amanda Reece, founder of Wellness Me Up.

Vane Nicolosi is a women's personal trainer who does not give a damn about bikini bodies. She trains women for real life — lugging suitcases, playing with grandkids, walking dogs, hiking mountains, and getting up and down off the floor without it being a whole thing. This one is warm, practical, and feels like the smell of rain. Yes really.

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Who Is Vane Nicolosi?

Vane Nicolosi is a women's personal trainer based online who works one-on-one with women to build strength and mobility for the long term. Not for aesthetics. Not for a number on a scale. For the life they actually want to live — now and when they are older.

She is warm, flexible, endlessly curious about each person she works with, and she has absolutely zero interest in the no pain no gain boot camp approach to fitness. She meets you where you are. She builds you up slowly. And she measures progress by what you can actually do in your real life.

She is also the reason I now know the word petrichor. More on that shortly.

Train for Your Real Life. Not for a Bikini.

This came up right at the start of our conversation and I was nodding along immediately.

Most people hear personal trainer and think weight loss, gym training, aesthetics. And Vane does none of that — or at least that is never the primary goal. What she actually does is train women for strength and mobility that transfers into real life. The kind of strength that lets you pick up your groceries and walk them home. That lets you lift your own luggage into the overhead compartment without asking for help. That lets you get up and down off the floor to play with your grandkids or your nieces or your dog.

She told the story of one of her first clients ever who came to her with one goal. She wanted to be able to lift her own luggage into the overhead compartment of a plane without having to ask for help. That was it. And when they achieved it they celebrated like crazy teenagers because that was exactly what she had come for. That was the whole thing.

Another client is 72 years old and measures her progress by how well she can play with her grandson. He is growing and getting heavier and he wants his grandma to keep up with him. So she trains for that. Every session is for him.

This is what fitness for real life actually looks like.

What Your Body Can Do

When Vane started talking about what your body can do my brain immediately went to something my sister said to me a couple of years ago — and my sister has some of the most thoughtful and inspiring things to say. She said most people our age are figuring out what their bodies cannot do. And where I was in my health journey I was discovering what my body could do.

I remember the first time I could walk around the block after my hysterectomy. I remember getting excited about being able to bend down and tie my shoes. I remember the first time I lugged a suitcase up a flight of stairs and realized I could actually do that. Not because someone helped me or I had to stop halfway up — but because my body was strong enough to just do it.

Vane trains women to keep finding those moments. To keep discovering new things their bodies are capable of. To stop accepting pain and limitation as just how things are — and start asking what they can do instead.

Because there is always something you can do. Even if it is five minutes of movement a day. Even if it is one session a week. Everything creates an impact. Nothing is too small.

You Are Going to Feel It Before You See It

This is the thing that still surprises Vane's clients most — even after she tells them it is going to happen.

They come expecting to see muscle. To see visual changes. To see something different in the mirror. And Vane tells them — that is not the first thing that happens. Muscle takes time. Muscle needs nutrition and consistency and patience.

But two or three sessions in? They feel better. Energy improves. Mood shifts. Aches and pains start to quiet down. Something that was always a task starts to feel like something they actually look forward to.

And then one day they cannot explain it but they just feel stronger. More capable. More confident in what they can do and who they are. And they come back to Vane and say hey — something shifted.

That is the moment. Before the visual changes. Before the numbers change. Before any of the things they thought they were training for. They just feel better. And that feeling compounds into everything else.

No Pain No Gain Is Not What We Are Doing Here

Vane said something about this that I want every woman who has ever been terrified of working on their strength to hear.

So many women come to her first session absolutely convinced it is going to be hell. Boot camp energy. Someone yelling. Being dead at the end and if you are not dead it did not work. That is what fitness has looked like for a lot of us for a long time.

And then they show up for a session with Vane and it is the complete opposite. It is respectful. It is flexible. It is about what they are feeling and whether they are okay with this exercise and if not — fine, we will find another way.

She told the story of a client who came in saying she would never do deadlifts again because she had been hurt doing them. Vane said fine. We are not doing deadlifts. We worked the legs and hamstrings in other ways for two or three months. And then one day Vane suggested trying a deadlift in a different way.

The client said let's try it.

That shift — from I will never do this to let's try it — is what the training actually builds. Not just strength in the body. Strength in how you talk to yourself. There is actually a study proving that movement and exercise can change our self-talk. Vane has watched it happen over and over.

The WTF Wheel Question: If Healing Had a Smell What Would Yours Be?

I did not know what petrichor was before this conversation. Vane did.

Petrichor is the smell of the earth right after it rains. That wet grass and soil smell that makes you stop and breathe in for a second. Vane knew the word immediately and she knew the answer immediately too.

She said that smell just shuts everything down. Her brain is running constantly. Anxiety is always there. And petrichor — or even just the memory of it — brings her back to calm. Back to centre. Back to herself.

I completely understood. I have smelled things all over the world that I wish I could put in a jar. The Armstrong Redwoods forest in California. The smokiness of the mountains in Giresun Turkey. The ice in Alberta. There are smells that just transport you somewhere and for a moment all the tabs in your brain close.

We both agreed we need to find ways to access those smells more often. And yes we are aware we cannot control when it rains.

What Wellness Me Up Means to Vane

Choosing habits and things that help you feel stronger. More capable. More at home in your body and who you are.

She talked about fighting her body for years — the belief that she had to be thinner, that she could not have a belly or thick thighs, that her body was something to fix. And then an injury changed things. Recovery from that injury changed things. And she came out the other side trusting her body for the first time. Trusting what it can do. Trusting what it is capable of giving her.

She said trust your body. Trust what it can do. That is wellness through strength. That is what she is building with every client she works with.

I told her that needs to go on a sticker. We are going to bedazzle our water bottles with it. She agreed.

Want to work with Vane?
Vane Nicolosi is a women's personal trainer offering one-on-one online coaching for women who want to build strength and mobility for real life — not for aesthetics. Book a free movement map call to start the conversation.

👉 growstrongher.com
📱 Instagram: @growstrongherwithme
📧 Email her through the website — she is genuinely happy to chat

If this one made you want to trust your body a little more... good. And subscribe to Wellness Me Up wherever you listen.