My name is Alena Valastnykh or social media brand as ‘Fitbyalena’.

I am athlete, coach, fitness model, author of book ‘From Bulimic to Fitness Model’ and many articles related to fitness and wellness, owner of ‘Fitbyalena Fitness Studio’ in Milan and a yoga teacher.

I haven’t always been fit and healthy.

I used to work as a model and in order to  to maintain that industry standard skinny model body type, my primal goal used to be eat as little as possible. Needless to say, as I was getting skinnier and eating less, eating disorder followed that.

I have been diagnosed and suffered from a rather nasty eating disorder, to be more precise Bulimia Nervosa for almost 6 years. This has caused me massive health problems both physical and psychological too such as depression.

One day I finally decided that I could not handle it any more. I had to quit my model’s job and step away from that life in order to heal myself. And I did it.

I recovered from Bulimia on my own which I’m really proud of. It was not an easy journey to start with. My metabolism was really slow and as a result I gained a lot of weight during my first year after recovery.

I felt really unhappy and couldn’t even look at myself on the mirror. But I stopped myself from stepping into the old habits of vomiting, aggressive diets or doing anything crazy to my body ever again.

Instead I’ve started to learn about nutrition and weight training. In a nut-shell this was my solution and as a result I became a fitness model, coach and athlete.

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About my Yoga journey...

A few months ago I was preparing for my first powerlifting competition and I got serious back injury. For 3 months I’ve been waking up with terrible pain and couldn’t even get up from my bed for a couple of hours, crying in pain.

I was told I could never train again, not even body weight exercises. No need to tell you that for me as a professional athlete that diagnosis was equal to death. No need to describe how I felt… depressed, overwhelmed, lonely and totally desperate.

One day I’ve decided to become a creator rather than victim of my life. I’ve started to read books and listen to podcasts on self help and self healing. That’s how I discovered the meditation world, it Was not easy with my monkey mind but day by day I was feeling better. I’ve decided to try yoga as well. 10 min a day, 30 min… hour

Until I fell in love with yoga.

My back has been strengthened and now my pain almost disappeared. Recently I’ve started even training with small weights again but I prioritize yoga.

So this is a new me taking a new road.

Years I’ve been working on my aesthetic look and weights performance now I’m working on my mind, soul and consciousness.

I still have a bitter taste but let me tell you I see the reason… life happens not against us but for us. If these circumstances didn’t happen I would have never decided to become yoga and meditation teacher.

I’ve just came back from India after completing my  Yoga Teacher certification.

Today I continue working as a fitness coach at my studio aside of adding my new passion for yoga and meditation to my professional portfolio.

My life credo is ‘When life gives you lemons make lemonade’.