Source: Courtesy of Katrina Spagnoletti / Spagnolettis
It wasn’t long ago that Katrina Spagnoletti was in an unhappy marriage, packing on the pounds and dealing with low confidence. The 55-year-old DMV native who now resides in Ruskin, Florida, thought she had everything she would have needed to be happy; that includes happy sons (three) and financial stability (her husband was wealthy). Still, she found herself feeling low and living unhealthy. It wasn’t until Katrina decided to end her marriage that she was able to put her health and wellness first, and not only that, live a dream she had to be in a pageant. After getting in her best shape, the beauty took part in pageants with women who were more than 20 and 30 years her junior. Despite the age difference, she was able to get second runner up in the Mrs. Virginia 2018 pageant, and is currently Mrs. Hillsborough County 2020. Katrina is presently training for Mrs. Florida America 2020, has remarried (and is very happy), and now teaches people over 45 as a trainer that it’s never to late to live the life you want — and live it in good health.
We talked to her about how she found the courage to move on from her third marriage, what it takes to confidently strut and win pageants as a woman of a certain age, and how she’s living her best life in her 50s. Here’s what Katrina Spagnoletti had to say.
MadameNoire: Growing up, would you say you had a good relationship with food?
Katrina Spagnoletti: I don’t know if it was exactly a good relationship. There’s a running joke that my mom couldn’t cook, so I became a vegetarian so I didn’t have to eat her food [laughs]. So I would say no, I didn’t have a good relationship and I didn’t understand anything about food. I was overweight as a teenager as well.
I read on your page that you have been married four times. In your third marriage, you were saying you gained a lot of weight, you were stressed out, and overall, you weren’t happy. How were you able to get out of that situation and get back to prioritizing your health?
Honestly, I think it’s because I finally understood that he was controlling me. It was a mind game with him. He wanted this trophy wife, but he also wanted a trophy wife who didn’t believe in herself. I know a lot of women go through a lot of stress eating because of relationships and things like that. Mine was a little more unique in that he wanted this trophy wife, but he wanted me to gain weight to the point where I didn’t believe in myself, if that makes any sense. I discovered that after therapy. He was a wealthy man, but I just wasn’t happy. And it wasn’t that I wasn’t necessarily happy with myself, but I just wasn’t happy and I didn’t understand why. So I started going to therapy and I remember my therapist asked me, “Why are you here?” I said, because I have everything in the world but I’m not happy.
Once I got my mind right, that strength going and my confidence going again, that’s when I focused on making sure I was out of the relationship. I don’t think you can successfully be healthy if your mind is always stressed out and then in turn, your body is stressed out. I had to fix my mind in order to have my body follow and be healthy.
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So I’m assuming when you met your new partner, your current husband, you worked on taking care of your body and decided to start competing in pageants?
I did. I knew that I always wanted to compete in Mrs. Virginia. When I was married to my ex-husband, I registered to do it and I couldn’t do it because we were getting a divorce and you had to be married for that pageant. I didn’t want to do it for the wrong reasons, so I thought, as soon as I get married again, I’m going to figure this out. I got a lot of my confidence back and I lost a lot of weight, but I didn’t think I was where I needed to be. I was almost 53 when I registered and I knew I would have to get on stage and compete against girls 30 years my junior. It wasn’t just enough to lose weight, because there’s so much more when it comes to being in pageants. You have to be the best. You have to be able to get in the gym and be toned. You have to focus on looking in the mirror and saying, I’m good enough to get on that stage. I’m a Black female and I’m going up against younger Caucasian girls, and unfortunately, that’s how I thought. I said to myself, I’m going to do everything I can because my only competition is really me. I’m going to do everything I can for myself in order to win this competition. I actually went on stage and I placed second runner up and to be able to get that is crazy!
What was it about pageants that always appealed to you?
The appeal was I wanted women who were struggling with becoming older to realize, you still are beautiful. You can win. It doesn’t matter what arena you are. You can win. Age is only a number, and I know that is a cliche left and right, but I wanted to prove to them that I could walk away with something. A lot of people don’t understand pageantry, there’s politics in it as well. It has to do with more than just beauty. You have to be able to answer questions. You’ve got to be able to know who you are. I wanted women to understand that, especially Black women, that we’re just as beautiful. It doesn’t matter what age you are. It’s a benefit to do something like this because your wisdom is incredibly higher than anyone else’s because you’ve been around and you’ve learned more lessons. They asked me a question during the interview process. They said, in your resume, you quoted Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman,” and they asked me what I meant by that. I said, I’ve been a mother, I’ve been a sister, I’ve been in #MeToo situations, I have been bullied. I’ve done everything and I can relate to every woman on this earth, and if I can’t, I will learn about that person because that’s how wise I am. It blew them away when I said that.
So what was the commitment it took in terms of diet and exercise, even now, as you’re preparing for Mrs. Florida America 2020, to be pageant ready physically?
The same preparation everybody should undergo in life: Take care of yourself and eat the right food. Get rid of preservatives. I’m an online personal trainer and all of my clients are 45 and up and they’re losing weight even while going through menopause. People aren’t understanding that all you have to do is eat right, exercise — and you don’t have to go into the gym for two hours. Something I do with my clients is I give them a 15-minute workout for when they first wake up because a lot of people have hectic lives, and they’re not able to find time. You can find time waking up a half hour earlier. That’s where your time is. If you have small kids, if you have a work schedule, if you travel, all you have to do is find that small amount of time, and that time comes in the morning. You do your 15 minutes and then you go through your day. Make sure your meal plan for the day is just eating healthy and find time, whether it’s at lunch or in the evening, to walk, run, or get on the treadmill for half an hour. That is the only commitment you need to lose weight. It is not as hard as social media wants it to look like. Fifteen minutes in the morning, then a half an hour power walk or run. That’s what I do, and it gets me to the level I need to go in order to be confident enough to get in a bikini with women who are 30 years my junior.
What workouts do you do for the abs that you have? People of all ages are always talking about getting their stomach together, so what are the workouts you do to stay taut in that area at your age?
I do a lot of HIIT workouts. You can also run and form a good core while doing so. A lot of people think you have to do a million crunches. I love HIIT because it’s cardio. It burns fat, it helps to tone, too. While you’re doing a HIIT workout, you’re forming the core, but food is the biggest and most important thing. Your abs are formed in the kitchen. Take away all of those processed foods, the pastas, the breads, and you substitute them, that’s going to form your abs. You can have a six-pack right now under a whole body of fat. You can do a thousand crunches, but if you’re not losing the weight, then you’re not going to be able to see them. It’s like a hidden treasure. Discipline yourself to eat healthy because that’s when you’re going to see them.
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You’ve spent time in a few previous marriages. This time around, you and your husband are hanging out on boats, you’re doing pageants you’ve wanted to try forever, and you’re in your best shape. After the stressful relationships you’ve been in and the years of being a devoted mom, would you say that you are now living your best life in your 50s?
I would have never thought that this was the best life I would want to live. I’ve never been that kind of person to say, when I’m 55, I’m going to be on a boat. That’s not where I come from [laughs]. I have an amazing husband. My husband is the kind of person who would bungee jump off a huge mountain, who would jump out of a plane. He’s traveled to over 100 and something countries. I got really lucky to meet this guy who guides me into this stuff. Then I’ll look at it and go, wow, this is so simple to do. You don’t need a whole bunch of money to live your best life, you just need to be able to want to do and experience different things. I happened to marry someone who is all about life and all about doing things everyday people don’t do because they’re so wrapped up in work or they’re so wrapped up in their kids.
I thought for the rest of my life I was going to live in Virginia and just live through my kids like every mother who loves their kids. It took [my husband] years to get me to Florida. I would cry every time he wanted to go to Florida, and he wasn’t going to do that to me. My kids were the ones who said, “Mom, you’ve got to do it.” I never thought I’d be here and I think about it every day. I can be on the boat and think, how did I get here? I never wanted this but it feels good to have it. So yeah, I’m living my best life without realizing that this was what I wanted for myself.
Be sure to follow Katrina on Instagram and check out the rest of our Fitness Fridays profiles here!
