Choosing Yourself, Choosing Your Life: A Trainer’s Turning Point
Some conversations feel less like interviews and more like a mirror. This episode of TURTZED was one of them. Rob Siclari has been my trainer for the last year, helping me understand my body, my habits, and the stories I tell myself about both. On the surface, we talked about fitness. Underneath, it was about identity, risk, and choosing the life you actually want to live.
From Football Star to Feeling Lost
Rob grew up with football as his whole world. Star player, scholarships, his dad as his coach from childhood through high school. From the outside, it looked like success. Inside, something was missing.
By college, football felt like a chore. He realized he loved lifting, not the sport itself. When partying entered the picture, he chose the freedom it offered. Not because he didn’t care, but because the passion wasn’t there. It was the first sign that the path he was on wasn’t truly his.
Coming Out and Starting Over
Around his junior year, Rob came out and it wasn’t smooth. Some friends pulled away. Support shifted. Financial help stopped. He dropped out of college, worked multiple jobs, and slept on an air mattress in a loft he couldn’t even stand up in.
People assume coming out means instant liberation. But the truth is more complicated. You may finally know who you are, while the world around you is still catching up.
Rob kept moving, until one day he packed his car, drove to Tampa, and started over. It wasn’t a glamorous leap. It was survival and instinct.
Turning Survival into Service
In Tampa, between bartending and working at a gym, COVID hit. Suddenly he realized he was making more money training clients online than he’d ever made in person. More importantly, he loved it.
He built an LLC, learned marketing, and created Sick Fitness. Today, he does more than write fitness programs. He studies bloodwork, metabolism, sleep, stress, and lifestyle. His programs are individualized, not recycled.
The clients he posts about aren’t props. They’re people whose lives are changing, marathon runners, new parents, people rebuilding confidence, and many in the LGBTQ community who finally feel seen.
He is direct, honest, and science-driven. If you want the results, he will match your effort. If you avoid the work, he won’t chase you. It’s accountability wrapped in care.
The Reminder That Changes Everything
When I asked Rob what he’ll never forget, he shared a TikTok he once saw.
A man asked a stranger, “I have 5 million dollars. Do you want it?”
The stranger said yes.
Then the man added, “You can have it, but you won’t wake up tomorrow. Do you still want it?”
The answer was no.
The man replied, “Then tomorrow is worth 5 million dollars. Treat it like it is.”
If you’re reading this and sitting on the sidelines of your own life, waiting for the right moment to begin, let this be your signal.
You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to have the plan figured out. You just have to decide your tomorrow is worth something and take one small step toward the person you want to become.
Connect with Rob Siclari
