From Struggle to Strength: 13 Years of BBM

This week marks 13 years since I launched Bikini Body Mommy online—BBM is officially a teenager. 🎉

Hard to believe, especially when I think about where it all began: in the rubble of losing everything, just me as a homeless single-mom of three, stranded in a foreign country (Canada), trying to survive.

I didn’t have money for a website or a film crew. What I did have was a one-year-old on my hip (hi, Finn 👋), a beat-up laptop, and the determination to figure it out.

To get started, I used the “photo booth” self-timer on my laptop to snap pictures of my exercise moves—because cell phones back then didn’t even have self-timer technology yet. (Cue me sounding like your great-grandma: “Back in my day, the pictures at the cinema were in black and white and didn’t have sound…” 🤪)

Those grainy laptop photos became the very first Bikini Body Mommy 90 Day Challenge “workout cards” I shared for free on Facebook.

It wasn’t fancy, but I had a plan.

I had just wrapped up a year-long project—writing a book that documented every step of my 100-pound weight loss journey. My goal wasn’t just to share what I had done, but to give other moms a relatable roadmap—a way to lose the baby weight in record time from home, without gimmicks or extremes, and to see that if I could do it as a mom of three, they could too.

Back then, shows like The Biggest Loser, Kirstie Alley’s Big Life, and Big Fat Bride were dominating TV. But here’s what stood out to me: every “expert” the world saw already looked the part. If you didn’t have six-pack abs, you didn’t get a platform. No one was showing that a fitness professional could also be a real woman in the messy middle of her own journey.

As a certified trainer—and more importantly, as a woman whose body gained a tremendous amount of weight through pregnancy (and even more while breastfeeding)—I saw an opportunity to be the “first.” 

The first to normalize that health wasn’t a look or a size.

Now, keep in mind—this was early 2012. Literally y-e-a-r-s before society embraced body diversity or before the phrase “body positivity” even existed, and long before “fitness influencers” were a thing. It was the pre-advertising, pre-video, pre-Facetune, pre-AI era of social media—when your feed was nothing but REAL photos and FB "status updates" from the handful of real people you actually chose to follow online.

I didn't know a thing about how I would build a personal online presence, let alone a brand, but I was determined to use my experience as a overweight fitness professional to land a book deal and I knew publishers would never take me seriously unless I had an audience of at least 10,000 people I could sell it to.

So I hustled to build a community online— creating workout cards to grow an audience, selling weekly meal plan subscriptions via email, offering online 1-on-1 coaching during the day, and group training women outside at a park (or at a local rec center) in the evenings.



And that’s how I went from being a homelessness single-mom of three, to feeding my kids and supporting myself in those early days of BBM.

I rebuilt my life brick by brick in that first year—launching the 90 Day Challenge workout cards, saving enough to get my own apartment, and eventually paying for the video production of the very first 90 Day Challenge.

It’s true—in the beginning I had no team, no media or production experience, and no clue how I was going to make it happen. But I had grit, a whole lot of faith, a stubborn resilience, and a quiet whisper I couldn’t ignore.

Permission to show up imperfectly, exactly as they were, and to believe that doing so was enough. That their worth wasn’t tied to a “look” or a number on a scale, and their power wasn’t in pretending to have it all together, but in allowing themselves to be real. That whisper reminded me daily that transformation was never just about bodies—it was about helping women step into who they were truly capable of becoming, with fitness as the vessel.

The last 13 years have been wild. I've achieved more than I ever dreamed was possible in those early days. But…if I’m being real, it hasn’t all been sunshine.  

I’ve lived so many versions of myself right here with you over the years—and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that growth is messy, beautiful, and sometimes uncomfortable for people to watch.

The internet can be brutal. People love you when you’re the underdog, but when you succeed, the cheers get quiet and the critics get loud.

Some loved the curvier, postpartum version of me. Others connected to the scrappy, survival-mode version of me. Some found me most relatable when I was stuck in the messy middle. And there have been plenty who only valued what I shared when it was free, but turned away when I could no longer give without limits. 

And yet here we are—If you’re reading this, it’s because you’ve continued to show up and connect with me as I am today: stronger, still imperfect, still evolving, and learning to embrace each new season of life as it comes.

And knowing that fills me with gratitude. Because as I reflect on all the seasons we’ve walked through together, I’m reminded of something important: for every hurtful comment, false statement, or nasty rumor—for every person who “unfollowed” or turned away over the last 13 years—there have been hundreds of thousands of YOU who stayed.

The women who cheer for me as fiercely as I cheer for you. The ones who see the heart behind the work, who choose to invest in their health and wellbeing, who keep showing up imperfectly, and who remind me why I began this journey in the first place. You’re the reason BBM is celebrating 13 years—you’re the heartbeat behind everything I do.

So today, I just want to say thank you. 

For trusting me, for sweating with me, for letting me be part of your story the same way you’ve been part of mine. Thirteen years later, I’m still that same imperfect mom—showing up one workout, one messy, Diet-Coke-fueled day at a time.

Here’s to the next chapter — together.

All My Love,
Briana

PS — If you’ve been waiting for the “perfect time” to join me and start, this is it. Imagine where you could be a year from now if you stopped trying to do it all alone and had a plan, accountability, and a community of women walking the same path with you. That’s what the BBM App was built for. And because we’re celebrating 13 years, you can lock it all in today for 40% off during our BBM Giveaway and Anniversary Sale. Don’t just save money—save yourself the time, the second-guessing, and the loneliness of going at it alone. 💖