I’m a proud American and Cayman Bracker, a lover of all things fitness, a wife to my best friend who I met while in the police academy together, a momma to a little boy, a dog momma to two rescue pups, a Certified Elite Personal Trainer with specialization as a Sports Nutritionist, and Transformations specialist, creator of DM Fit exercise app and host of ‘EmpowereD with Deanna Merlino’ podcast.
My passion and calling is to empower people to learn the importance of being healthy. Since a young age I was always an athlete and played sports my entire life. While I tried pretty much all of them, my strengths were Track, Cheerleading, and Boxing. After high school, I continued cheerleading on into college and then moved onto an all-star competitive traveling team.
After finally retiring from cheering in college, I soon discovered my love for exercising and lifting weights in the gym. Before I knew it, my competitive side took over and I was competing in bikini class bodybuilding competitions. During that time, I won my height class in several shows, went on to win an overall title of an NPC show, was nationally qualified 3 times, competed nationally once, and in a total of 7 shows all together.