The portion below was originally written to be shared on our family Instagram account. Enjoy!

Here is an old photo to give you a sneak peek at Franicia’s magazine article for @31mommagazine 📝😀 | “Exercise Can Be Simple, Easy, and Fun” 👍| …As a young child, I wasn’t very active. I was glued to the television screen as well as video games at home and at arcades. The little activity I did have came from PE class. Then, in junior high, things changed. I played competitive volleyball and loved it! We won many games, and I grew fond of running around the court instead of sitting around or borrowing someone’s Gameboy…

✏️In high school, I joined our Karate class which was the only available choice for Physical Education. It included weight training, boxing and kicking practice, learning how to throw throwing knives, and abdominal workouts. Coupled with our katas for belt progression, I started to notice changes in my physical abilities and appearance. I did that for four years and earned my first degree black belt pretty quickly...

✏️I experienced a type of “boot camp” and so much more grueling training than what I was used to while attending NAPS at Newport, Rhode Island. I swam, ran, did more push-ups than I could count, and more. I graduated from NAPS and received an appointment from the President of the United States to attend the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

I not only went through another and much longer “boot camp” phase but did various obstacle courses, swam, boxed, wrestled, ran in boots with a rifle in tow, trained with Navy SEALs because my run times weren't fast enough, or endured the dreaded “Swim PEP,” an alternative to the regular physical fitness program conducted in a pool, with the SEALs because I had various injuries...

✏️I’ve been asked more times than I can count how I stay very fit and slim despite having many children and going through many pregnancies. Most of that I attribute to... 😀