AmazingMFitness.com

We may need to hire a tudor. Or in this case, a personal trainer.

Men’s Health magazine has just released its ranking of America’s Fattest Cities 2010, and Orlando earneda D+ as the 32nd fattest city in the nation.

We can do better, and I know we’re working on it. I’ve seen more runners and cyclists on the pavement in the past year than I can remember in my decades of living in Central Florida. Let’s try to get a C next year.

We weren’t the fattest Florida city on Men’s Health’s list: Jacksonville earns that distiction as the country’s 11th fattest city. Miami is Florida’s fittest city at No. 69 (or 31st fittest city), earning a B-.

The magazine’s fattest city in the nation? Corpus Christi, Texas. Sadly, five of the top 10 cities on the list are in Texas (El Paso, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston are the others). Bucking the trend, Austin, Texas, earned an A grade as one of the magazine’s fittest cities.

To read the entire list and to see what criteria the magazine’s editors used to arrive at their rankings, read Men’s Health’s America’s Fattest Cities 2010.

Samantha Zaino, an EMS worker for the Reedy Creek Fire Department, is a former high school swimmer and also competed in tennis and gymnastics. (Brightroom Photography)

Samantha Zaino has a simple philosophy that has helped her as she prepares to compete in her second Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon on Sunday, May 2.

“I like to go for the big stuff, because if you go for the small stuff first, the big stuff looks a lot scarier,” said Zaino, a 40-year-old EMS worker for the Reedy Creek Fire Department.

That outlook led Zaino to compete in her first marathon, in 2007 at Disney, without running a shorter-distance race beforehand. It also enabled her to compete at Alcatraz — a triathlon that includes a 1.5-mile swim, an 18-mile bike ride and 8-mile run — last year. It was her fourth triathlon, following a half-ironman at Disney and two shorter sprint triathlons.

Now it is on to triathlon No. 5, and Zaino is ready.

“If you have a goal, it just makes it easier for you togo to the gym,” said Zaino, who works part time at Disney and moved to Orlando in 2001. “And I get to eat a lot of chocolate.”

Chocolate cravings aside, Zaino always has been active. She swam in high school and played tennis anddid gymnastics during her youth.

Now she is looking forward to going to San Francisco again.

“I won’t be as nervous,” Zaino said. “Going out on the boat and knowing you have to swim 1.5 miles in 50-degree water, that’s nerve-racking.”

At least Zaino will have family to support her. Her brother, wife and their two children live outside of San Francisco.

And she can take heart in knowing her fitness pursuits have had a positive influence on another family member.

“‘Are you sure you want to do that?”’ Zaino said of the response she got from her family when they were told she would do Alcatraz last year. “My family isn’t into all the extremes. It did motivate my mom a little bit, though. She got a treadmill.”

Imagine what the family will say if Zaino pursues another fitness dream.

“Sometimes, when I’m not in my right mind, I’ll think about doing a full ironman,” Zaino said. “But then I’ll get back to reality. Maybe one day down the road.”