When a bona-fide wave acrobat talks about balance, it's best to listen. But if former bodyboarding champ Daniela Freitas-Ronquilio is doing the talking, you might be surprised at what she's balancing.

Freitas-Ronquilio, a Brazilian native who has made Hawai'i her home, ruled the waves as a professional women's bodyboarder for much of her 16-year career. She trained nearly every day, surfing four hours, then swimming and doing sit-ups for another two hours. Her dedication produced a pair of world titles.

Then her single-minded pursuit found the ultimate counterweight: motherhood.

Children led to the end of Freitas-Ronquilio's bodyboarding career even as she found something in life that made fitness goals even sweeter.

While raising a family, she discovered weightlifting, gained 10 pounds of muscle, won a figure contest last summer and even captured a major bodyboarding contest at Pipeline in January that she entered at the last minute. The waves were 12 to 15 feet high at the time, by the way.

"To me, balance is the secret, the key to everything," Freitas-Ronquilio said. "You can apply that to your family, your workout, your diet. If you are working too much, too hard, you are not paying enough attention to your family, you are out of balance. It is the same with everything in life."

The 34-year-old Freitas-Ronquilio, who left the pro bodyboarding tour in 2005, still trains regularly — up to five days a week. She lifts weights each session, targeting different muscle groups, and then finishes up with an intense, 15-minute near-sprint on an exercycle or a treadmill.

But she isn't as manic about it as she once was. She schedules her sessions around dropping her son off at preschool and her daughter at kindergarten, as well as a new job as an Aloha Airlines flight attendant.

A trip to the beach is a rare, but cherished outing.

Weightlifting was a new activity for Freitas-Ronquilio, who picked up her first barbell in 2006 because she was worried that she would look skinny during a photo session.

"I wanted to lift to get a little bit bigger, and when I did that, I really liked it," she said. "I just fell in love with it."

Freitas-Ronquilio's dedication to her new routine brought victory in the medium figure division at the Hawaiian Islands Bodybuilding and Figure Championships last June. The competition judges muscle tone and proportion with an eye toward femininity, she said.

Weights have become a new addiction, one that she finds herself choosing over trips to the beach.

"I need to lift weights," she said. "Then I feel good."

And they offer a challenge, too. She wants to compete in figure contests, and her victory last summer earned her an invitation to a national amateur championship in Las Vegas. Do well there, and a pro career is a possibility, she said.

But everything in moderation. Freitas-Ronquilio doesn't like the idea of trading one pro tour for another, and weighs obsession against her family.

Even her weekly workouts are held to that standard.

"If I take time away from my kids, and can't give them attention, then I know to take a break," she said. "I have to balance everything so I can give them attention and still do my workouts, and still do my chores. That is why balance is the key for me."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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