I am only slightly ashamed to say that I roll my eyes at other trainers' Instagram stories, pour chocolate chips into the open jar of peanut butter nearby (the one with cane sugar because I don't feel like stirring), pull one of my pets close, and eat a big spoonful while watching more often than I join in on the sweat. I'm not joking. I would make a pina colada like I'm drinking in this photo but I moved in April and can't find all of the parts to my blender. Correct, I haven't been making protein shakes either, you caught me . I haven't even taken most of my friends' online classes. This is not my world. I hate my phone, and always have. I hate how impersonal it is and all of the social and emotional cues we miss when we're staring at a screen just following a class. I hate repeatedly stepping on my blind, mostly-deaf dog in my living room (because, to my delight, Jane Fonda the dog loves a yoga mat but specifically limits her activity on it to napping) while unrecognizable beats blare through a phone because Drake songs require a special license to play. And you know what? That's okay. What is WRONG with you? was my April mantra. My May mantra is Just try, sis . We are not at our best right now. We may not be for a long time. I know how confusing grief is to people unfamiliar with it so I want you to understand that it's ok for you to be struggling. Two years after losing my sister, my family is still in shambles and all we do is grieve. I often read on people's faces sympathy mixed with "Still?" when I share that it still hurts to get through most days without her. And while I haven't lost anyone to this crisis (except maybe the friends who don't approve of my distain for texting), I feel something akin to grief in regard to this pandemic. I think we all do. This is a crisis and it is hard. While we don't have to be our best, we also can't just lie and and quit all together. If you're able to join one of these fabulous weekly challenges Jenna Stern is leading, join in on RhythmLab or CarlyFit classes, or do a Whole 30 I think that's incredible! Do it and celebrate it. But if you're stuck on the couch and haven't worked out in a few days...or weeks...you're not alone. Oh man, after a whole post of acting like I wasn't going to give tips, here I am giving tips. I am a coach. I can't leave you empty-handed. 1. Just move. Every day. It doesn't have to be a traditional workout and it doesn't have to leave you gasping for breath, but exercise really does improve your mood and your productivity. Set small, achievable workout goals every day. Whether it's a walk or spending 8 minutes twisting your body into all the yoga postures you can recall. 2. Don't have all the treats. If you've been having a martini every night, make sure you're not also having ice cream. Have some of the treats you want but make sure you're practicing some self control. Sugar is still really, really  bad for you, even during a pandemic. 3. Talk to yourself the way your best friend does (or should). I would never let someone talk shit on my besties. Don't talk shit on yourself, even to you. Remind yourself that this is hard - crazy hard - and weird and you don't have to know how to handle this. By the way, you're handling it right now. Good on you. If you gained some pounds, then you did. It just means you took in more calories than you burned for a bit. It has nothing to do with your value and it's not a measure of anything but fat, which we all have. You are special and beautiful and you deserve to walk around feeling really really good. So maybe go lighter on the chocolate chips and martinis (yeah, I just made it about me) and get outside for a long walk with your favorite face mask. You deserve that. Do one thing a little bit better for yourself most days. I'm willing to be anything that you can handle that. And if you're not sure you can, just try, sis.

My life as a health and wellness coach

Do you know who Jane Fonda is? You should. If you don't, check out her incredible documentary Jane Fonda in Five Acts on HBO (you're welcome, Jane, just helping a sister out). I grew up intrigued (big surprise) by exercise. I asked for an ab-doer for my thirteenth birthday and cried when my parents tricked me into thinking they hadn't ordered it for however many installments of $19.99. To be honest, I was incredibly lazy and wanted to find a way to have abs without working out. The ab-doer looked like just the trick! I was devastated to find it doesn't actually do anything. I moved on to fitness VHS tapes. Yes, VHS. My sister and I found, of all things, a Jane Fonda workout video at our local library. Do I have to tell you the impact this has had on me? I will. There was Jane Fonda on my television. She was inviting me to do "the workout" and wore the craziest clothes I'd ever seen. Her hair was as huge as her waist was tiny. I loved her. I did the workout. My thighs burned and I was turned on to VHS and, later, DVD workouts in the comfort of my own home. My fitness would take a long and winding journey and place me on various stages leading workouts throughout the next couple of decades, but it all began with a rented VHS of Jane Fonda's workout. I knew nothing except that she was fabulous. I had no idea she built an empire from scratch and donated all of the money, or that she led political protests and stood up for the rights of voiceless men and women at the great cost of her own career. I just knew she was lovely. Flash forward almost twenty years and you'd find me last summer in a very dark moment, sitting on my couch in a beautiful apartment in Center City, Philadelphia, sobbing and screaming into a pillow. My sister passed away in April 2018 and for months I struggled to find a way to keep living without her. I knew I owed it to my surviving family to stay with them but I couldn't fathom life would become worthwhile. I had no plan or intention of suicide, but I was frightened at the life stretched out before me without my sister and didn't want it. Enter Jane Fonda. I somehow found my way to her documentary and continued to bawl for several hours as I watched, googled, rewound, re-watched, etc. until I felt something awaken. If Jane Fonda has a message it's that it's never too late. This has become my mantra. It's never too late. Life can be devastating and there is a lot we cannot control. We often survive unspeakable pain, but how do you thrive again after a tragedy? You have to find hope. You have to believe that it's never too late, that a chance to do something great is around the corner and it's your duty to turn that corner. I truly couldn't find that hope inside of me until I had a front row seat to someone else purposely reconfiguring her life over and over until she loved it. A few months later I walked into Street Tails Animal Rescue and saw a beautiful little old lady in the corner cage. She was old, blind, and inexplicably missing patches of fur. I filled out an application and took her home a week later. Guess what I named her? That was almost six months ago. Jane Fonda and I are now working really hard together to spread hope. She and Kevin boop noses every morning and light up my entire world. I start each day with joy. I can't believe I wake up happy, again. It's never too late.

I sit next to a palm tree this morning, on a perfectly-manicured resort in Cancun, watching perhaps the most stunning sunrise I’ve ever seen. I’ve just slept for fourteen hours straight, told my brother I’m sick as I crawled into bed at 5pm yesterday. I don’t feel well, that’s true. But I’m not ill. I’m exhausted. I find life exhausting - even life on a beach, with palm trees and an open bar. There is no respite from grief. I found out Meredith is dead almost 10 months ago. I have had moments of joy and laughter since then, but they’re fleeting. Mostly, I observe the world around me and wonder how it keeps going. Don’t they know? My therapist is sometimes a little too real for me. She says I’ve been avoiding my grief by overfunctioning. What does she mean? Teaching 10 spin classes a week and training 38 clients isn’t a normal amount of work? I just took my first day off since October and slept for 14 hours. She may have a point. It’s become socially expected to dispense advice. Social media asks that we share our lives and our insight with others. I’ve taken a hiatus from social media because I have no advice to dispense. I believe the handful of my riders who have sent me helpful books or given me heartfelt cards telling me they’ve lost and found a way to live again. I trust them. I hope this doesn’t last forever. But it’s been a long 10 months. Every day I just try to finish the day. Sometimes I have a dinner with girlfriends or a date to look forward to. But just as often I call and cancel everything. And then I promptly drop anyone who doesn’t get it. You’re upset I didn’t call you yesterday? Find a new friend. I’m not ready to be relied on yet. My world is still in pieces. A close friend told me a few months ago that I look “so much better.” I laughed and said I feel worse now, as the enormity and permanence of Meredith’s death sets in more each day. She insisted that all summer the life was gone from my eyes, and now I look like myself again. I felt like she was telling me it’s time to be better. My family, my sister’s friends, and I disagree. None of us feel even slightly better. Mer’s best friends and I text and call when we can and no one has any sense of peace. How could we? And it’s not lost on me that Jennair shouldn’t be dead either. It’s all tragic, how these two brilliant young women now cease to exist. And where a new day once brought hope or opportunity, every single day we wake up now marks the longest any of us have gone without seeing or talking to Meredith. I went to visit her childhood best friend last weekend, in honor of what would have been Mer’s 34th birthday. I got to meet her adorable four month old son. Meredith never did. Christine and I hugged and squeezed her two kids and talked with her husband while we drank a bottle of wine. It feels good to connect with other people trying to grasp the same truths, solve the same mysteries. But we remained just as sad when we hugged goodbye. Another of her best friends has three little girls. Every day I wonder with admiration how she pulls herself together enough to take care of them. Still another moved to New Mexico to start a new career and I wonder every day how she found the courage during her mourning. We are all doing what we have to. But none of us are doing well. We all watch the world around us with the same despair resting heavily on our hearts. We all roll our eyes and throw our phones with we encounter someone who doesn’t get it. Tommy and I came to Mexico for Meredith’s birthday because we couldn’t bear to be at home. I simply didn’t want to celebrate Meredith by going to a cold grave. It doesn’t represent her. She was so full of life and hope and innovation. She loved harder and laughed louder than anyone I know. She embraced problems head on without hesitation. Try going 30 years with a cheerleader by your side, just a phone call away (and if she didn’t pick up the first time, she would if I called two more times right in a row no matter what important meeting she was leading, a trick I found hilarious no matter how many times she scolded me for doing it), who had the answer to anything, and then having her ripped away without warning. I genuinely don’t know what to do with myself each day. So I settle to just get through. And I stay incredibly busy. I take a vacation from the cold. I turn my phone off when I get home at night (no, I don’t care how many emails or texts are unanswered). I throw myself into each spin class or client as if that hour is my entire reason for existing. I unfollow every single person on social media who post about their bad day because they missed a yoga class. I text my sister’s friends, I make plans with my tribe, I call my mom a lot more and I look in awe at the world. I wonder how it keeps going with all the loss and pain people face each day. Don’t they know? And sometimes I sit on a beach, with my toes in the sand, having done every single thing I can think of to feel better, and just surrender to my sadness. It’s not fair that I feel the sun on my face right now and Meredith lies in the cold ground, alone. I’m not sure what to make of life anymore. I’m not ready to be better. If anything, I’m ready to fully embrace the loss our world suffered when Meredith was ripped away from it. I’m still hiding out a bit. I have zero advice for anyone. But I realize that mourning privately is confusing, people can’t get it if I’m not saying it. So here I am, saying have patience with people who are grieving. Or don't - but know that you’re likely saying goodbye to a friend if you disappear during the hardest season of their life. I doubt I’ll ever actually return to the carefree Jess people seem to miss so much, I’m not the same. So if you’re waiting for that…don’t. But if you aren’t sure what to do or what to say to me or someone feeling the way I feel - just be there. Without expectations. Without criticism. Without asking why I didn’t put mascara on or why I canceled yet another dinner. And I will return the favor by not asking you how you get through each day, because don’t you know that Mer isn’t here?

Coping with grief and loss

"Figure it out, but just keep moving," - Sia, Flames About a week after losing my sister I heard the song Flames on a run along the Schuylkill, by the time Sia got to the first chorus I had black mascara-ridden tears streaming from my eyes down my cheeks, mixing with sweat and dripping onto my, now ruined, white Lulu tank. I ran off to the side of the trail, by the water, and sat on a grafittied rock listening to words my sister would have told me had she been running next to me: "One foot in front of the other, babe One breath leads to another Just keep moving. Look within for the strength today Listen out for the voice to say Just keep moving." I could go on for days about Meredith's unique ability to see a path where one didn't exist. She lived by an unspoken credence to just keep pushing forward. I think the best way to honor my sister is to share with other people, people who may be hurting from different types of pain than mine, what drives me to keep moving forward. Life can be very hard. But it's all perspective. Someone else always has it easier than you do, but someone else is always struggling harder than you are. We have to be driven by a responsibility to our own selves, no one else. The reason you should feed your body good food, laugh with friends, talk deeply and often with loved ones, and sweat in a way that feels challenging and invigorating, is because you owe it to you. Yes, life is painful at times. But don't let it ruin you. I want to crawl in a hole. I still cringe each time my phone buzzes. I give myself pep talks before each client. I almost skipped one of my beloved crossfit classes yesterday because I couldn't stop crying on my walk to the gym. But that hole is limitless. I could get lost in it. I am too afraid to visit it even for a moment. So instead, I make myself smile at strangers. I walk dogs at the shelter when I have a free moment. I call my mom, brother, and my brother's girlfriend (little sis) every single time I think of them. I reach out, I work out. I drink vegan protein shakes instead of eating chocolate bars. I have a martini when I want it...but just one. And I cry a lot. I cry when I wake up, I cry while I walk to my clients, and I cry every night before bed. I am embracing my sadness because it's appropriate. But I'm not letting myself into that hole. If you are hurting, if you are down, reach out. People want to lift you up and help you - I want to lift you up and help you, message me if you feel alone! - but you have to let them. Whatever your journey is, whatever your struggle is right now, just keep moving. One foot in front of the other.

I appreciate each of you so much and the love you've extended to me in my time of need is beyond generous. It's beautiful and humbling and inspiring and it's helping my heal, however slowly. I know you guys want to know how I'm doing and I feel that I owe it to everyone who cares to be honest. I'm not doing well. I'm very sad and hopeless. Every day I wake up and feel tremendous loss and emptiness without my sister here. Each time I mindlessly pick up the phone to call her I feel like I'll never recover. I'm using all of my energy and effort every day to try to return to training my clients and working out. I spent most of the past five weeks lying in bed and crying. I am genuinely sorry I haven't been able to thank this city properly for all of the love and support extended my way, but small tasks feel insurmountable lately. Answering a text is bizarrely difficult. Having wine with friends sounds safe, until after a second glass I start crying and need to race back to the comfort of my own bed. I am shaken. I feel that I don't know anyone or anything and can't trust even this moment, right now. I know - these words are a little frighening coming from me. My nature is annoyingly positive. I am used to waking up to delicious coffee, bright sunshine, and this beautiful job where I get to make others happier. I've refered to my time in Philadelphia for the last seven years as "The Charmed Life of Jess," not so jokingly. I've been incredibly blessed with clients and riders turned friends. I've treated every day as an adventure and lived a lot of life in a small city in a short amount of time. It's the only way I know how to be. Nothing feels right anymore. It's frightening to have such a huge part of who I am, my joy, disappear so instantly and entirely. I can't find that happy person I was. I'm walking around lost and listless. But this is the part where the tiny, tiny, glimmer of Jess appears. I forced myself back into a workout on Memorial Day. Of all days, I was able to put my pain aside to acknowledge great sacrifice and love and force myself out of bed. I drew on the energy and love of my family at Crossfit Rittenhouse and completed a brutally challenging workout (Murph, for those of you who are into that sort of special torture). It was the best hour I've lived in the past 38 days. I felt myself ease into encouraging others without thinking, high fiving and embracing sweaty bodies in tight hugs. I promised myself that day that I would attempt this week to say a thank you to all of the wonderful people in this city who came together to support me. Thank you. Thank you for your donations, for your messages, for your hugs, for your generosity. You've invited me into your homes, you've offered every kindness, and you've made me feel a little less awful. I can sense that this city believes in me and I hope you're right for doing so. I want to find pieces of myself again, some of the joy and grit I once knew myself to have. I promise I am trying. I will keep trying. I don't expect I'll ever be the same. I'm incomplete. But I promise to do everything I can to be a little more of the Jess you know and love. I'm honored to have an enormous and gracious group of people behind me. Thank you for holding me, for loving me. I love you.

Nobody can make you feel anything . I will never forget the first time I hoped to believe that I am in charge of myself and no one else can change who I am or how I feel. It was about eight years ago, sitting in a therapist's office, tears streaming down my face. I'm not a crier. I just found myself in a place of such hopelessness that I didn't know what else to do but cry. I have spent a disgusting number of days, weeks, months, even (sadly) years worried not only about how I make people feel, but also actually feeling the way I believed others imposed upon me. I woke up sad and anxious every day for the better part of a decade because I didn't live for me; and, I didn't think I ever would. I kept a silent list of greivances commited against me in my heart and I didn't realize until this therapy session that it was ruining my life. "He stole my soul" I said about a man. "She makes me feel worthless" I said about a former friend. "They make me feel stupid," I said about adults who I now realize, in retrospect, are incredibly stupid. My therapist looked at me while I sobbed hopelessly on her couch, and calmly told me that no one can make me feel anything. She repeated it until I heard it. Really heard it. It changed my entire world when I began to believe that statement. I knew somewhere inside that I was valuable and smart, but I could only see myself through others' eyes back then. When we feel really and truly low, we often grasp the wrong words and trust the wrong opinions. We doubt everything we think and start to believe what others think of us. What we need to believe at our lowest is that we are strong and that we will find a way. I am incredibly strong. I always was. But it wasn't until I believed that I was in charge of my life and my happiness that I started to use my strength to restructure my world. I have repeated this wisdom to more clients and friends than I can count. Once we stop blaming others for hurting us, for making us feel low, for not seeing the best parts of us, we start to see ourselves without an ugly filter of supposed feedback from the world. Don't waste a moment of your life feeling guilty or sad or worthless because that's what you see in someone else's eyes. What do you see when you look at you? You are in charge of that view. And you are in charge of not only how you treat you, but how you allow others to treat you. To be honest, I thought I'd have less friends when I started to take control of my life and happiness. I believed those words out of desperation and sought to take control of my life but I thought that less concern for others' opinions of me would make me cold, removed, and unattractive. I've found the opposite. I have much warmer and deeper connections to others once I remove the idea that their view of me can change how I feel. I like me. I am responsible for thinking I am special, for having a great day, for finding happy career, for living a fulfilling life full of love. People want to be around someone who loves herself because it leaves more room for her to truly love others. No one makes me feel anything. I see myself through only my eyes these days. Through my eyes, I love myself and I treat myself accordingly. In turn, I am constantly making my own world into a really, truly, beautiful place.

It happens to all of us. Whether you're in a rut because you totally fell off the fitness wagon or because you fell into a routine that stopped working for you, fitness is complex phenomenon and we have to address it as such. We all make the mistake of associating one detail with fitness and blowing it out of proportion. Too often I meet women who only feel fit when they fit into one pair of pants (I am hoping my friends eventually forget my winter 2018 freakout when I found out I no longer fit into my skinny jeans from college) or see a certain bone protruding in a photo (we all know the weird skinny arm thing where you almost dislocate your shoulder for the gram). Some of us are performance based and feel that anything short of running XX miles in XX time, or doing a certain amount of pushups, means we are either fit or not. Fitness isn't about one thing fitting or a single metric. It's how you feel, how you move, and what you think. Listen to your body If you are tired, if you don't feel like you're getting stronger, if you don't look forward to your meals, or if you find yourself paying more cancelation fees than actual payments for group classes, you are in a rut. First you have to think about how you feel. When did it change? Think about some of your habits the last time you felt good in the morning, or excited about a workout. What went wrong? If you're tired, you need more sleep. If you're constantly hungry (or too full), you have to think about what you're eating and why. If your workouts have plateaued, when did that start? If you never remembering feeling good and excited about fitness, that's important too. How would you like to feel? Calmer, stronger, more flexible? Write it down and start making moves toward this goal. Make a change Don't stay there. If you're paying a gym membership that you aren't using - cancel it. Join a new gym, something you haven't tried. Get on Yelp! and go to something that jives with you. If you need a new idea for an in home workout, get on Youtube and start finding some channels you enjoy (so many options, seriousy). If you know your nutrition is way off, clean out your pantry and start fresh. Find an instagram that supports your diet and learn some new recipes. If it all seems daunting, google a therapist and figure out why this is so tough. Just don't stay there. It may be comfortable but it doesn't serve you. Get a little uncomfortable, it's where we grow. Track your journey out of the rut Fitness is not a direct path, it makes all kinds of twists and turns. Sometimes our bodies don't do what we want and often our emotions don't compell us to make the choices that are actually best for us. Take actual note of how you feel, both emotionally and physically, as you make these changes. Make a little tab on your phone for notes and mark down when you feel good, hungry, cranky, sore, etc. As a trainer the first thing I have my clients do is describe their sleep. Then I ask about diet. Finally, I ask about their workouts. Actual fitness starts with a mental state that you're going to nourish yourself instead of punishing yourself. Set your sights on what you want to feel like each day, then start making these small tweaks and watch (becuase you're actually tracking it) what happens. I just clawed my own way out of a rut using these exact steps. For me, the rut was about not wanting to deal with real life, so I ignored workouts and nutrition and submerged myself in work. I had to take a good hard look at what I was ignoring in my personal life and why I felt the need to escape into the lives of my clients and riders all day every day. It required some difficult changes and the process was painful, but I feel better today than I have in a long time. I don't want you to stay in a rut. No one should live in a rut. Nothing beautiful happens in there. Get your rest, eat your greens, find workouts that are challenging and fresh, and take a moment to check in with your body each day. Staying in a rut is a decision all on its own. Make a different one - the one to take care of you, body and soul.