Our fall open house event is dedicated to all things Homecoming as we celebrate our 46 years of Healthworks Group! We wouldn’t be here without our incredible members, staff and community, and we want to share some of our members’ own inspiring stories along with their 2023 yearbook pics.
Please join us for the in-club festivities from October 17-20 you won’t want to miss. Learn more here and sign up for classes in the app!
LIZ
Five years ago I was diagnosed with hypertension at the age of 29. It was the wake up call I needed to finally make a change in my life. I had been overweight my whole life and never found an exercise routine or diet that would stick. Being reliant on medication in my 20s finally put things into perspective and made me start to take control of my health and my future. I started making changes to my diet and educating myself on what foods made me feel best. Then I joined Healthworks and found the missing piece in my journey. I fell in love with exercise and strength training.
Working with a trainer taught me the basics of movement and helped me overcome my gym anxiety to stick with a routine. I lost over 130 pounds throughout the next two years and have been maintaining ever since. Joining Healthworks is easily the best decision I’ve ever made. This community has meant so much to me and my story. The support and encouragement is what keeps me going even when things get hard. I’ll never be able to express in words the gratitude I feel for the people I’ve met and the friends I’ve made here.
CHELSEA
As someone who has constantly been labeled as “overweight” due to my number on the scale, and told that in order to be healthy I would need to lose weight, I used to go to the gym and spend hours on the elliptical or treadmill, running. I wasn’t happy and running made me feel defeated. So I joined Healthworks in April 2021, started attending cycle classes and loved the environment.
I felt encouraged and powerful, and for the first time, I was actually enjoying going to the gym and woke up every day wanting to go move my body. I started creating a workout plan for myself where my goal was to become strong and lift heavy weights rather than focus on the number on the scale. Since then, I’ve been coming to Healthworks for 2+ years, made friends, tried different fitness classes, and pushed myself out of my comfort zone. Now, I’ve found a routine that makes me happy, attending cycle classes and lifting on the fitness floor.
I have noticed how strong and confident I am, and how much I enjoy working out now because I’ve found a community that celebrates bodies rather than focuses on making them smaller. If you see me around Healthworks Cambridge, say hi!
CLAIRE
My weight has fluctuated my entire life and during COVID-19 lockdown, I gained about 20-30 pounds. During this time, I was also working in a job that didn’t serve me, my spirit, or my health and wellness. My physical health tanked and my mental health was even worse. I knew that I wanted to take better care of myself, so my friend and I joined Healthworks in August of 2022.
I had a few goals: 1) Lose weight; 2) Be able to participate in activities on a family trip; 3) Maintain a consistent gym routine. With the help of my friends, my personal trainer at the time, and my tiny Instagram community, I was able to crush those goals and more along the way. At the same time, I found myself loving the gym and loving exercising, which I something that I didn’t think I would be able achieve. There were tons of challenges along the way including time, energy, and demotivation, but when I went on my family trip and was able to go horseback riding with my sister, I knew it was all worth it. Additionally, when I focused on my physical health, I was able to improve my mental health too and finally take care of myself the way I’ve always wanted to. Now, I’m a happier, healthier, more active, more positive, more daring person, and more accepting of myself. I owe a lot of that to joining Healthworks, and my little “gym girlie” community.
MARY
Being in the Healthworks family for over 35 years, I have made many friendships with members that go to the club. When you are working out together so intensely, you create a bond that others don’t really understand. We share so much by celebrating accomplishments and support each other through challenges that they may be working through. I look forward to seeing my friends and enjoying their positive influence in my life!
I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer the day before Thanksgiving 2021 – I will never forget that day. My world as I knew it had changed. The recovery after treatments took a really long time. My friends and workout buddies would check in from time to time encouraging me to keep fighting. If not for the encouragement of these people, my outcome could have been different.
The real turning point in my recovery was when the doctors finally gave me the go ahead to start working out again. I couldn’t wait to get back in there and start to strengthen myself inside and out again! I will never forget the day I returned to Healthworks. It was so wonderful to see old friends and to be able to start to heal my body. MY WAY! My journey is far from over, but my outlook is bright! Never loose sight of your goal – big or small. The encouragement and love of others goes far in healing your spirit.
SHANNON
I have set many different fitness and strength goals for myself over the years as both a BODYPUMP instructor, and someone who has taken up Olympic and Power Lifting. Strength training has been one of he best things I’ve done – not only does it challenge and push me physically, but also teaches me how to slow down and find strength in the small movements and perfecting form.
When I got pregnant in the winter of 2022, I wasn’t sure how it was going to change what I could do in the gym. However, I was lucky to be able to continue to work out challenge myself throughout my pregnancy and even hit a new deadlift PR at 7 months pregnant at the Healthworks deadlift competition! I am so grateful that I was able to stay active and work out up until the day before my son was born. Now I am looking forward to returning to the gym and navigating fitness and strength training postpartum.
For me, success with fitness and wellness is not a singular goal or endpoint, it is something that changes with me as I move through life. I have loved what I’ve been able to do thus far at the gym and with Healthworks, and I am looking forward to what comes next.
ELLEN
I started working out at Healthworks in December 2022. After a few years of consolation eating through the pandemic, I did not feel my best and wanted to build new habits to get moving more consistently. I had also just turned 39 and felt a pre-40 urge to do something big and challenging in the lead-up to a new decade.
When I was a teen and my mom was about the age I am now, she always talked about how cool it would be to hike Mt. Kilimanjaro. Somewhere she read a profile about it, and the idea took hold. It seemed impossibly ambitious at the time, as we rarely had the means to take vacations and had never traveled outside the country. I was also a surly teen who had yet to discover the joys of hiking, and I thought the idea sounded ridiculous.
In my mid 20s and early 30s, I surprised myself by falling in love with hiking. I love the endurance challenge, the peace of being immersed in nature, and I really love the perspective, mental and visual, from the summit. My mom and I have hiked together a lot over the past decade, local trails like Mt. Katahdin and more distant routes like the Milford Track in New Zealand. I even began to reevaluate my initial reaction to Mt. Kilimanjaro.
My mom has had more physical limitations in recent years after a series of treatments for breast cancer. She still hikes, but she has advanced osteoporosis now and no longer wants to attempt Kilimanjaro. So, rapidly approaching 40, I decided to take up the torch.
When I began training at Healthworks, I was getting winded during Zumba classes, and now I am at my peak cardio fitness. Just over four months ago, I summited Kilimanjaro. Because of my training, I didn’t have to worry about my muscle strength or my aerobic capacity. I wasn’t even worried about my mental focus or tenacity. I was carrying with me the feeling of commitment and solidarity that has come from working out in groups of determined women each week. I’m grateful to Healthworks for helping me to accomplish a dream that my mom seeded in me many years ago. And I’m so happy that I keep proving myself wrong! I thought I wasn’t a hiker, and I thought I wasn’t a “gym person.” Now, I’m glad to say that I’m both.
