There are so many fitness blogs out there it's hard to know when you have stumbled upon a good one. I was lucky enough to come across Girl Get Strong and absolutely loved it. I decided to interview one of the co-founders Melanie to get the inside scoop.
What makes your fitness blog standout against all the others and how did you get started?
We got started over a cup of coffee, but it just as easily could have been over a bottle of wine! My two friends and I (blog co-founders Sian D and Susan B) were sitting around one day chatting about how hard it is to squeeze fitness into our hectic lives. And we agreed that when we did work out we found it pretty boring. Taking care of our bodies was a chore that fell at the bottom of our to-do lists. And we realized that we needed to change the way we viewed our workouts, spice them up, have some fun, get adventurous…but where do you start? How do you fit adventure into your life? And there are so many opportunities…what do you try…where do you begin? We figured that if we had these questions that other women probably did too. So we decided to share our experiences with other women and we thought the best way to do that would be to be online and accessible. GirlGetStrong.com was created out of our desire to share our personal experiences as regular women - with regular body shapes and body issues – and what we’ve learned during our quest to have get fit through having fun.
Every blog has its own unique voice and ours speaks from the point of view of the busy woman who is trying to get everything done. We’re all average women - which is to say, insanely busy - who are trying to balance a combination of family, housework, and careers and still squeeze a few minutes out of the day to stay in shape before we fall into bed at night. So those few minutes need to have the greatest impact and if we can combine with a fun time, then all the better!
We’re not experts, we’re not going to tell you what is best for anyone else, but we can certainly share our experiences and if we educate or motivate or even just give someone a giggle along the way then we’ve done what we set out to do. We’re here to challenge and motivate each other and our online fitness friends to try new activities, to tell our stories, and to laugh and to celebrate together when we reach our individual goals.
The photo below by Jussi Vestment captures the joy we want to feel – not just when working out, but in the rest of our lives as well. And that’s why we picked the “Girl Get Strong” name. Getting strong is so much more than just getting in shape physically. It’s about how we feel about ourselves, how we support and nurture our families, how we encourage and stand by our friends. Girl Get Strong is about our attitude toward life – bold, fearless, adventurous and ready to take on the world!
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photo by Jussi Vestment
Who is your fitness Icon (if you have one)?
My fitness icon is someone close to home…my Granddad. Granddad is definitely the role model who guides me when it comes to fitness. He is truly larger than life, yet at the same time, he lives so simply. Granddad is 95 and still lives on his own. He works outside in his garden from dawn until dusk each day. He mows his lawn with a push mower with no power. He chops wood and stacks it, he sweeps his driveway. He’s always kept himself fit and done it simply. He gets a huge satisfaction from doing a job by hand and he gets all the exercise he needs by being outside.
For Granddad fitness is the result – not the goal. And yet, he is fitter than most people in their twenties. He’s slowing down a bit now, but he still does his stretches each morning followed by dozens of pushups and hundreds of sit ups! When I was young he’d pop some boxing gloves on me and teach me how to hit his two punching bags. He’d take me on long jogs through the forest, challenge me to do more chin ups than him on his homemade chin up bar. He’d encourage me to climb his apple tree and sample the apples. So simple, and yet some of the best childhood memories I have are the time I spent at his house. There was so much joy in just exploring, having fun and challenging ourselves (well, perhaps I was challenged more than him!).
Is there one fitness rule you think men and women should live by?
Oh, gosh. Yes, please wear deodorant!
Wait, I’m kidding. Then again…no, I’m not.
I really like breaking rules and pushing boundaries, but one rule that I live by is to just have fun and not take fitness too seriously. We won’t stick with a fitness program if we aren’t enjoying it. It’s important to find a passion, and get active. When you have passion, working out is fun and time flies. Fitness will come naturally as a result.
Do you have any suggestions when trying to make healthy food substitutions with the summer around the corner?
In our family, we try to live by the 80/20 rule – 80% of the time we eat healthy meals and 20% of the time we don’t worry too much about what we eat. Eating healthy is hard for me, I have such a sweet tooth, but my husband is a health-a-holic. He likes everything fresh, non-processed, organic, and made from scratch. He drags the rest of us along with his healthy ways and although we complain a lot, secretly I’m grateful because we eat much better than we would if we were left to my tastes. I gladly give up the food shopping to him, except I do have to go on dessert and junk food raids once in a while when the kids and I need to indulge.
Once we get to late spring/early summer I do find it a much easier time to eat healthy meals; there’s just such an abundance of fresh foods that taste yummy. We raid the local farmer’s market at least once a week and we prepare a lot of salads and simple BBQ’d vegetables in the summer. I’ve had to be creative with salads as the kids have a natural suspicion of anything green and leafy. But we’ll get a good organic spring mix, and add in spinach and kale. I’ll also mix in some herbs from my pots – a little fresh mint is the kids’ favorite. Then I’ll finish with a cucumber, a finely chopped apple and just a sprinkle of grated or diced cheese. Another variation substitutes diced oranges instead of the cheese and apple. When we add in flavors that the kids like – and a little goes a long way in salad - they’ll actually eat it with very little complaining.
How did you become interested in health and fitness?
Ugly feet and the need to justify them! Before, people were always telling me to get a pedicure – and I’d just have had one. Now that I run, people don’t think it is so odd that I have weird looking feet.
No, seriously, I think my Granddad laid the foundation for a lifelong love of being active. It did go dormant for a while I was a teenager, and then again when it seemed like I was always pregnant (four kids in 6 years), but after my last child, my interest in getting fit grew from the point of view that I needed to save my sanity and carve out a bit of time just for me. Once I reclaimed that time for myself, I’ve found it rewarding far beyond just getting my body in shape. Working out clears my mind, energizes me and allows me to refocus. When I come back home, I’m always in a great mood, whereas before I go I’m often wound up and grumpy. Now, even the kids notice the difference and if I’m too grumpy they’ll suggest I go work out.
What is your favorite physical activity?
My passion for the past four years has been running. It’s simple, inexpensive, and I don’t have to rely on anyone but myself. I also love that it is portable – I can run anywhere. I’m not fast, not a natural athlete, but I get by. I’ve been lucky enough to run in cities like Tokyo, New York, Dubai and Berlin. It’s a wonderful way to explore a new city and to feel connected to a new culture while being amongst people. You just can’t get that same connection to a city from riding around in a cab or from working out in a hotel gym.
Now that I’m more confident in my fitness level and in my love of running – confident that I won’t quit and go back to sitting on the couch – I’m eager to try new things. I’ve been biking and hiking and swimming and spinning and weight training and have discovered a love of Pilates. But there is so much more that I want to try – I don’t want to have any regrets when my body is too old to try new things. I want to have lived a full and exciting life.
There’s a saying: “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, screaming: ‘Whooo-hooo what a ride!’”
And that’s exactly how I intend to live my life.
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