The Reset: Movement is Medicine with Mari Llewellyn
4 keys to finally hit your fitness goals this year—plus the my current salad addiction.
Bonjour, my friends. I’m back from Paris and have so much to share from that trip, I’ll be devoting an entire post to it in a couple days. The short version: it was full of incredible food, beautiful art, and an unexpected twist that we’ll get into in Tuesday’s post.
One thing I’ve realized is that, as much as I love to travel, I am really a homebody at heart. There’s no better feeling than coming home after a trip, taking a hot bath, and climbing into my own bed. I find it challenging to stick to any kind of healthy eating and exercise routines when I’m traveling, and to be honest—I prefer to fully indulge in whatever I want to eat, and spend my time exploring a new city instead of in the hotel gym.
That said, I love getting back into my healthy routines once I’m back home, and I truly crave home cooked meals after a few days of travel. Research has shown that it’s consistency that really matters in the long run. It’s way more beneficial to walk 30 minutes a day than to go hard at the gym twice a week.
Before we get into today’s interview, a few things I wanted to share with you:
🥬 Recipe to make: Detox Salad with Cashew Tamari Dressing. This was inspired by a salad I ate in Ibiza last summer. It’s so nourishing and the flavor-texture combo is absolutely addictive.
🎧 Podcast episode I loved: Check In, Don’t Check Out With Gabby Bernstein. This one is all about navigating life’s challenges and befriending the parts of ourselves that we usually try to escape.
🌙 Self-care tip to try: Set a “digital sunset.” Choose a cutoff time (ideally an hour before bedtime) when you stop looking at screens. Use that time for reading, stretching, listening to music, skincare—whatever puts you in a relaxed state for sleep. (Read more about setting screen-time boundaries here.)
For the month of January, I’m interviewing some of my favorite experts across nutrition, fitness, and self-care as part of our 30-Day Wellness Reset. January is about manifesting our dreams and feeling our best, and that includes all aspects of ourselves: physical, mental, and spiritual.
Mari Llewellyn is one of the most inspiring people I know—her podcast, Pursuit of Wellness, tops the wellness charts, and I always learn so much from her conversations with leading health experts. But Mari’s greatest power comes from her personal transformation. After her life hit rock bottom in 2016, she started a fitness journey that ultimately led to an evolution of every aspect of her life (including a 90 pound weight loss.)
I loved my conversation with Mari (read the full interview in the latest issue of Camille Styles EDIT), and just for our Breathing Space readers, she shared her top advice on starting and sticking with your fitness goals this year.
Hi Mari! Let’s go back to 2016, which you call your “rock bottom.” You were struggling with mental health, drinking too much, and poor physical health. Tell me why you equate fitness with regaining control of your life?
My fitness journey was about showing myself I could do something hard. My whole life, I’d been avoidant and numb to pain. Going to the gym daily, cooking my meals, and learning about nutrition was my way of pushing myself. I ended up losing 90 pounds, which wasn’t even the main goal. My goal was to see what my full potential could be. I had this feeling it would lead to something more, even though I didn’t know what. And it ended up being my whole career.
At first, developing a sense of discipline was the most important thing, because I didn’t have it before. During my fitness journey, I committed to working out every day, no excuses. Doing that for a year changed my brain chemistry—it’s that concept of showing up, no matter what. I truly don’t think I’d have a business today if I hadn’t taught myself that discipline, and even today I often remind myself: I can do hard things because I’ve done them before.
Mari’s Tips for Hitting Your Fitness Goals This Year
1. Start small.
If I’d set out to lose 90 pounds, I’d have been overwhelmed. Instead, I aimed to lose a pound a week. I made small changes in my diet, like swapping my breakfast muffin for eggs. I started grocery shopping and meal prepping. Chip away at it—maybe you want to increase your weights by a pound every couple weeks. By making these small attainable goals, there's more room for celebration and building confidence.
At first, developing a sense of discipline was the most important thing, because I didn’t have it before. During my fitness journey, I committed to working out every day, no excuses. Doing that for a year changed my brain chemistry. It’s this concept of showing up, no matter what.
I still believe in that, though I’ve since leaned into a bit more flexibility. But even now, if I’m feeling anxious about something coming up, I can remind myself: I can do hard things because I’ve done them before.
2. Celebrate yourself.
It’s so important to learn how to clap for yourself and feel that inner validation, instead of looking for other people to validate you. When I started my weight loss journey, I was going to Planet Fitness that entire year. I was there every day, sometimes twice a day, and I hit a point where I'd lost maybe 80 pounds. One day the guy at the front desk was like, “Oh, did you lose a little bit of weight by any chance?”
I couldn’t believe it. I was like—I literally have been here every day, I've lost 80 pounds, and he just noticed. But that was a moment where I realized that no one cares as much as me. You’re 100% doing this for you, so don't look around and expect other people to validate you, because they're not going to. They're worried about their own stuff, so just be proud of your own accomplishments and feel that sense of pride.
3. Make it enjoyable.
Greg and I cook fun meals on the weekend and still make time to go out for dinner. This doesn’t work for everyone, but I like to work really hard and be more disciplined during the week, and then look forward to loosening up on the weekend. So do what works for you. Fitness is supposed to help you live and enjoy life—there’s room for fun too.
4. Food is medicine.
When I started my fitness journey, I used MyFitnessPal to track macros—I was totally uneducated about protein, fats, and carbs. I read books on ingredients beneficial for mental health, as I was deeply struggling with depression and wanted to eat foods that would benefit my brain. I tracked everything for six months, and afterward, I didn’t need it because I’d learned what I needed and developed the daily habits.
Now, I’m obsessed with nutrition—I really believe food is medicine. For me, incorporating things like salmon, olive oil, and avocados—a high-fat diet—helped my mental health immensely. Before, I was eating muffins, iced coffee with milk and sugar, and things that were creating big energy spikes and crashes, affecting my mood.
What’s funny is that initially, I didn’t believe in the food-brain connection initially. My dad bought me a book called Food Is Medicine when I was in the depths of my mental health struggles. I remember being so angry, thinking he didn’t understand. Little did I know, food changed my life. Now, I have a great relationship with food because of what it did for me. It wasn’t about starving myself; it was about choosing foods daily that set me up for success.
Thank you, Mari. I loved this interview, and I hope you guys are enjoying our 30-Day Reset as much as I am! Don’t forget to keep the convo going in our Breathing Space chat, and revisit our stories from week 1 and 2 to start your year off right:
I love her advice of starting with smaller goals. It made me see my movement goal in a different way — rather than saying I’m going to walk for 30 minutes, I can say I’m going to go for a walk each day. It’s about building that discipline like Mari said!
Who is the author of Food is Medicine? I'd love to read it but am not seeing an exact match anywhere.