about me

Hello & welcome! I’m Ali Kreider, a HAES inclusive/non-diet personal trainer & group fitness coach with a focus on mindset & behavior change.

Over the years, I’ve struggled with my mental health (anxiety in particular), body image & diet culture. I grew up in a time when you didn’t talk about your mental health & the pursuit of thinness/associating fitness with looking a certain way was the primary reason I moved my body. I worked out to be & stay ‘skinny’ & I kept my anxieties locked up. It was exhausting. I was exhausted. Society taught me what being ‘fit’ & healthy’ looked like (& I believed it), so I did everything in my power to uphold those learned beliefs, until I no longer could.

Because it wasn’t sustainable. The stress of hushing my anxieties & working myself to the max in the gym was actually doing more harm than good to my body. I knew there had to be a better way & if our culture wasn’t going to help me, I would have to figure it out for myself.

Fast forward to now, I opened up about my anxiety & learned to live with it; not against it. Movement became a critical component to improving my mental health. Rather than being a means to an end, working out became part of my every day because it made me feel good & kept my anxiety in check, not because it helped me stay thin. I have worked (read: am still working) to unlearn diet culture’s toxic, narrow-minded narrative of what it means to be healthy.

Now, I want to help you to do the same.

Today I help women in & outside of the gym develop a self-compassionate approach to movement through strength training. My goal is to help you create compassion while simultaneously expand the boundaries of your comfort zone. Life is full of challenges, but through strength & fitness, you can develop a resilience that allows you to handle hard things with more confidence & ease. I encourage a play mindset, exploring what it means to find joy in fitness all while becoming your strongest self from the inside out.

In this space, we work to unlearn diet culture’s limiting beliefs & reconnect with our bodies. We explore what it means to reclaim our power by rewriting our own rules that allows our fitness journey to work for us & with us. We work to master the art of showing up for yourself by practicing a ‘something’ versus ‘all or nothing’ mentality. We focus on the process & not the outcome. We honor & appreciate our bodies. We have fun.

Here are a few additional things I believe:

• Fitness is SO MUCH MORE than weight loss. It’s why I consider myself a non-diet personal trainer, why we don’t focus on aesthetics & why I don’t coach with intentional weight loss at the forefront. A few benefits of fitness that have nothing to do with your weight: mental clarity, stress relief, strength, self-confidence, community, gratitude, & joy.

• Setbacks, grief, trauma, injury will happen. It’s how you choose to get back up & rise again that will determine how you overcome the challenge. Think about your favorite superhero & what they overcame to step into their greatest power.

• Exercise should never be punishment for something you ate or drank. Exercise is a celebration of what your body can do, not punishment for something it has done.

• Time, calories, intensity, sweat are not the most effective measures to determine a successful workout (i.e. a 10 minute workout is equally good a workout as a 60 minute workout. They are different, but one is not better than the other).

• Exercising is a tool to support your mental health (it definitely has been for me!), but it’s not the end-all-be-all. Therapy, medication, nutrition, meditation, journalling + more all play an essential part in your mental wellness.

• It’s vital to move your body daily, but that doesn’t mean you have to be on the floor dripping sweat every day. For sustainable fitness, you should include varied types, ranges & intensity of movement.

• Rest & what you do outside of the gym is critical. You have to slow down & take rest (yes, that means entire days off from working out). You also have to learn the importance of your activity levels the other waking hours of your day that aren’t part of your workout.

• Find the joy. For fitness to be sustainable, you have to find ways to enjoy it. It’s my goal is to help you make fitness fun, consistent, & something you look forward to doing!

• You never HAVE to workout. You GET to workout.

• Building healthy fitness habits & processes is key to success. Motivation is great to get you started but cannot be relied on to keep you going.

Outside of the gym, I’m a wife & mom to two red-head boys (& a rat terrier). I enjoy a good espresso or tea & donuts. I love murals, being outside & frequenting local coffee shops. I enjoy reading non-fiction, personal growth inspired books, watching all kinds of TV, listening to podcasts, supporting small businesses, hiking & traveling.

I’m so excited you are here & can’t wait to learn more about you!