It's Time to Love Your Body, Says Fitness Expert Simone De La Rue. Here's How

Hollywood is filled with celebrity trainers touting their methods and long rosters of famous clients. But a few have long stood out from the crowd…and Simone De La Rue is one. The long-revered trainer and life coach has built a name for herself for creating workouts and championing people to not only get moving but to love themselves…inside and out.

It helps that De La Rue's 10-year-old dance-based fitness business, Body By Simone, offers some of the most upbeat, positive workouts around. Which is a mirror of the founder herself: De La Rue is a light, and she's also one for creating a vibe that is inclusive of all.

We sat down with De La Rue recently to talk about how we can shift our mindsets when it comes to exercise to love our bodies more, no matter what our age.

A Conversation with Simone De La Rue

What are your hopes today for how you inspire people to exercise?

We always think about the body and think about the physicality and how it looks, but I am now really trying to train people to start thinking about movement and the body about how that makes us feel. It's shifting the mindset from, I have to do this workout today because it's going to give me a six-pack to, let's do this work out because I'm going to feel energized. It's going to boost my mood. I'm going to feel good about myself.

Exercise is helping your mental health as well as your physical, spiritual, and emotional health. It's like thinking about it more of a package deal. So let's move and let's exercise and focus on how it makes us feel, not on how it makes us look.

And that goes for someone who is 20 as much as it does for someone who is 90.

Absolutely. The beauty, I think, from the last two years is that you can be at home now. You don't need a fancy gym membership. You don't need fancy gym equipment. You can just get up and move your body. Even if that is just 10 minutes. Today I just did 10 minutes of pushups. That may seem like nothing, but it is doing something. You feel proud of yourself. It's about shifting our mindset. You can do short spurts of cardio or pushups or anything.

Any favorite go-to moves to get things moving?

It's very old school, but there's a reason why pushups, sit-ups, and squats have been around since day one. It's like the 101 of exercise. There are things that you can do without equipment. The things that you can do literally on the spot anywhere. They get the heart rate up, they engage all the muscles in the body, and they're effective.

And what about if someone still feels way too unmotivated. We've all been there. What can get them moving?

I've done couch workouts, I've done office workouts. I know it sounds funny, but you literally can work out anywhere. It's changing the idea of it. If you are in an office, stand up and sit down on your chair. Or just hover above your chair to work your lower body and to get the heart rate up. If you're on the couch in your pajamas and socks, you can do core exercises laying on your back, lifting your legs. There is no excuse. So the battle now is, why are you not doing these things? What's blocking you from doing these things? Is it the motivation or is it a lack of feeling worthy? That's really where the work has to be done.

You touched on worthiness, which is so important. It's common to connect our self-worth to our image. And we also hold trauma in our bodies. How can people move through this?

I always say that the best drug you can take for depression is exercise. The idea goes for trauma. We hold onto trauma. It's not just something that we store in our hearts or in our heads. Trauma is actually in our bodies and that energy needs to be shifted and moved. So something as simple as getting up and doing 20 jumping jacks or some burpees or putting on some music and dancing around the house, you're shifting and moving the energy within your body.

Simone De La Rue is an Australian-born, former Broadway dancer turned celebrity trainer, life coach, entrepreneur, author, and mom. She has built a successful, decades-long career based on her passion for making others feel empowered within themselves. After retiring from her 18-year professional dance career, Simone created Body By Simone, which was soon crowned 'Hollywood's hottest workout empire” (Forbes). Her dance-based fitness method is built on a foundation of joyful high-impact dance cardio, complemented by resistance and toning work to assist in creating long, lean muscle, as well as cultivating inner (and outer) strength. Her sustainable business model now includes multiple studios, a widely acclaimed book, five at-home workout DVDs, an app, and brand partnerships with Newton Running, Theraband and more. To learn more visit simonedelarue.com and you can stream Body by Simone workouts here.