Danielle Friedman, LET'S GET PHYSICAL: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World
[0:01]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast,
[0:05]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:07]If you like this podcast, you will love my new anthology called Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids.
[0:12]Check it out, and you'll hear from 49 authors about all sorts of things
[0:16]Moms Don't Have Time to Do. All the authors have been on this podcast.
[0:19]Also, check out my TikTok at with Sivi and Tracy.
[0:22]My other podcast, Sex Talk with Sivi and Tracy.
[0:25]Check out Moms Don't Have Time to Write on Medium.
[0:28]And of course, my new publishing company called Sivi Books.
[0:32]And now, back to our daily author interview site and a quick hello from some of my kids.
[0:37]Hi, hi, hello.
[0:38]Enjoy the show.
[0:41]Daniel Friedman is the author of Let's Get Physical.
[0:43]Should I start singing that by the way?
[0:45]Let's get physical, physical, physical.
[0:48]I want to get physical.
[0:50]Let's get in a physical.
[0:52]Let me hear you by the talk.
[0:55]Oh my gosh, I'm obviously way too tired.
[0:57]Okay, anyway, Daniel Friedman is the author of Let's Get Physical,
[1:01]How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World.
[1:03]She's an award-winning multimedia journalist who specializes in telling stories
[1:07]at the intersection of health, sexuality, and culture.
[1:09]Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine's The Cut,
[1:12]Vogue, Glamour, Harper's Bazaar, The Washington Post, and B.C. News,
[1:16]InStyle, The Daily Beast, Health, and Other Publications.
[1:19]She recently worked as a freelance development editor at Amazon Original Stories,
[1:23]where she edited novella-length nonfiction.
[1:25]Other recent projects include Fusion TV's Peabody-nominated television show,
[1:29]Sex Right Now, which she co-produced, and The Guardian's mother-load series,
[1:35]which she co-edited.
[1:36]From 2014 to 2016, Daniel launched in Rand Fusion's Sex Plus Life
[1:42]Vertical, growing it to become the site's most popular section.
[1:45]Previously, she worked as a senior editor at NBCNews.com,
[1:48]where she ran the site's front page and broke the viral story
[1:51]that Facebook and Apple had begun to pay for females,
[1:53]employees to freeze their eggs, the feature,
[1:56]won the 2015 Gracie award for Best Digital New Story,
[1:59]and generated commentary in more than 40 outlets from The New York Times to The New Yorker.
[2:03]Before that, she worked as a senior editor at The Daily Beast,
[2:06]where she served as deputy to the executive editor,
[2:08]Overside Health and Life Style coverage,
[2:10]and co-ran live coverage of Tina Brown's Women in the World Summit.
[2:14]She began her career as a nonfiction book editor,
[2:16]at the Penguin Imprint's Hudson Street Press and Plume,
[2:19]where she acquired an edited health culture humor and memoir titles.
[2:22]Daniel holds a BA in English from Duke University
[2:25]and an MS from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
[2:28]She lives in New York City with her husband,
[2:30]and VC News Reporter, Daniel Arken, and their son.
[2:34]Welcome, Daniel. Thank you so much for coming on Mom's End of Time
[2:37]to read books, to discuss, let's get physical,
[2:40]how women discovered exercise and reshaped the world.
[2:43]Thank you so much for having me.
[2:45]I was so excited, even from the first time I got,
[2:49]like a pitch letter or galley, whatever of this,
[2:52]and I saw this cover and the topic.
[2:54]I am probably, I'm a few years older than you,
[2:56]but grew up in the exact same way in terms of fitness and trends
[3:00]and, oh my gosh, and reading this, I'm like,
[3:03]anyway, why don't you let me back up, why don't you tell me
[3:06]so excited, tell listeners a little about what this book is about
[3:09]and how you decided to write it and sort of why you,
[3:13]why you did it.
[3:14]Yeah, so the book is a cultural history of women's fitness.
[3:18]It begins in the 1950s and makes its way to the present.
[3:22]I think a lot of people assume that women's fitness history
[3:26]begins with Jane Fonda and while she had a tremendous impact
[3:30]that I write about, there's actually a fascinating rich,
[3:33]complex history that begins many decades before.
[3:37]And the book came about because about five years ago
[3:41]when I was getting ready for my wedding,
[3:43]I decided to take my first bar class.
[3:46]And I loved how the classes made me feel,
[3:50]but also as a women's health journalist and a feminist journalist,
[3:53]I just became intrigued with the whole culture.
[3:56]And I also noticed that many of the moves in class felt sort of
[4:01]comically erotic and sexual,
[4:04]which was extra interesting to me because no one seemed to be
[4:08]acknowledging that.
[4:09]So what began as a piece looking into whether there were
[4:13]sexual health benefits to the bar workout turned into an exploration
[4:18]of the origins.
[4:19]And it led me to the creator of Bar Lottie Burke,
[4:23]who invented the method.
[4:24]She was a German dancer living in London and
[4:28]invented the method in the 1950s.
[4:30]And sure enough, she was really ahead of her time when it came
[4:34]to encouraging women to tap into their own desire
[4:38]and to just improve the sex lives of women
[4:42]by encouraging them to connect with their bodies.
[4:44]So I wrote about her story for the cut.
[4:48]And even while I was still, while I was still reporting that story,
[4:53]I sort of started to see that there was a much bigger story here.
[4:56]I also, at one point, was like,
[4:58]well, I'd love to talk to the woman or the person who wrote
[5:01]the history of women's fitness.
[5:03]And I was pretty shocked to discover that that book didn't exist.
[5:07]So, you know, we went down one wormhole after another,
[5:11]and that brought me to the story.
[5:14]Wow.
[5:15]It's amazing.
[5:16]I know you point out in the introduction
[5:18]or somewhere that there's lots of research on sports,
[5:22]right?
[5:23]Women athletes.
[5:24]But certainly.
[5:25]Which takes up so much of our time and mental bandwidth
[5:29]and advertising and everything else has been so under reported,
[5:32]which is really crazy.
[5:34]So this is all about, you know,
[5:35]write the book that you wish you had.
[5:37]It's exactly right.
[5:38]Exactly.
[5:39]Yeah.
[5:40]You know, I think it's still pretty recently fitness,
[5:42]and especially women's fitness,
[5:44]just has sort of not been taken seriously.
[5:46]And I've been really encouraged over the past few years,
[5:49]even since I've been writing the book to see that begin to change.
[5:53]And, you know, recognizing that, like you said,
[5:55]it's something that we just spend collectively billions of dollars
[6:00]and hours devoted to.
[6:02]And it has played such an important part in so many women's lives
[6:06]over the past, you know, 70 years.
[6:09]It's, I felt it was time for it to get it to do.
[6:11]I'm so glad you did it.
[6:12]I'm so glad.
[6:13]I mean, I grew up in the 80s with like,
[6:17]like you going to the robust classes with my mom.
[6:20]And I remember having this like sleeveless,
[6:22]giant yellow shirt and big bold black letters that
[6:26]stay alive in 85 with like, my leg numbers and everything.
[6:30]So all you're talking about, like, the get fit barbies
[6:32]and all that stuff, I was like, in it.
[6:34]And actually my mom went to Lottie Burke, like every day.
[6:38]Oh, wow.
[6:39]I should have talked to her before this podcast with you.
[6:41]By the way, I should have like, I should have like,
[6:43]I should have like, I should have like, have her join or something.
[6:45]But she was like, so like growing up, it's like, okay,
[6:47]after she finished her Gilda's phase, which was more aerobics.
[6:51]Yeah.
[6:52]She discovered, which dovetails with your whole timeline
[6:54]and your chapters.
[6:55]And she's going to do the Lottie Burke thing.
[6:57]And that was like, okay, I didn't have enough to Lottie Burke.
[7:00]Like, that was like all the time.
[7:01]And now to hear the history.
[7:03]And by the way, even the Holocaust story behind Lottie Burke,
[7:06]that was, I can't believe that.
[7:07]Tell, you know, share more about the story of her escape
[7:12]and her, the tragedy and her family and all that.
[7:15]Yeah.
[7:16]Well, she came from a pretty well to do family.
[7:18]Like I said, she was German.
[7:20]And she was always a little bit of a rebel, even in deciding
[7:23]to become a dancer, but she followed that path
[7:26]and she became an acclaimed modern ballerina in, you know,
[7:31]all around Germany.
[7:32]And then in the 1930s when a Nazis began to rise to power,
[7:37]she, you know, her family was under surveillance.
[7:42]And at one point, she was due to give a recital with her
[7:45]then husband who was also a dancer and who wasn't Jewish.
[7:48]And the Nazis basically distributed a pamphlet saying
[7:52]that, you know, just just telling people not to come
[7:55]and warning them that they could be, they could be persecuted.
[7:58]So in a very dramatic story, basically her husband
[8:03]did the entire performance as if, as if he was dancing with her.
[8:07]And then at the very end, she first sent to the stage
[8:10]and thanked the audience for not being Nazis and then,
[8:13]and then soldiers sort of stormed the stage and she had to flee.
[8:17]And the only reason she was really able to escape
[8:19]was because her husband had a British passport and wasn't
[8:24]Jewish.
[8:25]And so they were refugees.
[8:27]Her father, she was very close with actually parish and Auschwitz.
[8:31]So she came from a very, she had a very challenging early life.
[8:36]And then once she was in London, yeah, there wasn't as much of
[8:40]an audience for the type of dance she did at that time.
[8:44]And so it was sort of necessity that led her to develop this
[8:48]exercise regimen.
[8:50]And she became a sensation in her 40s.
[8:53]And that's another thing that actually I love about so many
[8:56]of these pioneers.
[8:57]They really, they didn't find success in this area.
[9:00]In some cases, they didn't even sort of launch their careers
[9:03]in this area until they were in their 40s.
[9:05]And as someone who recently turned 40 or so.
[9:09]Thank you.
[9:10]I love that too.
[9:12]That's so great.
[9:14]I also love the way you kind of structured this book
[9:17]and the way you wrote it.
[9:19]I mean, each chapter tells like its own very interesting story.
[9:24]And yet it's all woven together.
[9:26]When you transition from the first or second chapter to the third,
[9:31]I got like chills.
[9:32]Wait, hold on.
[9:33]I want to just read this line.
[9:34]You talked to all about Lottie Burke, which I found fascinating.
[9:37]And I don't know.
[9:38]I cannot do bar classes to save my life.
[9:40]So that I know how good they are supposed to be for everybody.
[9:43]Of course, no.
[9:44]I can't really psych herself up.
[9:46]Yeah.
[9:47]I'd rather do almost anything.
[9:49]But here, I'll just read these last two paragraphs.
[9:52]Is that's OK from the first or maybe the chapter.
[9:55]Yeah, the second, the end of the second chapter.
[9:57]When Lottie Burke first introduced women to her work.
[10:00]out in the 60s. The class's sexual openness felt thrilling and empowering because it was taboo.
[10:04]Now more than 50 years after the sexual revolution, turning a rigorous strength training workout
[10:09]into something overtly sexual feels gratuitous. I want that hour to myself from my
[10:13]peace and my well-being and my mental health, Berliner, the creator of the bar method told me,
[10:18]echoing the feelings of other women I spoke with. I think that's what it does most powerfully.
[10:22]Then you say, back in the early 70s, on New York City's Upper East Side,
[10:26]as society ladies and celebrities, taxied to class at Linda Buck's studio. They might have
[10:31]noticed a small cadre of women breaking a sweat right out in the open on Fifth Avenue,
[10:35]less than two blocks from the bar studio, in and around the city's central park. Women were
[10:40]discovering the joy of jogging. I love that. I don't know. That just gives me chills again. I did it.
[10:46]Then you go on to run and I love how even you titled the chapters, run, burn, sweat,
[10:51]like all these. It's just so clever. I just am loving the whole package because I can't
[10:57]know how. The evolution of this whole industry and how we've arrived here, why aerobics and
[11:04]why are now this move to strength training, which I'm also really interested in. I just went to
[11:10]this health clinic type place and I've been a cardio person. Maybe from this era, go to
[11:18]stepperobics and then I moved to running and then I moved to, you know, it's always like a cardio
[11:23]something. But really now there's this huge movement to lift strength training and how like that
[11:28]most important thing and you have a whole thing here about women and weightlifting and all of
[11:32]that. Tell me more about how we got to or tell me a little more about what you know about strength
[11:37]training and after all this research, what should we do? Well, that is a great question.
[11:43]Yeah, and I mean with strength training specifically and waves, you know, I should just say that
[11:51]as you know, a theme without throughout the book was basically how taboo it was for women to
[11:57]sort of intentionally cultivate strength for so much of the 20th century. And that sort of
[12:04]that explains why so much exercise was not acceptable for women, you know, sweat,
[12:12]as also taboo. But there was nothing that was as sort of, it's one thing if you're going to a
[12:18]aerobics and you can say, yeah, this is to become strong. But, you know, it was sort of cloaked
[12:24]in the language also of figure shaping and beauty culture. But with lifting weights with
[12:30]strength training for strength sake, you know, there's no sort of, there's nowhere to hide really,
[12:37]so of all of the movements that I write about, that one was the most I think kind of overtly
[12:43]feminist. And it took some really brave pioneers in the starting in the late 70s really to convince
[12:51]women that lifting weights and having visible muscle was not on feminine and was worth pursuing.
[13:00]so we've come a really long way in that area specifically. I mean, you know, I can speak from my
[13:07]perspective more as a journalist and cultural historian as opposed to necessarily a, you know, a
[13:13]trainer. But, but we, yeah, we know for women, you know, especially as we get older, that
[13:19]strength training is so vital to our, to our overall quality of life and it's such an important
[13:24]complement to cardio. And whether it's lifting weights or, or going to something like a bar
[13:30]class that uses, you know, body based resistance, isometric training, it's all good. And so I think
[13:39]as this is the case for so many of the workouts I write about in the book, but you just,
[13:44]you know, find the workout, the regimen that feels good for you, that works for you, that doesn't
[13:50]feel like that you don't dread. There's also been, I mean, there's been a real shift over the past
[13:56]five or 10 years for women, especially focusing on not just what we traditionally think of as upper
[14:03]body, you know, as, as muscular strength, but as a focus on the pelvic floor and the, the kind of
[14:10]internal strength that you can't, that isn't cosmetic at all, but that can have a huge impact
[14:17]again on how we live our lives as we get older. So just do something. That's, that's my
[14:23]biggest. I know you guys can't listeners can't see this, but as Danielle was talking about
[14:27]a section, she sort of sat up to demonstrate like the importance of like strength and strength
[14:32]and posture. And I just like sat right straight up to, because I have to remind myself every day.
[14:37]Yeah. Somebody I just saw recently had like the best posture I'd ever seen. And I, I was
[14:43]asking, it was a man. I was like, how do you have such amazing posture? And he's like, well,
[14:46]like, he had trained in acting. And anyway, he said you have to envision it not from like
[14:51]your shoulders, but from like a point in the middle of your chest, like that's the point that
[14:55]has to go up to the ceiling. So anyway, anytime I try to remember that I'm splashed in my
[15:00]microphone again. But you talk in the book about your own journey, essentially, through
[15:09]working out and yes, the bar classes, but also your marathons and half marathons and how you
[15:15]like dance cardio and, you know, having a whole range of things at your fingertips. Right. And I
[15:22]think that I don't know about you, but I feel like sometimes it's very overwhelming. Right. There's
[15:26]so many options, especially here in New York. Like you said that you originally went to the bar
[15:32]class because a sign on the sidewalk kind of got your attention. Right. And it's like that like
[15:36]every block, though, it's like their studios where you stand on, you know, what even are those
[15:42]things that they like shock you or so that you you like stand on the platforms and they vibrate
[15:47]and that's coming to attend every other block. There's another studio with a different way
[15:54]and a different. It's like where do you start? And where do you, it's very hard for people to know
[16:01]where to go and what's right for them and what they're going to like. And I don't know. I think like
[16:05]for me, I've been so busy and just like, I don't even figure this out. So I'm just going to do
[16:09]nothing. Right. Right. Which is bad. I totally relate to that. Yeah. And I think that sense of
[16:16]overwhelm has only been exacerbated by the fact that so many brands have now moved online too,
[16:22]which is great. But it's like, you know, I think it's that too much choice. It isn't always a good
[16:29]thing, you know. I also think and I write about this a little bit in the book, but there's such a
[16:33]a feeling of collective burnout right now, especially on women and exhaustion. And I think when
[16:41]some of these workouts are pitched as sort of this all-consuming lifestyle or as such a commitment
[16:47]it can just feel like like you said, I just I don't have time for it, you know. And you end up doing
[16:51]nothing. I mean, for me, I like you said, I love bar and running has always been my tried and
[16:58]true. It's what I've done throughout my whole life. I this this is not this I think some people might
[17:04]sort of turn up their nose at this. But on those days when I don't feel like I have it in me to run
[17:10]or do a strength-based workout, I've started just going for a walk. And you know, and I actually
[17:16]think I've seen during the pandemic that there's been this kind of walking renaissance. And walking
[17:21]has had its moments at various other points of fitness history too. But it's you know, it's not going
[17:27]necessarily you're not going to necessarily break a sweat. But it's better than nothing if it
[17:33]feels good for you. So I think the best place to start is just with identifying what you can do that
[17:39]you know, that doesn't feel like a burden and that that you actually look forward to. And maybe
[17:45]it's something very basic and maybe it coincides with getting fresh air. Maybe it's just 10 minutes
[17:51]of stretching in the morning. And then I mean, I think for me so many of the workouts that I've
[17:58]tried have come from word of mouth, from a friend, and just start somewhere. And then you know,
[18:03]sometimes it's it's just process of elimination. I think I think a lot of people too. I mean,
[18:07]something I heard in my reporting was women who tried something and didn't love it or felt
[18:14]really self-conscious like they weren't good at it. And then just kind of gave up, you know,
[18:20]for a while. And I mean, it's so it's so common to feel that way. So I think it's just about
[18:24]being kind to ourselves and finding our thing. I feel like did I miss or hold on? Because maybe
[18:32]there's a whole obviously chapter of life. But I feel like you don't have a spin chapter. And
[18:36]right? Ah, funny, you should ask. There was going to be a spin chapter. And in the end,
[18:43]it's I'm saving that for, you know, next book. I mean, for for something that I hope to write
[18:50]about in the future. But, you know, yeah, I really try to focus on that I tried to focus on the
[18:56]pioneers and the fitness movements that really lead the foundation for the way that women
[19:01]work out today. And there is an interesting story. Of course, everything has a history,
[19:05]everything has an origin story. But spinning sort of grew out of some of so many of these other
[19:12]movements, you know, and the shifting cultural mindsets that that basically said it was okay
[19:18]for women to sweat to push themselves. And something that I think about all the time and that I
[19:23]I allude to in the last chapter of my book, the psychologist Kelly McGonagall, who is sort of one of
[19:28]my idols, she wrote most recently the joy of movement, talks about research showing that the
[19:35]so often the ingredient that makes a workout kind of catch on or go viral is the introduction
[19:42]of working out alongside or in sync with other people. And that I think especially holds true
[19:50]for spinning, you know, because the bicycle has been around. There is a really interesting
[19:54]feminist history around the bicycle and suffrage and women's freedom of movement.
[20:00]as studio-based spinning, it was that introduction of synchrony that I think really made it feel
[20:06]essential for people. Very interesting. Yeah, my newest, my newest, I've followed every fitness
[20:12]craze. I am, you know, whatever makes a program popular. I've done like, I'm sure like you,
[20:18]I've tried every single thing along the way. And now I'm mostly into the Peloton app. They are
[20:24]a sponsor, but that's not why. But literally recently, I've been doing these 30 minute or 20
[20:30]minute hit classes. Do you ever do hit? And I feel like it's so effective. Like, what do you think
[20:35]about that? I have, so I have to say I haven't really gotten on the hit train yet myself, but I know
[20:41]so many people love it. And yeah, I mean, when I talk about exercising in a way that feels good,
[20:47]that doesn't necessarily mean easy. And it often doesn't like for me, running a marathon is one of
[20:53]co-insights was the best I've felt in my whole life, both the training and the achievement. You know,
[20:58]and I think it gives you that quick, that intense burst of endorphins and energy. And it's time
[21:08]efficient as well, especially if you're doing like a 30 minute workout. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's
[21:12]interesting to think about sweating culturally, right, that for so long, women weren't supposed to do it.
[21:19]And then as you point out over time, yes, it became something that we could do. And so then people
[21:25]like took that to the extreme, right, these hot yoga and drenched in sweat and spin class and all of
[21:32]that. And now I feel like maybe you were getting to a point where it's like, but do we need to? You
[21:37]know, it's like, it's like when you first start, I don't know, doing anything that you weren't
[21:40]supposed to do like drinking. Yeah, then you like go back to a baseline where you're like, okay,
[21:45]now I can have a glass of water with dinner as opposed to like going out and partying. Maybe
[21:49]that's where we are with sweating, right? You know, like maybe we don't need to sweat as much,
[21:53]maybe just because we can, maybe we do a weightlifting thing for an hour and we don't need to
[22:01]get so drenched and we can actually just go right back to work afterwards. Yeah, yeah, extra time
[22:06]efficient. Yeah, I mean, I agree completely with that premise. I think, you know, more recently,
[22:14]so in like the past 20 years, the millennial push toward optimization and toward sort of just 24
[22:24]hour work mentality and culture has just increasingly up to the ante for what counts as working
[22:32]out. And and granted as I talked about in the book, I mean, 80s fitness culture was also pretty
[22:38]extreme. And many people sort of suffered consequences as a result injuries worn from, you know,
[22:45]overuse and that kind of thing. But yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I think fitness for a lot
[22:50]of people is understandably an outlet for a feel a control and for pride and for generating these
[22:58]the sense of purpose that there may be not feeling in other parts of their life. So for people
[23:04]you know, for whom it's serving that purpose and like a healthy way, it really feels like self care,
[23:09]that's great. But I think there's also, I mean, there's there's definitely an element of judgment
[23:15]and and shame, you know, in terms of how hard, you know, there's such there's a lot,
[23:21]a lot of performative fitness happening right now and there has been for the past 15 or so years.
[23:29]So I, you know, I think that I keep coming back to it. It's simple, but it's just about moving
[23:35]in ways that feel good and that will in ways that will actually do. I have, I think about this a lot
[23:41]because actually for me over the, it started with my marathon training, excuse me, marathon training,
[23:46]but I do the Galloway method, which is Run, Walk, Run. And it was started by this,
[23:52]very, this one, a marathoner, Jeff Galloway. And I love it. It has completely prevented
[23:57]injury. My pace actually isn't any different because when you walk, your, your muscles are recovering,
[24:03]but every time I see someone post like, I ran three miles without walking, I'm like,
[24:08]well, you know, it's okay. It's like there's just, there's no one way to do it. And I think,
[24:15]you know, everyone just has to find the path that works for them, whether it's very sweaty
[24:19]whether it's more meditative. Well, this book is so great. And it's just, it's such an inspiration
[24:29]to know that every time, you know, I pick up my phone and like put on a, yeah, I don't know,
[24:36]one of my like, a ton stretch classes are like, it's, I am coming, I'm a part of like the history
[24:42]of this whole thing that I just, a blip in the movement. And I am like reflective of the trends. And in
[24:48]20 years, I'll probably be doing something else that hasn't even been invented because that's
[24:52]going to be the new thing. And I'll stop moving my body at this way. So I don't know. I think
[24:56]understanding more about where all of this comes from is very empowering when it comes to making
[25:02]decisions about what to do with our own fitness today, which everybody is trying to figure out
[25:07]what to do and who knows what to do and all of that. And yeah, thank you. Well, yeah, that,
[25:13]and that was certainly one of my goals, you know, was to show how all of these, what are these sort
[25:18]of fads are interconnected and part of this much larger story of women's empowerment and physical
[25:27]liberation. So I hope that readers take, take that away from it as well.
[25:31]I also love the living in John. I had like major girl crush on her growing up
[25:36]here and that was just the coolest. Okay, so you might be doing another book on spinning
[25:42]anything else coming up that we should know about. Well, I don't know if it would be an
[25:46]entire book on spinning. But at the moment, I'm just I'm just deep into the history of women's
[25:51]fitness culture and exploring, you know, how we can promote women's health and self care in a way
[25:58]that that lifts all women up. So it would be neat if you through this books platform start some
[26:05]sort of, you know, website that looks just like this and people kind of log their thing,
[26:12]like I feel like there's some community aspect that you could really harness with this book.
[26:16]You're right, absolutely. And I did actually create an Instagram just for the book that's kind of
[26:20]now become my professional Instagram. And it's still, you know, it's kind of a baby community,
[26:26]but it's been so nice to connect with other women about on this topic and exactly what you said,
[26:32]you know, I think more and more people have started to share their experiences with me. And that
[26:37]was one of my favorite parts of reporting the book to just speaking with women and especially
[26:41]women in their 70s, 80s, 90s who lived this history about what movement has meant to them,
[26:48]you know, throughout their lives. So I love the idea. I would love to to run with that a bit more.
[26:54]Awesome. Well, next time you need to interview my mom basically because she is such a fitness.
[27:00]I mean, she still runs like five miles in strength training. I don't know. I can't keep up with her.
[27:06]I've never been able to. But anyway, do you last question? Do you have any advice for aspiring
[27:10]authors? Oh, my gosh. Yes. And I actually, I started my career as a book editor at Penguin. So
[27:16]I've been on all sides of this advice for aspiring authors. I mean, the most obvious is just
[27:24]stick with it. It took me 18 months to write the proposal for this book. And it coincided with
[27:30]having a baby. And it took me about 18 months to write it. So, you know, give yourself the time
[27:38]that you need and stick with it. And if you, if you believe in, in the idea, I think there's no
[27:43]reason why you can't kind of bring it to life. Love it. So great. Amazing. Well, hopefully, I'll
[27:49]see you in the neighborhood. Yeah. You can walk right by me on the way to Central Park. Just like
[27:55]always walk with yours. All right. Well, take care. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Take care.
[28:03]All right. Bye-bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[28:09]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[28:13]Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[28:19]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact,
[28:23]texture sound for the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this
[28:28]fantastic intro and outro music.