About

Welcome to Life In Leggings!

I’m so glad you found this little corner of the Internet that I call home.

I’m Heather, a 39-year-old Certified Personal Trainer, Nutrition Coach, Women’s Fitness Specialist, and Sleep, Stress and Recovery Coach. I’m also a blogger, content creator, social media consultant and boy mom living in Brooklyn, New York. I’ve got Florida routes and lived in Orlando until my husband’s job took us up to Detroit for almost four years. From there, we took a leap of faith towards America’s biggest city, and we haven’t turned back since!

We currently live in the Park Slope area of the Brooklyn borough, and we have fallen for the sights and scenes of New York City. I often get questions about my thoughts on raising a family in such a big city, so I wrote a post about it. The day-to-day isn’t easy, but I don’t think I’ve ever been bored here, nor will we ever get through the things to do and see.

You can follow the adventures at #hbshinnyc

After years of heartbreaks while trying to grow our family, our miracle baby boy, Skyler, entered the world in March 2018! While the focus of this space is to share healthy and active living, mom life is a big part of my day in and day out, so I sprinkle that in from time to time.

Becoming his mom has been the biggest and best job that I’ve had so far, and I feel beyond blessed to have him by my side each and every day.

About Me

I grew up in the suburbs of Orlando, Florida, moved to Tampa to attend the University of South Florida, then moved back to Central Florida in 2007. I started dancing professionally for the NBA and met my husband, Scott, while working for the Orlando Magic shortly after.

We completed four amazing seasons (and traveled the world!) together in Orlando before moving everything we knew up to Detroit to accept an opportunity to work for the Detroit Pistons in October 2012.

I continued dancing in the NBA for two more seasons and retired from the court in April 2014 after a year and a half with the Detroit Pistons. It was a crazy experience I am very thankful to have been a part of. Read more about my dancing days here.

I became certified in personal training through the National Academy of Sports Medicine in October 2014 and spent my days in Metro Detroit working as a personal trainer, web coach, and social media assistant for a training facility in Rochester Hills.

I’ve worked hard to create a strong health and fitness-filled foundation, and I truly believe that everyone can reach their goals with the proper coaching, commitment, and mindset.

We decided to move to the New York City area after we felt called to fulfill our big city dreams. It’s been an incredible experience so far, and I plan on sharing our adventures of navigating through this crazy, awesome city life for years to come!

Shortly after moving here, I started managing an Orangetheory Fitness studio and poured my heart into the Park Slope, Brooklyn location for three and a half years! It was a wild ride that took me from the solo employee selling memberships on a construction site to accommodating almost 1,200 members to sold-out classes. It’s a very busy studio with a million parts moving at once, and I can honestly say that I’ve never been bored working the front desk during any one of my shifts. Every day was different, and the experience taught me more than I expected it to.

Once the pandemic hit in 2020, I decided to stay home and hold the fort down while my husband expanded his business (which now requires *a lot* of overseas traveling and solo parenting).

Those few years were a blur (which I’m sure they were for all of us!), and now that Skyler is graduating Kindergarten, I’m getting the itch to get back into the workplace again.

I got certified with NASM as a Women’s Fitness Specialist in 2018 and have added a few more credentials under my belt since then including a L1 Certified Nutrition Coach and L1 Sleep, Stress Management and Recovery Coach with Precision Nutrition.

Fast forward to today and I help women (and men) fall in love with healthy living by coaching sustainable, healthy habits through good nutrition practices and effective exercise! I train clients both in person and online.

I am also a writer who is passionate about health, wellness, fitness, and social media. I have a knack for real-time storytelling, and I specialize in effectively communicating ideas to consumers and building relationships here on Life In Leggings and beyond.

I love connecting with anyone who stumbles upon my blog. You can find me on Facebook, X, Instagram, Snapchat, Google +, Pinterest, Bloglovin’, and Sweaty Nation, and I can always be reached by email at heather@lifeinleggings.com.

About the Blog

What started as a way to document our wedding plans quickly turned into a passion for sharing my stories about healthy, active living through blogging.

I came up with the name Housewife Glamour as a blog title when I was a newlywed in 2011, while I was also very into being Betty Homemaker and creating everything do-it-yourself. Since then, my focus has changed into documenting a healthy living, but I kept the name and built a following around that brand for three years.

Life In Leggings came to life in February 2015 and was long overdue. You might see a photo or article pop up with the Housewife Glamour watermark every now and then, but I assure you that it is all coming from the same place.

Through this blog, I strive to help others reach their goals by sharing original recipes, quick and healthy meal and snack ideas, workouts, and everyday fitness tips. I am a proud Ambassador and content contributor for FitFluential, Sweat Pink, POPSUGAR Fitness, IDEA, and Sweaty Nation.

For a list of my press and media coverage, please see my Press page.

Food, Fitness & Fun

I take an excessive amount of photos of my meals and workouts to help me inspire anyone and everyone to join the healthy living lifestyle through blog posts. I do not, however, post everything I eat.

Every once in a while you will come across a fashion post, but those are mostly to highlight my latest budget finds. I absolutely love to travel and explore cities and countries around the world!

I ran my first half marathon in March 2012 and felt on top of the world that day crossing the finish line at exactly 2:00. Since then, I have fallen in love with running and raced in two more half distances along with a handful of (fun and timed) 5 and 10Ks. You can read all about my races and training plans on the Running & Race Recaps page.

Training for and running a full marathon is on my bucket list, but until that day comes, I keep plenty busy training clients and myself with a mix of cardio, circuit, and strength workouts at the gym and at home.

Generally, I do a variety of group fitness classes, weight training, and cardio workouts 3-4 times a week with one long run outside on the weekends. My routine changes a bit when I am training for a long distance race, but I still try to keep a consistent balance between cardio, strength training, total body workouts, and rest days.

I always listen to my body, rest as much as I need to, and encourage you to do the same!

I have to admit that I eat a bit differently now than I did when I was a dancer who needed to have abs in a two-piece at all times. That said, I still never used to cut out anything from my diet entirely. I still enjoyed (and still enjoy) desserts, pizzas, and baked goods, but definitely in moderation. That’s the key!

I never worry about the scale and instead focus on how I feel during a workout and in my clothes. I found a love for consistently eating (mostly) clean during my dancing years, and got the inspiration to start experimenting with nutrient-dense foods like new fruits, proteins, and vegetables.

Eventually, incorporating them into my recipes and meals to make meals healthier came second nature.

I was lucky to find a balance between it all early on, and hope you find the inspiration to eat more of the rainbow too!

Special Thanks

Thank you to Scott, my friends, and family who helped with advice, many site design questions, and for ongoing support for running this blog.

Thank you to John Richmond Photography and Jason Roth Photography for the headshots and photos that appear around the blog.

Jason Roth Photography

And last, but certainly not least, thank you to Murnan Creative for this beautiful site design and blog migration. I worked directly with Jeff who went above and beyond my expectations to make the process of designing and switching over as seamless as possible! I can’t recommend him enough to anyone looking.

Thank you for reading Life In Leggings!

I hope you’ll stick around and join the journey of… well, active, fun-loving life in leggings.