Pilates Power
Pilates Style|May - June 2017

Lesly Levy taught aerobics, Spinning and yoga before discovering that Pilates combined them all in one neat little package.

Anne Marie O’Connor
Pilates Power

PILATES STYLE Tell us about your childhood.

LESLY LEVY I was born in Chicago in 1960, then moved to the south suburbs in 1968. Right before my senior year in high school, my father was transferred to Boston. I went to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where I studied English, communications and French. I met my future husband Alan during my first semester, and we were engaged by our last semester.

PS How did you get into fitness?

LESLY Soon after graduating college, I moved to New York City to be with my fiancé. I worked as a media buyer at Young and Rubicam advertising, where like me, everyone smoked. I quit smoking on my wedding day (after 10 long years) and gained 16 pounds within two months. That’s when I joined the Brooklyn Queens Racquet Club.

In 1986, Alan and I decided we wanted to start a family, so we bought our first home in Westchester. Our daughter was born in 1987, and our son in 1990. I became a stay-at-home mom, and got more and more into fitness. Immediately after we moved, I joined the Briarcliff Racquet Club. A year after I had my second child, I was working out in the weight room when a woman came up to me for guidance. Because I was not a trained professional, I did not feel comfortable helping her and referred her to a personal trainer who was on the floor. She told me that she would prefer to be trained by a woman more her age and suggested that I think about becoming a personal trainer. So I thought, Why not?, and in November 1992, I acquired my personal trainer certification with ACE.

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