My then-roommate was the first to discover Melissa Wood-Tepperberg’s online workout platform, and we both quickly latched on. Wood-Tepperberg’s classes are bite-size Pilates workouts that are effective and quick and don’t constantly remind you that you’re working out on the floor of an old tenement building, which was important to me, personally. We got through the dark days of the pandemic by splitting a Melissa Wood Health membership, and we’ve both continued using the platform ever since.
I might be a Melissa Wood Health devotee, but I’ve always been curious about what Wood-Tepperberg’s morning routine is. I reached out to talk to her about her wellness practices, and I was surprised by how refreshingly laid-back she is about her routine (which is, I think, a big reason Melissa Wood Health has garnered so much success).
“From the moment I started MWH, I’ve committed to a way of life with lots of flexibility, especially since having children,” Wood-Tepperberg says. Every morning, she wakes up and tries to get a workout and meditation in before her children are awake, but she says that if they wake up during, she rolls with it, or waits until later. “I’m very intuitive and follow what feels good in the moment. The most important thing in my mind is carving out space to take care of myself. The more I show up for me, the more I’m able to show up for everyone else in my life.”
I asked Wood-Tepperberg my most dreaded question—what does she eat in a day? I know that many fitness and nutrition gurus follow restrictive diets. After years of battling dislike for my own body, I didn’t want to try to commit to something limiting that might catapult me back into bad habits. Wood-Tepperberg, however, offered me a sigh of relief. “For a long time, I thrived on a mostly plant-based diet, but the best thing for me has truly been releasing all labels when it comes to food,” she says. “While sticking to mostly plants is what makes me feel my absolute best, I eat what feels good at the moment and have been experimenting with trying different things as a result.”
Wood described her morning routine to me as follows: She wakes up and thinks of something she’s grateful for, drinks warm water with lemon on an empty stomach and an oat-milk latte, takes a probiotic, does 15 minutes of meditation and 15 minutes of movement, which she notes is not always exact, and makes her recipe for a green juice or smoothie. Here’s my week journey living like Wood-Tepperberg.
