Pilates Power

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

- Anne Marie O’Connor

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.