Stephanie Gilbert

The Story of the Nest

There is a bird’s nest sitting on a shelf in my home, under a clear glass dome. It has been there for twelve years.

During the early days of dealing with depression, I reached out to a friend and mentor. She came and sat with me and walked me through a time of listening prayer. In that stillness, God gave me a picture: a bird’s nest. A symbol of safety and protection. Of being held.

A few days later, I opened my front door and found that a bird had built her nest into the welcome wreath hanging there for my newborn son. She laid her eggs. We watched them hatch. When the birds left, I took the nest and placed it under glass.

It has been on my shelf ever since. A reminder that I was being held even when I couldn’t feel it. That the fear was loud — but it was not the final word.

That’s the heart of what I want Fitness Loon to be: a place where women can bring whatever is weighing them down and find that same safety in moving together.

The Story of Mental Health & Movement

I am a person of faith, a ballet dancer turned fitness instructor, a wife and mother of three boys. I am also someone who has lived with anxiety and depression most of my adult life — and who, after the birth of my third son, found myself at the lowest point I had ever reached.

What followed was a season of postpartum depression that led to self-harm, paranoia, and a suicide attempt. This landed me in a psychiatric hospital. More than once. There was a darkness that felt permanent, even when everyone around me was reassuring me it wasn’t.

During my second hospitalization, a doctor said something that changed the direction of my life. Essentially he told me he could continue prescribing medication but for things to truly get better, I had to get out of bed.

Shortly after I was released, I walked into a Zumba class. I had been a dancer growing up — ballet, from childhood through high school. Being back in a room with music, with my body doing something it recognized I found I had energy to finish the day. The urge to crawl back into bed and hide was not there.

So I went back. And then I went back again. And then, to keep myself accountable on my mental health journey, I got certified to teach Zumba, then Barre — which felt like coming home after all those years of ballet. I began teaching at studios across the Gwinnett County area. And then I found yoga. 

“I began to understand that I wasn’t the only one carrying something heavy into a fitness class, hoping to set a little of it down.”

The Story of the Studio

March 2020. The world shut down. I showed up anyway.

In the spring of 2020, I was released from a fourth hospitalization. Two weeks later, the world locked down.

I knew what that noise sounded like — the anxiety of isolation, the way the body tightens when it has nowhere to go. When messages started coming in from women in my Loganville-area classes asking if I’d considered teaching online, my first instinct was no. I was barely steady myself.

My husband saw something I couldn’t see yet. Over a weekend, he built a website and handed it to me: “You have something people need.”

Fitness Loon launched as a virtual studio, grew to 45 members in a few months, and moved into its Loganville brick-and-mortar home that October — where it has served women in Loganville, Gwinnett County, and Walton County ever since.

Teaching Philosophy

“Your body is not a problem to be solved. It is a home to be cared for.”

What certifications does Stephanie hold?

Stephanie is an AFAA-certified Primary Group Exercise instructor (since 2017), a Yoga Alliance RYT 200 registered yoga teacher, an IBBFA-certified Barre instructor (Silver Level, since 2016), a certified SilverSneakers® instructor, and holds multiple AFAA/NASM specialty certifications in exercise as an anxiety intervention, the neuroscience of aerobic exercise, and behavior change science.

Does Stephanie have personal experience with mental health?

Yes — and she’s open about it. Stephanie’s journey through postpartum depression, anxiety, and recovery is the foundation of Fitness Loon’s approach. Her personal experience, combined with formal training in exercise as a mental health intervention, informs everything she teaches.