Meet Your Instructor
Stephanie Gilbert
Founder / Owner • Fitness Loon • Loganville, GA
Certified group fitness instructor, registered yoga teacher, and the woman who has spent over a decade teaching women in Loganville and the greater Gwinnett County area how to use movement as a tool for their mental health.
AFAA Certified
Group Fitness Instructor
RYT 200 - Yoga Alliance
Exercise for Mental Health
SilverSneakers Certified
Over a Decade Teaching
Since 2015 – Loganville, GA
Stephanie Gilbert is an AFAA-certified group fitness instructor and Yoga Alliance RYT 200 yoga teacher with over 11 years of experience leading classes in Loganville, GA and the surrounding Gwinnett County area. She holds specialized training in exercise as an intervention for anxiety and depression, trauma-informed yoga, and yoga therapy for depression — credentials that directly impact everything she teaches at Fitness Loon.
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 choose 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.
As I began teaching at studios across the Gwinnett County area, I dove into everything I could find: books, videos, conversations with therapists and counselors, talks on trauma and the nervous system.
Not just the stress of a hard week or a packed schedule, though that is real. I mean the heavier kind. The weight of grief that never got fully processed. The anxiety that runs like background noise through everyday life. The accumulated tension of carrying too much for too long, of pouring out more than you’re taking in. Trauma, large and small, that settles into the body and doesn’t leave just because time passes. What I was learning confirmed what many women already know in their bones: that the body keeps a record of everything we’ve been through.
What I found matched what I had already lived. Movement isn’t a cure. But it gives the nervous system a way through — a pathway out of the noise, back toward something that feels like yourself.
“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 fear was loud. But it was not the final word.”
— Stephanie Gilbert
The Story of the Studio
March 2020. The world shut down. I showed up anyway.
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. There was so much uncertainty about what was going on. There was fear and doubt about everything.
But 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. And we still have members who participate from other states in our virtual studio.
The name was intentional. There’s the irreverent nod — to the psychiatric hospitals, to the “loony bin” — words I had every reason to carry as a wound and chose instead to wear as a badge.
But a loon is also a bird. And I still have that nest under glass.
Nothing was wasted.
Teaching Philosophy
“Your body is not a problem to be solved. It is a home to be cared for.”
You need both — the movement and the stillness.
What I teach — and what I have watched be true in my Loganville studio every single week — is this: women walk in carrying more than they know. Yes, we all need rest. But what we also need is physical release.
Women have occasionally cried during or after a class and apologize for it, as though feeling something in a safe space is something to be sorry for. There is nothing to apologize for.
They also share about how they’ve overcome challenges, tapping into strength they didn’t realize they had, and connect it directly back to work they’ve done in the studio.
This is exactly what this room is for.
Stephanie is the author of all content on the Fitness Loon blog. Her writing on exercise, mental health, and women’s wellness draws directly from her training in exercise as an anxiety intervention, the neuroscience of aerobic exercise, and over a decade of teaching women in the Loganville area. Read her latest posts →
Credentials & Training
A credential stack built around mental health.
AFAA Group Fitness InstructorCertified since 2017 · Active through 2027
Mental Health Specializations
Yoga Therapy for DepressionMy Vinyasa Practice · YACEP · 20 CEUs · 2024
Exercise as an Anxiety InterventionAFAA/NASM · Emotions in Motion · 2021
Neuroscience of Aerobic ExerciseAFAA/NASM · 2020
Behavior Change ScienceAFAA/NASM · 2023
Yoga
200-Hour RYTYoga Alliance · My Vinyasa Practice · 2021
Trauma-Informed YogaMy Vinyasa Practice · 2021Barre — Silver Level (Multi-Level)IBBFA · ACE/NASM Approved · Since 2016
Zumba® InstructorActive ZIN Member · Since 2015
Step InstructorFitour · Since 2017
Indoor Cycling — Primary & AdvancedFitourFoundations InstructorTivity Health · 2024
Classic — Signature FormatTivity Health · 2022
Frequently Asked Questions
About Stephanie & Fitness Loon
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.
How long has Stephanie been teaching fitness?
Stephanie has been leading fitness classes for many years, beginning in 2015. She taught at multiple studios across the Loganville and Gwinnett County area before founding Fitness Loon in April 2020.
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.
Where are Fitness Loon classes held?
Fitness Loon is located at 3977 Atlanta Hwy Suite 109, Loganville, GA 30052 — serving women throughout Loganville, Gwinnett County, Walton County, and surrounding areas. Virtual classes are also available.
Come As You Are
Whether you’re here for the cardio, the barre, the yoga, or just because you needed somewhere to move and be seen — you’re in the right place.