Elizabeth and Dale of Sweats and the City (@sweatsandthecity) are former roommates-turned-fitness ‘Grammers with the abs to prove it. Read on for their thoughts on social media, sweating it out, and all things #fitspo.
The Gramlist: Let’s talk about your origin story on Instagram.
Sweats and the City: We started two and a half years ago. We were roommates in the city and both had a lot of common interests, but we were working our corporate jobs. We followed these Instagram accounts, and we kept thinking, “Why can’t we do this and bring something different to the table?” But weren’t sure what kind of account to make. You know, fashion was so saturated. And we were working out all the time but going to really bad classes, to be honest. Or sometimes good classes that we wanted to share. And so we were looking for a review platform so we could at least have some guidance walking into these. And there wasn’t one. So that’s when we thought, “Let’s just do it.” ‘If you can’t find it, create it.’ So, yeah, we set out to do that and we started writing, and then it kind of turned into what was just class reviews at the beginning. If you look back into our very early photos, it was barebones studio reviews. It turned into more of an engaging, all-encompassing health and wellness theme. But we go on with the trends of fitness and health and try to bring in the best and worst and tell people about it. Kind of our whole angle is, when we first started there were these accounts that were fitness instructors, like that was really kind of it. We’re trying to give people the everyday girl who just wants to work out, we did it when we had corporate jobs, you can do it too kind of attitude. Rather than it being “goals” all the time. We try to keep it real.
The Gramlist: At what point did you realize you could monetize the account?
Sweats and the City: We always kind of knew that there was potential. At first we were thought, “Let’s just take a chance.” And then when we started to create content very consistently, and make better connections, and we were offered money for some things early on and then eventually things started to pick up and we could charge more and the ball started rolling.
The Gramlist: So what does your day-to-day look like now?
Sweats and the City: It’s so different everyday, but our days fill up. You think you have all of this time, but sometimes we feel like, “I barely have time to workout!” So if we’re not doing emails, events, photoshoots, or workouts we can get in stuff like accounting and lawyer meetings. There is so much we would have never thought of. It’s just kind of crazy, we have to do a lot of planning!
The Gramlist: What’s the best class to take if you don’t like to workout?
Sweats and the City: If you don’t like to workout, try yoga or barre. New York Pilates is a good one, the burnout class is so good, there’s just good vibes in there. Studio B has a lot of good classes, too! Or try P.volve.
The Gramlist: How often do you actually work out? And, given the fact that you have a good sense of everything out there, are there any fitness trends you’re especially into right now?
Sweats and the City: We work about about five times a week, and in terms of trends, people are really starting to go beyond just fitness, fitness, fitness. They want the mental health to come with it. And in fitness in general, we’ve been seeing a lot more dance cardio lately. More lower impact, low intensity so LIIT rather than HIIT. People are vibing with that more, at least for us, we were doing a lot of HIIT and we didn’t enjoy it and it honestly took a toll on us physically. There’s more options out there, which can cater to any body.
The Gramlist: Are there any workouts you absolutely won’t do anymore?
Sweats and the City: Classes where you break off into groups and do different stations, it just feels like a waste of time since the trainer has to go around to each station. There was a time when we felt like we had to do those types of workouts, but now we get to be picky and we get to share that with people, which is cool.
The Gramlist: What’s the goal a year from now?
Sweats and the City: Definitely having Sweats and the City in more cities would be amazing, whether that’s us travelling more and just being able to share fitness in more places or maybe having teams in other places, but that would be a whole thing that we would have to figure out. We just came out with our first collab today with a workout brand, so I think it would be really cool one day to have our own line. So many people say “you can’t do this forever,” but why can’t we? Why can’t we be into health and wellness when we’re older? We thought I couldn’t be 45 and in a sports bra, but then we thought “wait, yes we can!” We’re being real and we’re bringing wellness no matter what age we are, and there’s something cool about that. So expanding the brand while keeping to our core.
The Gramlist: And you’ve just started working with fashion too?
Sweats and the City: Yes, we’ve started working with Revolve who we love. We asked our followers because we always want to stay on brand but still grow, so we asked them if they want to see more of our day-to-day looks and it was a unanimous vote for yes. It’s realistic that we’re not always in workout clothes. A passion for fashion in addition to fitness is a differentiator, not everyone is like that. It goes with the idea that we want to be normal girls that love fitness, but it (fitness) is not our life. Some people think that fitness has to take over your life, and that will keep them away from it, so it’s a misconception that we’re trying to break.
The Gramlist: Do you think more about nutrition and wellness more now than you did before?
Sweats and the City: In a different way. We’ve learned a lot. Health and wellness changes all the time, like what was healthy five years ago isn’t healthy now. We educate ourselves, we speak to nutritionists to get what works for us and try to block the noise out of diets trends and stuff like that. People will make assumptions about our diets, but we don’t fall into any of that. We eat real milk yoghurt and dessert, but we also love to eat healthy 85% of the time. We don’t vibe with any kind of restrictive cleanses, detoxes, diets. It’s not for us. We’re in a unique position in that we don’t label ourselves. We’re all about the long-term and sustainable.
