Before she became a mother, Dawn Bland did a lot of things to stay in shape.
“I would like to run,” she said. “Periodically, I joined gyms wherever we lived.”
After the birth of her second child, the Breckinridge County woman faced a dilemma many new moms have - getting back in shape.
“I started (exercising) after the birth of my second son, who’s now 11,” she said. “I started exercising after that because I had gained a lot of weight - 60 pounds.”
The Western Kentucky University graduate took her first pilates class and was hooked.
“I knew how bad I felt before I started exercising. I knew what I did at first to lose weight was very unhealthy. Being thin and being healthy are two different things,” she said. “(After I started exercising) I felt happy again. I didn’t feel tired. I wanted to play with the kids. I just felt happier.”
Bland wanted everyone to feel that way, so the certified personal trainer recently started an online gym at www.
dawnbland.com.
“I always had the desire to do a video. If I’m going to do a video, I might as well do it online,” she said. “I started thinking about it in the middle of the summer. In October, I contacted The Web Guys (website designers) out of Elizabethtown. We launched the last week of December.”
The website includes personal trainer programs and classes for people of all ages and with different levels of fitness and healthy recipes and cooking tips. Workouts vary in length, with many of them ranging from 35 minutes to 50 minutes. There are also shorter express workouts that may be 20 minutes or less.
“You don’t have to do an hour every day,” she said. “For people who want to work out at the office, there is minimal equipment. Some workouts take nothing.”
There are also different styles of workouts, Bland said.
“I like spontaneity. One day I may dance for cardio, and the next I may do kickboxing,” she said. “The more variety we have, the better the body will respond, and the less likely we are to have injury. I’m hitting every body part but not overdoing any particular body part.”
Bland and her husband, Neal, film their own daily workouts for the online gym. On Mondays and Wednesdays, the workouts are more like personal training videos. The videos for Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays are part of the live fitness classes Neal teaches. The videos can be watched in a variety of ways, including on the computer or on television through a computer, Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 or on Internet-capable phones.
“I wanted women to know what they can really do. People see infomercials and magazines and have no idea how to apply it and make it work,” she said. “Men can follow the ‘Neal’ option, and they can do the workout he really does. We want it to be very realistic so you can maintain it for the rest of your life.”
Sometimes Talli Basham, a certified group fitness instructor, is also in the videos.
“She’s there with me to help show modifications,” Bland said. “She doesn’t do things the way that I do them. No matter what your shape, you can still do the workout.”
The Blands are certified personal trainers. She is also a group, youth and senior fitness instructor, and he is also a sports nutritionist. Both are also Western graduates - she with a bachelor’s degree in biology, anatomy and physiology with a minor in psychology, and he with a bachelor’s degree in corporate communications with a minor in marketing and philosophy.
“My husband got dragged into it. Now he has the passion for it as well,” she said, laughing. “He’s lost 30 to 40 pounds in our marriage. Our weight loss has been consistent.”
Cost to join the online gym is $29.99 per month per family.
“Personal training is very expensive,” she said. “You can get me for the whole month for what you pay for an hour.”
There are some portions of the website, such as Bland’s blog, that are accessible to anyone even if they aren’t a paying member.
“I blog daily about food choices. My blog for the day is what I’m feeling for the day. If my problem is snack cakes, I blog about snack cakes,” she said. “Women tend to eat psychologically. I feel bad, I want to eat. A lot of times we’re fixing emotional issues as well. They fit well hand in hand.”
Response to the website has been good, Bland said. She has worked with individuals, corporations and businesses and has had viewers from many places, including New York and Texas.
“In feedback, they say that ‘I feel like I’m really there with you,’ ” she said. “I talk to the camera. My students talk to the camera.”
Bland plans to continue making fitness accessible for the whole family.
“You can feel better at 40 than you did at 20. I want people to get healthy and get their kids healthy,” she said. “We have an epidemic with childhood obesity. I want to attack that and make an impact there.”
— For more information, visit www.dawnbland.com.

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