The Life Of Bryony - The Life of You – Ellen Atlanta on Zumba, Community & Comfort

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

This episode, Ellen Atlanta returns to reveal her three essentials: joyful Zumba classes at her local leisure centre, the comfort of home and relationships, and the simple pleasure of sweets and cheese. Together, we talk about why movement should be about feeling good, not punishment; how community brings genuine connection; and why a balanced approach to self-care matters more than“perfect” wellness routines. From building intergenerational friendships to embracing life at home (and on the sofa), Ellen shares honest insights on redefining wellbeing according to what brings true happiness, not just what looks good online. If you’ve ever questioned gym culture, wanted to find more joy in movement, or yearned for self-acceptance, this episode is for you.   BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE Ellen’s book, Pixel Flesh, explores the impact of digital beauty culture on women’s self-worth and mental health, and is available now in all good bookstores.   WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU Got something to share? Text or send a voice note on 07796657512—just start your message with LOB. Use the WhatsApp shortcut: https://wa.me/447796657512?text=LOB Prefer email? Drop me a line at [e-mail]   If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need it – it really helps! Bryony xx   Credits:  Host: Bryony Gordon   Guest: Ellen Atlanta   Producer: Laura Elwood-Craig   Assistant Producer: Ceyda Uzun   Studio Manager: Sam Chisholm   Editor: Luke Shelley   Exec Producer: Mike Wooller    A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Seriously popular. Welcome to The Life of You, our bonus series where we're mixing things up and inviting guests to reveal the top three essentials they just can't live without. Today, I'm once again joined by the brilliant Ellen Atlanta, award-winning journalist, digital culture expert and author of pixel flesh. We'll be uncovering the everyday things that bring Ellen joy. And I discovered Zumba at my local leisure centre. It's not a fancy gym. It's very much a kind of pillar of the local community. But also, it's shown me.

It's completely flipped my idea of what healthy looks like, about what fitness looks like, about what it means to look and feel sexy. And it's just such a safe space for me. I feel so beautiful there. Curious about Ellen's must-havs? Stay tuned. Her top three are coming up right after this.

Okay, Ellen, the life of you, I want the three things that are absolutely essential to your well-being. Okay. The first one is Zumba. Okay. Talk to me about this. Zumba. Zumba. Zumba is my absolute favorite thing in the world. It makes me feel totally high. I feel like on top of the universe after a zumba class, I started them. I don't even know what the impetus was, but I was coming out of writing my book. And, you know, I'd been to a few Pilates classes.

I'd been to some reformer classes. I'd been to some very fancy gyms and things. And I always felt awful about myself when I was in them. And it felt hyper-competitive. Everybody's bodies looked kind of the same. I was comparing myself the whole time. And up to that point, working out for me had become this idea of almost punishing my body into submission. It was about losing weight or burning off calories or, you know, making up for the fact that I'd eaten something that I shouldn't have eaten.

And I discovered Zumba at my local leisure centre, which is a 10, 15 minute walk from my house. And it's not a fancy gym. It's very much a kind of pillar of the local community. They do all sorts of classes and things. And, yeah, I go there sometimes four times a week. Wow. Whenever I can. And it's a class full of women.

Our oldest member is Mary. She's 97. We had a birthday party for her recently and it was on the news. But there's women there who were 18. There's women there who are pregnant. There's women there who are mothers. There's women there who are, you know, great grandmas. And we all just go and we do our dances.

and we have our routines and everyone does what they can and I love it so much and I'm always out of breath at the end and you know everyone's moving in a way that is you know honoring their body and their abilities and I just find it such a beautiful space to see all these different types of people working out and existing in a space but also it's shown me it's completely flipped my idea of what healthy looks like about what fitness looks like about what it means to to look and feel sexy um and it's just such a safe space for me i feel so beautiful there and it also really humbled me in terms of community because i had worked in community and like marketing and social media for my a lot of the early my early career and so i'd always have this kind of thing of like

oh i'm in community i do community and then you come to these spaces where these women have a huge WhatsApp group where, you know, if someone hasn't got child care for that weekend or someone's got a parking fine, they can't afford to pay, or if someone needs somewhere to, you know, look after their cat for a few weeks, it's all taken care of and everybody is looking after one another in the local area, regardless of age or class or, you know, what their job is. Multiple of the women as survivors of cancer, so every year, they, every summer they give up pretty much all of their weekends to host and to do Zumba at Race for Life. And it's just the most beautiful, real, tangible community. And it's, it means the world to me, honestly. Sold it to me. Come to Zumba,

everybody. Local leisure center, here I come. I'm just fighting the allegations that it's only for women of a certain age and who aren't very fit. And I'm like, no. Listen, we are women of a certain age who aren't very, we are for women of a certain age who consider themselves not to be very fit. Like, we're for everyone. It's just the best thing I could have done for my body and it's the best thing I've done for myself in a long time and it's really cheap. It's really affordable. And yeah, I just love the, you know, I've got, you know, new grandmas now and they've all bought my book and every time I, you know, I walk in, they ask about my life and they've, you know, the third cousin they've recommended the book to. Um, yeah.

And it's just, it's a really beautiful way to integrate into your community and to meet new people and to have that kind of intergenerational relationships as well. Number two. I really want to say my boyfriend, but that feels really cheesy. No, go for it. I think I'm going to wrap my boyfriend and my home into one because I'm such a home body. And that's something that I have learned to accept. about myself because I think there was a lot of my 20s that I was like, I'm just boring because I don't like going out all the time and I'm not, you know, I have so much comfort

in my, in my home life and in, you know, I've got so many books and I've got so many craft supplies and I really take pride in the way that my home is decorated and I write for a living so most of my work life is spent looking like a hermit on the, on the sofa. You know, I thought I would be, you know, prancing around with a quill like Jane Austen or something with a corset on. But that is not. Is that not what you do? No, it's not. That's what I'm like.

That's what my life is like as a writer. Yeah, I've got a quill and a bonnet. Yeah. And that is how all my best books were written. Not really. They were written in my pants on my map book. Exactly. I thought, you know, when I got the book deal, I was like, I'm going to have that romantic writer life.

And actually it's, you know, with the dressing gown looking like baby Yoda. hunched over on my bed, like frowning. Grogu, Grogu's his name. He's got a name and it's Groguu. I apologize to the Star Wars community. But yeah, so my home and my partner and I think the life we've created together is all I need really. And that and Zumba.

Have you got one more thing? My third one is sugar. Oh! Which kind of feels contrary. to the wellness subject. No, no, we are, listen, listen, we're not like wellness, wellness. We're like illness, wellness. Great, I'm not wellness, wellness.

I've tried having a bath and lighting a candle, and I just lie there thinking, I'm just in the bath. I'm just warm. Yeah, for me, biscuits, sweets, sweets, you know, I have a whole, like, box of stinger bars, because that was... What are stinger bars? It's like a bit, is there like a refresher? It's kind of a chewy, sherbetty, soury bar.

Oh, that sounds awful. Like a wambar. Do you remember a wambar? No. There's a whole, you know, a whole world of retro sweets that you've not tapped into. I'm more, I'm more salt than sugar. Oh, yeah, no, I've never been that person. I'm very much.

Like, I'm not like, oh, no, I don't like sweets because I'm really healthy. It's because I like crisps. I see. Yeah, no, I do like crisps. And I also, cheese is my absolute, I will just go to the fridge and rip off a chunk of mature cheddar and just eat that on the sofa. Yeah, that's, but that's, surely that's a, that's a very normal, normal thing to do. In my house, yeah. So that and sweets and chocolate and biscuits is my, that's my wellness kit. Love it.

A huge thanks to Ellen. Her book, Pixel Flesh, is out. out now. If anything hit home or made you pause, please pass it on. It helps more than you know. Take care of yourself and see you next time if I don't see you first at the local leisure centre Zumba class.