emma lovewell book review

• Skip to primary navigation
• Skip to main content
• Skip to footer

Professional writing profile of Marjorie Clayman

Book Review: Live Learn Love Well, by Emma Lovewell

by Margie Clayman

I joined Peloton I guess about two years ago? Three? Time is confusing ever since COVID. Anyway, I joined because my best friend was super into it and she wanted me to share in the experience, so I joined up for her birthday. Weird, perhaps, but she knew my motives were good. One of the first instructors I did a class with was Emma Lovewell. Based on good experiences I opted to do her Crush Your Core program, a semi-brutal core workout series that I hoped would result in me finally being able to do a sit-up unassisted. That didn’t happen, but I really came to admire Ms. Emma and her relaxed style (and her obvious addiction to Janet Jackson). When I started following Emma on Instagram I learned about her gardening, and I decided I want to be her when I grow up. Reading her book gave me a chance to get to know her better.

Overall Experience: Reading this book is like having one of those confessional lunches with a new friend, except it’s all one way – Emma sharing her life. The good and the bad are all in there. I was sad the chapters were so short, and I was sad when the book ended.

Big Take-Away: There are a lot of great messages in this book that could easily help you lift your chin up on a tough day. These include:

• Mark your goals in pencil. They’re things you can strive for, but life is life so adjustments may be necessary.

• Any day can be <one of> your best days. You don’t have to reserve “the best day of my life” for a big occasion.

• Breathing is good. Being in the moment is good. Whether you are exercising, gardening, reading, or doing nothing, be there with it.

• Don’t create a lumpy rug of held back emotions. Work them out and don’t give yourself something to trip over later.

Where to Buy: You can purchase the book on Amazon (not an affiliate link). It is also available on Audible.

Who Should Read It: I would say the might may have more meaning for someone who has done some Peloton classes with Emma, just because you see a continuity between how she presents herself in her classes, online, and in the book. However, I think the book would be a great gift for someone having a rough time for whatever reason. You know the spoiler – it’s a happy ending. How Emma got there is inspirational though.

Give it a read or a listen and let me know what you think.

[email protected]

Simple, delicious, & balanced living.

Cultivating a well-balanced life through healthy food and an active lifestyle.

Popular Recipes

Shop the lovewell collection, a hike to remember.

I’m happy to share some personal news: Dave and I got engaged 🙂 So we have been celebrating this milestone with each other, and with our closest friends and family. If you want a moment of lightness and love, then keep reading for our engagement story.

Live Learn Love Well: Lessons from a Life of Progress Not Perfection

A memoir chronicling Emma Lovewell’s incredible path to physical―and mental―fitness that traces her journey to becoming a beloved Peloton instructor and inspires readers to live, learn, and love well.

Fall Decorating Ideas

I’ve been using my garden as inspiration for my fall décor. I always love the concept of merging the inside and the outside, and by bringing pieces of my garden inside, it means I can enjoy all those benefits, with none of the frostbite.

Follow @emmalovewell

Check out my newsletter.

• Search Please fill out this field.
• Manage Your Subscription
• Give a Gift Subscription
• Newsletters
• Sweepstakes
• Entertainment

Peloton Instructor Emma Lovewell Reveals How a $50 Craigslist Job Ad Changed Her Life (Exclusive)

In an exclusive excerpt from her upcoming memoir Live Learn Love Well , the fitness star reveals how taking a chance on a low-paying gig paved the way to her dream career

One of the key points in Emma Lovewell's new book Live Learn Love Well: Lessons From a Life of Progress Not Perfection is a simple concept — success is not linear.

"There [are] a lot of interesting ups and downs; I think some things that people might relate to," Lovewell told PEOPLE about her book in October 2022 while exclusively revealing its cover. "Coming from a pretty affluent town, but not coming from a lot of money, working my way through college and trying to make it in the big city."

It was while she was in her 20s, trying to find a career that would play to her strengths that she took a risk and answered the Craigslist ad – to pose for a personal trainer's website. She didn't take one giant leap from that to becoming a Peloton instructor , but the photographer from that shoot suggested that she become a fitness model. In 2011 she signed on to the Wilhelmina model agency, which led to her posing for brands like Under Armour and Athleta.

In 2012, she shot a Kickstarter commercial for Peloton, then a start-up company. Little did Lovewell know that, just five years later, she'd film her first ride as an instructor for the company. Though it would take a few years and twists and turns, that $50 little Craigslist gig set her on the path.

She says it was all about "meeting the right people, being in the right place at the right time." "Meeting the photographer there, who set me up with the next thing, the next thing and the next thing," Lovewell says.

"It all ties in. The fact that when I was a struggling dancer in New York City, I was working alongside some of my Peloton colleagues at the time. We didn't know 10 years later we'd all be working at a multi-billion-dollar company."

A week before its May 2 release, Lovewell shares an exclusive excerpt with PEOPLE from Live, Learn, Love Well , her catchphrase, brand and now memoir title. She says, "I think hearing some of my stories about taking sideways steps, or back steps, or failing, and then finding success, will be really helpful, I hope, to readers who might feel stuck."

As a fitness coach, I see how saying yes to small things leads to big results over time. Committing to the Crush Your Core program is like saying yes to being stronger. Eating vegetables with every meal is saying yes to a healthier body and digestive system! Of course, exercise and nutrition won't bring instant results, but over time the small changes can add up to something significant. Saying yes often means a leap of faith, because we can't always forecast what the results will be. I understand the desire to know how a choice might impact you down the road, but sometimes it's in the unknown where we find some of life's biggest wins. Magical things can happen when you say yes and open yourself up to new possibilities.

One of the many risky Craigslist ads that I responded to was for a gig as a model for a personal trainer's website. The ad was looking for a female athlete who was comfortable at the gym and willing to show their stomach and abs. It paid fifty dollars. But I responded anyway, thinking maybe it would pay for a nice dinner! I ended up booking the gig and showed up to the set in the photographer's apartment in Long Island City. Luckily the job was legit, and the personal trainer and the photographer were kind and professional. This shoot ended up changing my life.

The photographer was Jay Sullivan, the same photographer who shot the cover of this very book (life really does come full circle sometimes). He was mostly a lifestyle and headshot photographer at the time, but as we started talking, he admitted that he was trying to get more into fitness photography. He noticed that the fitness industry was really taking off and that there were tons of brands looking for fitness photos, from publications like Women's Health , Fitness Magazine , and Men's Journal to fitness and fashion brands like Tory Burch, Under Armour, and Athleta. I told him I was trained as a dancer, and he said to me, "Have you ever thought about being a model?" I thought, Me? Really? While I have plenty of confidence in my appearance, in a million years I would never have imagined myself as a model.

But when I thought more about it, I realized that, as a dancer, I already felt comfortable onstage and in front of a camera and knew that I took direction well. I had those skills. I also knew I was always filled with judgement when I would see an ad for a major brand with a "dancer" leaping in the photo with the same arm and leg forward, and a sickled foot. I would always shake my head and think, "Wow, they should have hired a real dancer for that shoot." I listened to Jay's words and took them very seriously. Yes, I should give this a try.

Jay invited me to come back to do a test shoot so we could create images for my first-ever portfolio. I showed up a few weeks later to Long Island City at five in the morning so we could shoot during the warm light of sunrise. Running along the boardwalk next to the water, and then stopping out of breath and sweaty, looking off into the distance: These were all "fitness-y" moves that I learned that day. These photos got printed on nine-by-eleven-inch photo paper at Adorama and then placed into the leather portfolio with my name emblazoned on it that I had purchased from the House of Portfolios.

I got signed by Wilhelmina Models within their fitness division (and ended up working with them for seven years). It was one of the most significant things that ever happened to me and really launched me into the fitness community in New York City. In just a few weeks with the agency, I was flying around the country doing photoshoots for Athleta and Under Armour, where I learned the minutiae of the job, like how to turn the left side of my abdomen a fraction of an inch so the photographer could get the most muscle definition for the shot. I made connections with brands, I learned about how the business works, and for the first time I felt confident that there was success in my future, even if I didn't know exactly what that looked like. I was starting to believe my world would consist of more than a long string of low-paying jobs; I could almost see an end to the hustle and stress. And in 2012, I did a Kickstarter commercial shoot for a fitness start-up company called Peloton. I did the job in a day, acting as a home rider who took a class on their new at-home stationary bike. The premise was "hop on your bike at home and then get completely transported into a live energetic in-studio class." I had no idea how important this shoot would be someday.

That yes to a fifty-dollar Craigslist ad led me to enormous opportunities. It's eventually what landed me where I am today. While it would be years (and many more jobs) before I would join the Peloton team as a cycling instructor, I was finally seeing how all the different parts of me could potentially fit together into a career where I would thrive.

The next and crucial piece came when I made a promise to myself that I would stop bartending and find a career that highlighted my strengths by the time I was twenty-eight. Just six months before that crucial birthday I got a call from a friend. "Emma, so I've been teaching cycling classes at this studio. They're looking for new people, and by the way, they offer health insurance." That was the YES moment that led to my very first job as a cycling instructor…promise to self – kept!

This excerpt was taken from Live Learn Love Well: Lessons from a Life of Progress Not Perfection by Emma Lovewell published by Ballantine Books.

Related Articles

• Book Excerpt

Emma Lovewell Reflects on Navigating Friendships as a Mixed-Race Kid: "I Felt Self-Conscious"

Published on 5/3/2023 at 1:00 PM

Emma Lovewell is best known for her work as a Peloton instructor whose mantra, "Live, learn, love well," is a mainstay of her classes. Now, she has just released a memoir — "Live Learn Love Well: Lessons From a Life of Progress Not Perfection" — that reveals how she came to that ethos.

In this excerpt from her memoir, Lovewell talks about how her mixed-race identity has been a crucial part of her journey. Growing up biracial (she's half Taiwanese), Lovewell had a hard time navigating friendships — a common theme for many mixed-race kids. Read the excerpt ahead, and explore all of our APIA Heritage Month stories centered on friendship.

Walk around New York City for five minutes and you'll see that diversity is on full display everywhere. People move here from far-flung places all over the globe, and there's a comfort to seeing faces of every color. Here, being different because of my mixed-race heritage makes me fit right in. I'm just one of many. Growing up on the Vineyard I felt self-conscious about being Chinese. There weren't a lot of people who looked like me, and it was undeniable that culturally we were "different" in my house. As far as I knew, none of the other mothers had meditation pillows or Buddha statues on full display in the living room. None of my friends ever mentioned having fermented vegetables for dinner or hot pot for a celebration. Those same things that made me feel like our family was weird meditation, gardening, fixing things — those became the foundation of a balanced life and a successful career. The journey to embracing who I was at my core took years, and when I think about this period of my life it makes me realize the growth that can happen when you release the struggle to be like everyone else and recognize you are enough .

Every day in the school cafeteria I felt like my differences were on display for everyone to see.

Every day in the school cafeteria I felt like my differences were on display for everyone to see. I would open my lunch box with equal parts fear and anticipation. I always enjoyed what my mom packed me for lunch, but the truth was, being the only kid with a bento box full of traditional Chinese food could be embarrassing. My lunch was the polar opposite of what was contained in the Hello Kitty and Spider-Man lunch boxes of my peers. As I opened the box each day, the heads at my lunch table turned toward me, wondering, What freaky food does Emma have today? "Emma, what is that? A rotten egg? Why is it all brown and white? Gross. And is that a pile of dirt on your rice? Are you actually going to eat dirt?" I looked at my lunch, a tea egg, rice with rousong (also known as meat floss), and pickled vegetables, all foods I liked to eat, lovingly made from scratch by my mother. Tea eggs were a favorite of mine. They're soft-boiled eggs cracked just slightly, then boiled again in a mixture of tea, star anise, and soy sauce, which makes them look like big marbles (sometimes they are called marbled eggs). I knew how delicious the egg would taste and I wanted to eat it right away, but I felt too self-conscious. Powdered pork (a dried meat that's a light and fluffy topping for things like rice and tofu) was another common food in my house, but something about the fluorescent light of the cafeteria made it look like it was from outer space. Sitting there surrounded by Wonder Bread sandwiches and individual bags of neon-orange Cheetos, I wished I could transform my lunch into something more "normal." As I picked up my chopsticks, I knew my bento box and I stuck out like sore thumbs.

When a friend stayed for dinner, I felt a flush of anxiety before we sat at the table. I knew my mom's cooking was delicious, but I never knew how a friend would react when they realized dinner at my house wasn't going to be meatloaf or spaghetti and meatballs. When my friend Amanda stayed for dinner, I was happy to see that she didn't balk at the Chinese dishes my mother had set out. She looked intrigued. Amanda dug right in. "Wow, this is really good." She was happily chewing away when suddenly her face turned bright red. She started coughing and her eyes were watering like crazy. Then came the sweat, pouring right down her now inflamed face. "Amanda, are you okay?" She nodded awkwardly, waving her hand in front of her face like she had a mouthful of fire. Which, essentially, she did. A bell went off in my head, ding ding ding . I knew exactly what had happened. "Oh, no! Amanda! Did you eat one of the dried hot peppers?" Her face just got redder. "Mom, Amanda ate one of the dried peppers!" Mom rushed around getting her a cold glass of milk and a plain bowl of white rice, anything to quell the heat. The dried peppers were supposed to flavor the dish but weren't meant to be eaten. I had never actually eaten one, because I had been warned that they are hotter than the surface of the sun. Pushing those peppers off to the side was second nature to me, but it didn't occur to me to warn Amanda. Amanda's face turned back to its normal color soon enough, and she was a good sport about it. But I felt so embarrassed that this had happened. Things like this wouldn't happen if we ate spaghetti and meatballs like other people! No one ever set their mouth on fire eating meatloaf!

From the book LIVE LEARN LOVE WELL: Lessons from a Life of Progress Not Perfection by Emma Lovewell. Copyright © 2023 by Emma Lovewell. Published by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

• This is an unofficial site, not officially affiliated with Peloton.

• All News Posts
• New Feature
• Instructor News
• Classes & Programs
• Peloton Discounts & Sales
• Company News
• Studio News
• Outages & Bugs
• Hardware & Device News
• Show Notes & Episode Pages
• Subscribe on iTunes
• Subscribe on YouTube
• Other Podcast Players
• Complete List of Peloton Badges
• Guide to Booking Studio Classes
• Peloton Instructor Challenge Tool
• Peloton Annual Challenge Calculator
• Power Zone Library & Timer
• Tread vs Tread+ (Plus) Comparison
• Peloton Gift Guide
• Books by Peloton Instructors
• Peloton Training Programs
• List of Peloton Groups
• Broadway Class List
• Disney Class List
• Main Class Guide Index
• Themed Classes & Special Interest Series
• Instructor Signature Series
• Training Programs
• Holiday Class List
• Featured Artist Series
• Scenic Ride List
• Scenic Run List
• Two For One Classes
• Main Travel (Hotel / Gym / Vacation Rental) List
• Vacation Rental List
• List by US State
• List by Major Cities
• Recommended Peloton Accessories
• In-Depth Product Reviews

Peloton Instructor Emma Lovewell Announces New Book – Live Learn Lovewell: Lessons From a Life of Progress Not Perfection

Peloton instructor Emma Lovewell announced today that she has written a book! Aptly titled Live Learn Lovewell: Lessons From a Life of Progress Not Perfection (affiliate link), the book will be released on May 2, 2023. Emma shared the news via Instagram :

Acknowledge the fear and do it anyway!? I’m doing it now— I wrote a book!! Thrilled I finally get to share this with you. I’ve been working on it for a year and a half, and it’s finally happening. You can pre-order the book now anywhere books are sold, it comes out May 2, 2023!! Thank you for all of your support. Truly. Can’t wait for you to read it! 🥰 @penguinrandomhouse #livelearnlovewell

In the video Emma mentions that May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which is very important and special to her.

Emma provided an exclusive interview to People , in which she talked about what she hopes readers will take away from the book:

“It’s really a book of stories chronicling my life, my career, and my personal life, physical and mental fitness; the whole journey that has created the person I am today,” she says. “It’s more than just a prescriptive fitness book. It’s a lot of stories. Some are sad, some are heartwarming, some are funny.” “I’d like to look at it as a resource for people, anyone who feels stuck or overwhelmed or scared to make a change. [It’s] just showcasing that, even the smallest amount of change, can really redirect or change the course of your life.”

The book is being published by Ballantine Books and is 240 pages in length. The official description reads:

Emma Lovewell is a star instructor at Peloton, a global fitness brand and media content company, but her journey to success began with a simple realization: Change is inevitable, but growth is optional. She chose to grow. In Live Learn Love Well, she shares the moments in her life that shaped her into the woman she is today―from growing up in a modest home amidst the affluence of Martha’s Vineyard, to struggling with her biracial identity and fitting in, both in the white community and the Asian American community, to health setbacks and relationship challenges, to moving to New York and striving for a career in dance and fitness. Just as Lovewell is more than a fitness instructor, she’s learned that wellness is more than just a physical condition. She shares the moments where mental fortitude shaped her outlook on the world and how the idea of “progress, not perfection” became a guiding principle. Filled with surprising insights, charming anecdotes, and never-before-shared moments, Live Learn Love Well is for anyone who feels stuck or overwhelmed, who worries there’s too much to change to even get started, or who simply needs a little inspiration to make tomorrow better than today. Lovewell’s stories, along with her easy-to-initiate tips, will give readers the confidence to know that even the smallest modifications can have truly outsized impacts on their lives and wellness.

Emma is joining the ranks of fellow Peloton instructor authors Robin Arzón and Tunde Oyeneyin, both of whom have had books published in the past year.

Robin released her first children’s book, Strong Mama , at the beginning of the year, and announced that her second children’s book, Strong Baby , will be released in 2023. Robin is also the author of Shut Up and Run: How to Get Up, Lace Up, and Sweat with Swagger , which came out in 2016.

Tunde released her memoir Speak earlier this year. If you’re interested in learning more we have a book review on our site.

You can pre-order Emma’s new book, Live Learn Love Well: Lessons from a Life of Progress Not Perfection, on Amazon – it is currently available both in hardback and Kindle editions. Note that the above links are affiliate links – if you buy through our link you pay the same price but help support our site.

Support the site! Enjoy the news & guides we provide? Help us keep bringing you the news. Pelo Buddy is completely free, but you can help support the site with a one-time or monthly donation that will go to our writers, editors, and more. Find out more details here .

Get Our Newsletter Want to be sure to never miss any Peloton news? Sign up for our newsletter and get all the latest Peloton updates & Peloton rumors sent directly to your inbox.

Katie Weicher

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published.

Pelo Buddy is in no way affiliated with Peloton Cycle or Peloton Interactive. Peloton is a registered trademark of Peloton Interactive, Inc. Some links on the site are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.