Beauty is about a lot more than a hot body, and Katie Boyd is helping to change the world’s outlook one healthy gym-goer at a time.
Katie Boyd’s The Miss Fit Club of Wellesley just celebrated its two-year anniversary. Having grown up in Taunton and competing at the state level in the Miss America and Miss USA pageants, Boyd decided to start the first gym in the nation focused on training pageant contestants. This boutique fitness studio now boasts more than 400 members.
Boyd decided to open her own gym because she had grown up working out in a bodybuilder and “meathead” gym environment. “Women felt like they had to get in shape before working out,” Boyd says. “I wanted to open a gym where women could come without feeling judged, with a full face of makeup or come in their pajamas.”
Boyd’s feel-good energy toward the gym is based in finding her own happiness. Back in her competing days, she was no stranger to spending three hours a day in the gym, and she was miserable. Eventually, she realized that happiness comes from the inside, and her main goal for her clients is to pass that feeling on. She says she wants her clients “to really love who they are no matter what size, shape, or weight.”
The studio is intimate, offering affordable small group boot camp classes at $20 an hour. Only six to 12 women are allowed in a class, and it is by appointment only. Boyd reserves the right to turn away any negative or mean potential clients; however, if you get to work out there, there is a chance you’ll be rubbing shoulders with Patriots’ cheerleaders, Celtics’ dancers or Red Sox Jon Lester’s wife, Farrah.
Katie Boyd’s Miss Fit Club focuses on a fitness-and-healthy-eating way of life. Boyd and her staff like to get to know personal facts about the clients, and they create personalized meal plans with recipes and grocery lists. “I teach them how to eat and not get bored [with food in their everyday lives], on the run, and while traveling,” Boyd says. Her goal is to teach the most important building blocks to achieve a healthy lifestyle.
As for the workouts, Boyd is a full believer in high intensity interval training (HIIT). Her philosophy at the gym is not to waste your time breaking your workouts into body parts, but to work your entire body in one day of exercise. For example, she mentions doing a Plie squat with a bicep curl at the same time, and then adding in plyometric jumping exercises. This way, you target lots of muscle groups and also raise your heart rate into the fat burning zone.
Her motto is “Fail to plan, plan to fail.” Boyd suggests that one way to avoid the drive-thru when hunger strikes is by keeping healthy snacks in your pocketbook. Some of her favorites are 100-calorie packs of almonds, veggies and hummus, Muscle Milk Light, and fruit. Another tip from Boyd for a healthy diet is to have some kind of protein at every meal. She mentions eggs, Greek yogurt and string cheese as some of her go-to protein fixes.
The women in Massachusetts are lucky enough to have this healthy approach and lifestyle makeover studio in their backyard, but Boyd is also going to be starting virtual training where people from all over the country will be able to take classes a few times a week in a Skype-like setting. And even though the studio was started as a haven for women, soon there will be TuesGays, when gay men are allowed to join the ladies for classes.
Boyd is on to something. Her business opportunities are flourishing. She is opening a satellite studio in Hudson, New Hampshire, out of her fiancé’s martial arts training facility, Dojo Sante, due to open by March. If you want to catch her in action, Boyd is featured on “Wicked Fit” on the Style Network, airing on Sunday nights at 12:00 am EST.
For more information on how to join the studio, visit katieboydsmissfitclub.com or call 617.750.0999.
By Lauren Kaminski
imagery courtesy of the boston herald
