Over the last seven years, Melissa Wood-Tepperberg has created a wellness platform, Melissa Wood Health, that’s inspiring her legion of fans with daily workouts, meditations, and now, podcast episodes that all center around building a better you — not just a better body. She has a million Instagram followers, a list of celebrity subscribers that includes Keke Palmer, Delilah Belle, Shanina Shaik, and Sara Foster, among others, and her success was even the subject of a case study by Harvard Business School, but before she built her business into what it is today, she was at a very different point in her life.
“I was modeling and acting in New York and thought without a doubt that was the career I wanted,” Wood-Tepperberg tells GRAZIA Gazette: Hamptons. “I remember my feelings changed when I spent a weekend completely by myself doing all the things that made me really happy. By the end of that weekend, I made a list of everything I had done and when I read through it, I realized that there was nothing more important to me than feeling good in my body and taking care of myself.”
She calls the epiphany a “massive turning point” that led her to sign up for a nutrition program instead of acting classes. “This decision changed the entire trajectory of my life,” she says.
Wood-Tepperberg is now a certified health and wellness coach, meditator, and yoga and Pilates teacher, but she didn’t always have the most balanced health and fitness regimen. “In the past, I had a horrible relationship with myself. I would torture myself in the gym and was extremely restrictive with food. At the time, I thought this approach was the only way for me to achieve results, but in reality, it was just making me incredibly unhappy,” she shares. “Once I became pregnant with my son, I knew I needed to find another way. I didn’t want to bring a child into the world surrounded by that type of energy.”
She says she strived to “create a new path” for herself by meditating every day and moving her body in ways that felt good mentally — not just physically.
“I started to see myself differently and love myself in a way I never had before,” Wood- Tepperberg says. “The more I began to love and accept who I was, the more joy I felt in all aspects of my life.”
Slowly, she began to open up on Instagram about combining yoga and Pilates as well as approaching movement in a more mindful way. “I quickly realized that this practice was more than just about building the body we desire, it was also about building a better and stronger relationship with ourselves,” she says. “I knew at that moment that I had to share this more broadly with others and that was when MWH was born.”
Wood-Tepperberg went from filming herself working out in her living room, DIY-style, to building a membership platform where over 300 workouts are available for $9.99 a month, with new ones published weekly. Each practice, she says, is centered around building a “stronger relationship with yourself.”
“To me, this is the foundation of moving your body in a mindful way,” Wood-Tepperberg explains. “You can work out for hours a day, but if you’re not carving out a space to strength the muscles in your mind, you’re missing the most impactful component of true lasting transformation.”
Almost every workout at MWH starts with a grounding moment. “We are all doing a million things every day, going a mile a minute and it’s important to give ourselves time to quiet the noise,” she says. “I’ve always felt that when you step on to the mat and take a deep breath it brings you back to yourself so you can focus your attention on the here and now.”
The wellness guru adds that this practice is “key” because when “you become more present, you engage your mind and body — it’s this connection that leads to significant results.” She believes in it so strongly that she dedicated an entire section to meditations “so you can strengthen the muscles of your mind just as much as you strengthen the muscles in your body.”
Wood-Tepperberg’s vocal cords are also getting a workout: Earlier this year she launched a podcast, Move with Heart, to engage with fans in another way. “The feedback from our MWH members and community is something I am forever fueled by. They asked me to start a podcast and I too felt this real need to dive deeper into certain topics I was touching on through our platform and on Instagram,” Wood-Tepperberg says. “The podcast has been such an incredible space for me to explore sharing my voice in a much more raw and unfiltered way and I’m so grateful for that.”
Though she has a lot to juggle running her expanding business, she’s learned to depend more on those she trusts to help accomplish her vision. “I’ve discovered that by giving my team the space to take ownership of things that I used to do when it was just me, I have a lot more bandwidth to lean into my creativity and focus on producing new and incredible things for our community,” she says.
Life can get incredibly hectic for Wood-Tepperberg, but she always prioritizes making space for herself daily to find balance. “Even if it’s just 5-10 minutes to strengthen my mind and body so I’m able to manage what’s in front of me with more ease,” she notes.
While Wood-Tepperberg is “bursting at the seams” to share what’s in store for MHW in the fall, she says the driving force that keeps her motivated is the same thing that made her start it all in 2015. “When everything’s said and done, the most important thing to me is coming back to my ‘why.’ The reason why I created MWH in the first place was to help people fully tap into their potential of living a life that feels really good and joyful for them.”
And for anyone who isn’t quite sure what it is that lights them up? Wood-Tepperberg has sage advice: “Take a little time to unplug so you can look within yourself and really tap into what brings you joy.”
After all, if it worked for her, it can work for you, too.
