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Vancouver woman starts free fitness class at mall

After moving to the area, she was looking to meet other moms, get in shape

By Marissa Harshman, Columbian Health Reporter
Published: March 16, 2015, 12:00am
12 Photos
Vancouver moms Reagen Darling, left, and Shelly Stafford walk a lap around the Westfield Vancouver mall during a recent Barbells and Bottles class.
Vancouver moms Reagen Darling, left, and Shelly Stafford walk a lap around the Westfield Vancouver mall during a recent Barbells and Bottles class. Photo Gallery

When Reagan Darling moved to Vancouver about a year ago, she was overweight and in search of new mom friends.

At the time, Darling weighed nearly as much as she did while pregnant with her daughter, who was 16 months old at the time.

“I had really fallen away from fitness altogether, even though, at one point, it had been a passion of mine,” she said.

She decided to do things “the old-fashioned way”: eat healthful foods and exercise regularly.

“I started losing the weight, but I was still lonely,” Darling said.

“I kept trying to go to different places to meet moms and make some friends, and I just wasn’t having good results,” she added.

Darling wanted to attend fitness classes at a local nutritional club, but the classes weren’t at convenient times for moms with kids at home: either early morning or dinnertime, she said.

Someone needed to offer a class where moms could work out with their babies, Darling thought. She found baby boot camps in the area, but they were spendy. So using her own personal weight-loss experience and training as a Pilates instructor, Darling decided to start her own class.

She asked her friend who owned a nutritional club if she could invite some moms for a free workout, then Darling started posting on moms’ groups on Facebook, inviting local mothers to come work out with her. Within 15 minutes, about 40 people had expressed interest in the class.

Darling created a private Facebook group for the moms, Barbells and Bottles, which now has nearly 300 members.

The group quickly outgrew is meeting space and, after briefly moving to another club, began meeting at the Westfield Vancouver mall about a month ago.

The moms meet at 9:30 a.m. — “It’s mom time, not sharp,” Darling said — Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the northwest corner of the mall, near Macy’s. When the weather is nice, Darling intends to take the class outdoors.

Darling changes the workout each week, and she posts each workout to the Facebook group page so moms who can’t attend can do the workout at home.

‘Here to get fit’

At a recent class, more than a dozen moms showed up with their strollers for the free workout.

They started with a brisk lap around the mall, with Darling leading the way and music blaring from a small speaker.

After a warm-up lap, the moms lined in front of a vacant storefront, their strollers positioned so the kids can watch the action. Darling explains the week’s workout: four sets of five exercises, with 10 repetitions of each exercise.

The song “Happy” by Pharrell Williams begins to play as the women launch into the workout of split squats, regular squats, pushups, reverse crunches and jump squats.

“Push yourself,” Darling told the moms. “Push yourself beyond your comfort level.”

After the workout, the moms finish up with two more brisk laps around the mall. The three laps they walked that day add up to about 2 miles. The pace is anything but leisurely.

“We’re here to work out,” Darling said. “We’re not meandering. We’re not window shopping.

“We’re here to get fit,” she said.

Shelly Stafford of Vancouver has been working out with Darling since she first offered the class in September. Stafford saw one of Darling’s posts on Facebook and turned up with her daughter, Laney, who is now 13 months old.

Stafford moved to Clark County from Indiana in January 2014, so she saw the group as a way to meet new people and lose weight.

“It was a triple threat,” Stafford said. “I could get (Laney) socialized, I can socialize and get to know people, and I could get back in shape.”

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“It was a win-win-win,” she said.

Stafford works out with the group all three days each week. She said she likes Darling’s workouts and appreciates the judgement-free attitude of the women who participate.

“It’s a really nice community of supportive women,” she said.

Stacee Hord of Vancouver and her 1½-year-old daughter, Adalee, joined Darling’s workout group a few weeks ago. Like Stafford, Hord heard about the group through Facebook.

Hord is 25 weeks pregnant and wants to stay active during her pregnancy — something she didn’t do when pregnant with Adalee.

“I definitely need some accountability,” Hord said.

The women are also helping to keep Darling accountable to her own fitness and helping her to connect with her community, Darling said.

“It’s such an amazing relationship that we’re building together,” Darling said.

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Columbian Health Reporter