What Changed in 2025 and What's Coming in 2026 - A Year In Review
Living Simpler with Amy Mewborn
Release Date: 12/16/2025
How to make yourself unrecognizable in just 6 months with your best goals, habits, and routines
Living Simpler with Amy Mewborn
I'll create comprehensive show notes for this episode. Let me first retrieve the podcast source information from the previous step to ensure I have all the context I need. Perfect! Now I have all the information needed. Let me create comprehensive, engaging show notes for this episode. How to Make Yourself Unrecognizable in Just 6 Months with Your Best Goals, Habits, and Routines EPISODE SUMMARY Imagine what your life could look like six months from now if you actually stuck to your intentions instead of abandoning them by February like 80% of people do. In this transformative episode, Amy...
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info_outlineEpisode Summary
Amy Mewborn takes listeners on an intimate behind-the-scenes journey as she shares her personal year-end review for 2025. This candid episode covers three major pillars of her life—health, business, and personal—revealing how she transformed her wellness routine, expanded her business empire, and created meaningful experiences. After spending her 48th birthday in the ICU with dangerously high blood pressure, Amy made health her number-one priority for 2025. From implementing daily morning walks to dramatically increasing her protein intake, she shares practical transformations that have reshaped her life. Beyond personal health, Amy discusses major shifts in the fitness studio industry, celebrates launching over 25 studios, and unveils exciting new projects launching in 2026. This episode serves as both educational and inspirational, offering listeners a transparent look at what it takes to build a thriving health and wellness business while prioritizing personal wellbeing.
Key Topics Discussed
Health Transformation & Wellness Routines
- Daily Morning Walks & Circadian Rhythm Reset: Implementing first-thing-in-the-morning walks for sunlight exposure transformed Amy from someone who slept until 8-9 AM feeling lethargic to waking naturally at 5 AM with energy for full workouts
- Dramatic Dietary Changes: Shifted from ~50g daily protein to 125-150g; moved from one meal at 4 PM to two meals (10-11 AM and finished by 5 PM); eliminated calorie counting while focusing on proteins and vegetables with minimal carbs 4-5 days weekly
- Alcohol Reduction: Cut back to consuming alcohol only once every few weeks, finding it no longer serves her wellness goals
- Advanced Wellness Tools & Practices:
- PEMF mat use (almost daily)
- Daily rebounding
- Dry brushing 2-3x weekly
- Weekly sauna bag sessions
- Red light therapy 2-4x weekly
- Switched to incandescent bulbs for better lighting
- Strategic Supplementation: Increased mineral and vitamin support due to MOGAD diagnosis; now taking minimum 10,000 IUs vitamin D daily, plus zinc, magnesium, multivitamin, and omegas
- Return to Group Fitness: Began teaching group Pilates classes again at Raya Wellness, a women-focused wellness facility in Summerland, after 8 years of only private instruction
Fitness Studio Industry Trends & Business Growth
- Over 25 Studios Launched in 2025: 75% Pilates studios, 15% yoga studios, 10% bar and other formats
- Rising Construction Costs: Studios that previously launched for under $50,000 now require $100,000+ due to increased expenses
- Extended Timelines: Launch periods have expanded from 3-6 months to 6-12 months due to longer lease negotiations, permits, and construction
- Pre-Marketing is Critical: Studios that pre-sell memberships and intro offers, launching with "lines at the door," dramatically outperform those that don't
- The Profitability Crisis: Statistic shows 80-90% of fitness studios never achieve true profitability—a sobering reality driving industry change
- Wellness Integration is the New Standard: What was once a competitive advantage (salt therapy, sauna, cold plunge, red light, compression, IV therapy) is now becoming essential to top studio operations
Studio in a Box Program Enhancements
- 10 New Training & Educational Modules: Addressing marketplace shifts and industry changes
- 10 AI Agents: Custom-trained specifically for Studio in a Box tasks, including:
- Business plan customization
- PR crisis management
- Media and corporate relationship building
- Staff hiring and recruitment support
- Legal compliance guidance
- Comprehensive social media management (replacing need for separate Facebook ads, SEO, and social media managers)
- AI-Powered Workflow Teams: Creating entire systems of agents to handle marketing, content, and administrative tasks, allowing studio owners to reduce outsourced professional expenses
New Business Ventures & Revenue Streams Launching in 2026
Fitness Marketing Made Easy
- Ongoing marketing support for established fitness studios
- Community for studio owners to mastermind, share strategies, and gather ideas
- Free 3-month access for existing Studio in a Box clients after launch
- Free 3-month live support post-launch for new Studio in a Box clients
- Competitive pricing with done-for-you resources and ongoing marketing trainings
Living Simpler Wellness Collective
- Monthly and annual membership model
- Monthly health coaching and live Q&As
- Health protocols, recipes, and functional lab resources
- Affiliate opportunity for fitness studios: 20-30% ongoing monthly commissions for client referrals
- Designed to complement fitness studio memberships and support client health goals
Living Simpler App (Launching January 2026)
- Consolidating multiple wellness tracking apps into one platform
- Initial launch features ready for January release
- Future additions: meditations, AI recipe creation, food tracking, brain training
- Free memberships being gifted to fitness studio clients for added value
- Development ongoing since June 2025
Personal Life & Travel
Despite feeling her year was lacking in "fun," Amy discovered through calendar review that 2025 was exceptionally rich with travel and experiences:
- Girls' weekend in Las Vegas with close friends
- Two weeks in Nashville
- Women's retreat in Minnesota and Wisconsin
- Multiple trips to Southern California with husband Mike
- Days in Washington, D.C.
- Visits to fitness studios in Virginia Beach and Colonial Williamsburg
- Traditional two-week trip to Cabo
- Total Travel: Nearly 11 weeks across the year
Key Insight: Amy emphasizes how easy it is to overlook positive experiences when focused on challenges, highlighting the importance of intentional reflection.
Notable Quotes & Moments
"It's why I built a studio in a box in the first place. It was meant to help women keep from making these mistakes." — Amy reflecting on the heartbreak of seeing studio owners lose their life savings to preventable business mistakes
"These are the studio owners that invested money, often their life savings, to find themselves chained to their studios, never making the money they expected to make." — On the profitability crisis in the fitness industry
"The marketing world is changing and the team you hire to build your studio is gonna be changing as well." — Amy on evolving her VA team based on their ability to adapt to AI and technology changes
"I would not have remembered or noticed this, and it was a reminder that we often remember the tough stuff and sometimes forget some of the best things that ever happened to us." — Reflecting on the value of the year-end review process
Simple 5-Step Year-End Review Process (Actionable Takeaway)
Amy shares a framework listeners can complete in 15-20 minutes:
- Celebrate What Worked: Identify three wins across health, business, and personal life—big or small
- Release What Didn't Work: Honestly acknowledge what felt heavy, draining, or out of alignment
- Capture the Lessons: Identify patterns, insights, and messages your body/business/gut sent you
- Set a Simple Vision: Envision how you want to feel in 2026 (focus on energy, not just effort)
- Pick Your Big Three: Choose one health goal, one business goal, and one personal goal for 2026 (simplicity creates momentum)
Episode Context & Connection to Previous Content
This episode directly builds on Amy's previous episode on "How to Do a Basic Year Review," where she taught the year-end review methodology. This episode is the real-world application, with Amy walking through her own comprehensive review process.
Related Resources & Links
Free Living Simpler Health Resources https://living-simpler.com/resources
Follow Amy on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/amymewborn
Shop Amy's Top Wellness Picks https://www.amazon.com/shop/amymewborn
Shop Amy's Favorite Shaklee Products https://us.shaklee.com/en_US/amymewborn/storefront
Call to Action
If this episode resonated with you and you're ready to take back your power and start fresh in 2026, share this episode with a friend who could benefit from Amy's transparent insights on health transformation, business growth, and intentional living. Whether you're a fitness studio owner, health enthusiast, or simply someone looking to close out your year with clarity and purpose, this episode offers both inspiration and actionable frameworks to make 2026 your best year yet.
Ready to build your own wellness-focused business? Explore Studio in a Box and learn how to launch or scale a fitness studio with proven strategies. Keep an eye out for the exciting 2026 launches of Fitness Marketing Made Easy and the Living Simpler Wellness Collective.