In Well to the Core, Robin Long explored how you can reclaim your health and live healthier on your journey to wellness. She is a certified Pilates instructor and founder of Lindywell. In the book, she shared how a moment changed her entire life. She recalls how when she was eight years old and hanging out with her best friend. They were playing and dressing up like they were twins. Her friend’s dad made a comment about how much smaller their daughter’s legs were compared to hers. She remembers going to cry under their pinball machine. This caused her to begin to recognize how her thighs were bigger than most of her friends. She also remembers one of her past boyfriends referring to her chin as like Jay Leno. She admitted to how she would try different diets and trends to try and work off all the food she ate. This in part as to why she wrote this book to help woman to achieve wellness and to lose the guilt and shame. It is divided up into ten core components. These included: reframe, move, breathe, play, unplug, just to name a few.




She explored how she begins each Pilates class with a few deep breaths and how we can try and become one with our bodies. Mind and body connection can help us to have lower blood pressure, reduce cortisol levels, and have an increased level of dopamine. She described Pilates as a system of exercises meant for physical health and conditioning. It isn’t seen as related to a spiritual practice. She focuses on the importance of core strength, spine, flexibility, balance, alignment, and much more.



One of my favorite chapters discussed steps to changing our inner dialogue. This first step is to become aware of what we are thinking about and are they helping us to become who we want to be. We also need to listen how we talk to ourselves. She enclosed some helpful questions we can journal and reflect on. She deliberated what we can do when we miss a workout and how we can literally flip the switch and give ourselves compassion.



I would recommend this awesome book to anyone who is wanting to try Pilates and obtain an overall new healthier living lifestyle. There are tons of helpful habits and suggestions to get us more centered and balanced in life. I enjoyed how she included a helpful meal and snacks examples to have a balance between protein and fat such as an apple and almond butter. I also appreciated the info on staying hydrated. I also liked the recipe ideas enclosed such as the one pan chicken fajitas with mango salsa. I can’t wait to try some of these recipe ideas.




"I received this book free from Tyndale House Publishers for my honest review.”

A fundamental guide to better living, eating, moving and feeling well in your body. A holistic approach of a stressfree change of habit.

I found Robin Long on the internet when I "went home" to work because of COVID in 2020. I really enjoyed her gentle and encouraging videos as a moment to take a break from my desk! Plus, this provided a great way for me to exercise at home. ***So glad I read Well to the Core by Robin. It gave me so much insight into her own journey of health & fitness. Very real and raw at times but uplifting and encouraging too. Packed with so much helpful information and great short exercise. Get a copy of this book, you will be glad you did!
Thank you, Net Galley and Tyndale House Publishing, for making this available to read!!

I have followed Robin for years and done Pilates with her and she is just an incredible person. I knew she’d write a valuable and wonderful book. This book is great for giving you a way to look at your health and you Mr body in a way that doesn’t lead to shame or guilt. It’s about understand your body and what helps you to feel best. I loved it and love Robin.

Having Robin Long on Instagram, her new book is making every other ad, or so it seems. Thanks to NetGalley, Ms Long for the preview in exchange for an honest review.
I liked the book. It reads more as a story, a mom to mom, talking about her experiences and what works for her physically and mentally. As I was reading this on a Kindle, there were times when it was stated "follow the QR code for xyz", and I did not have a QR code (which is fine). As a young mom with four children (twins too!), she is very busy.
I'd say this book is better for someone NOT looking for "follow this diet/eat this/only do these exercises". An enjoyable read, some things to ponder for the reader (ways of thinking, small steps, etc...)

Well to the Core: A Realistic, Guilt-Free Approach to Getting Fit and Feeling Good for a Lifetime by Robin Long is a good blueprint if you want to get healthier. I have read a lot of books on this topic and they all tend to be similar. This books takes a unique holistic approach, looking at overall health in a balanced, reasonable way. While the author definitely recommends Pilates, this is not the sole message of this book. This is a book to read again and again to maintain overall health and balance. I highly recommend it! I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher with no obligations. These opinions are entirely my own.

I discovered Robin’s podcast, The Balanced Life, a while ago and really appreciate her mindset around fitness and nutrition. When I saw she was coming out with a book, I was excited to read it!

I appreciate her approach to fitness and staying healthy! I really like that she focuses on taking care of your body because of how it makes you feel rather than focusing on changing how you look.
She doesn’t give you a list of strict, rigid rules to follow but instead gives you flexible guidelines on ways to take care of yourself. She emphases the importance of exercise and healthy eating but she also stresses the importance of rest and balance.
Her book gives lots of practical advice on living a healthy lifestyle. She keeps it simple and doable which I really like! She also encourages you to make it work for your lifestyle.
She is also relatable! She wrote this book like a friend giving tips. She is honest about how she isn’t perfect in her health journey but struggles like the rest of us which I really appreciated!

Overall, I enjoyed Well to the Core! Robin covers a lot of topics ranging from eating nutritious meals to getting enough sleep to unplugging from your phone. While not a lot of the information was new to me since I have been listening to her podcast for a while, I did enjoy her book and was inspired by it as I believe many other women will be as well. I would recommend to any women who are looking for a book with a balanced approach to living a healthy lifestyle!

*Thank you to the author for sending me a complimentary copy! All opinions are my own.

I found this book hard to read. Not because it wasn’t full of useful insights and really and helpful sections for refection. It was just the classic ‘yummy mummy’ pictures I found totally depressing. I would love to be thin and blonde and surrounded by lots of beautiful children. It’s an unobtainable dream for many. It’s aspirational not inspirational.

Robin Long, Pilates instructor and founder of Lindywell, describes what it means to be truly well in her book. I’ve been a member of Lindywell since 2018, so I’m familiar with Robin’s teachings, and this book is more of what I’ve come to expect from her. This book teaches the grace over guilt mindset, the value of short workouts, and that health is about more than weight. There are some Pilates workouts, breathing exercises, and reflection prompts throughout. There are also several pictures in the book, so the actual reading is relatively short. While short, the anecdotes, advice, and health concepts in the book are practical and to the point, and all claims made are cited in a notes section. While this information is not new to me as a loyal follower of Robin, I hope this book exposes more people to her health approach, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking into what it really means to be healthy.

I found this book incredibly helpful in trying to lose the baby weight. I've put so much pressure on myself to lose it in a certain time frame, then I would get so stressed, that I would give up.

This book was full of eye opening advice that made perfect sense. I am so glad I read it and can apply it to my life.

I would recommend this to anybody who struggles with their health or weight.

* I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own*

This book wasn’t what I was expecting or hoped for, but it will be helpful for its target audience. I expected it to give me tools for getting fit and healthy (or more so, since I’m already fairly fit and healthy). The author is a Pilates instructor and the founder of a wellness app and community, after all, and that’s literally in the subtitle.

In reality, it’s far more a self help book. There are a couple of pages that you can scan to access a couple of workouts, but it’s primarily about changing the way you talk to yourself and adopting self care habits and healthier choices. There are ten sections and they are things like breathe, connect, nourish, rest and play.

There is a lot of talk about making time for yourself as a mother and stopping negative self talk about your body. It really seems designed for young, middle class mothers. Long is a mom to four very young children and there’s a lot of her personal experience here, as a mother and as a young woman. I definitely prefer it to books like Girl, Wash Your Face as she’s infinitely more down to earth and encouraging, but at the end of the day this is the same advice we get literally everywhere these days. It is good advice, but may not offer you much you don’t already know. On the other hand, some of us might need to hear it again and this does it well.

I read a temporary review copy of this book via NetGalley.