Getting Sticky with Ally Love

This post is presented by our friends at Nutrafol, the best-selling hair growth supplement brand* trusted by over 1.5M people for hair health. Ally Love is a proud partner and happy customer of Nutrafol.

The term “breath of fresh air” gets tossed around a lot, but anyone who has taken Ally Love’s Peloton class can feel her calm, her bubbliness, and her strength. (No surprise she’s one of the platform’s most popular instructors.) And that hair? Well, it’s nothing short of enviable, thanks in part to Nutrafol. In her pre-Peloton life, Love was a dancer who trained at Alvin Ailley, cut her teeth with the New York Knicks, and performed with—ahem—Beyoncé, and it shows. 

Now, she’s the mom of a ten-month old who is working on dismantling her perfectionism, rejecting compare and despair, and leaning into growth in every sense of the word. Below she talks about that first Peloton class after baby, avoiding comparison in the locker room (and elsewhere), and the best remedy for postpartum hair thinning.

Photos by Lelanie Foster. Words by Emily Barasch.

What does postpartum self-image look like for someone, in the fitness space, who spends as much time in front of the camera as you do? 

I’ve dealt with moments where I’ve looked unlike the person I knew in the mirror, not being able to fit any of my clothes in the closet, seeing the postpartum hair thinning around my edges. My reaction has been: Wow, I'm just curious. What does Ally need? Not just the mom but Ally, the individual. What does she need to service her being right now? I tried to practice good self talk. But [early postpartum] when I looked in the mirror, or put on clothes and did my hair, I didn’t recognize myself. I almost felt lost. 

But I know this is a transitional period. In postpartum, I want to take care of myself. I want to do the small things that matter. I’m trying to be gentle with myself, but more importantly also be curious with who I am, and not just where I am mentally, but where I am physically. What I mean by that is: What does my body need?

You have such inspirational energy even while being so real. Do you have any postpartum mantras? 

I don't want to be brand new. You know what I mean? I'm changing. I'm happy to change. I'm not resisting the change, or the “mom” or “parent” title. I want to be the same but a little better. The same—but more. I'm trying to own that.

How was your first ride back after having a baby? 

I had my baby at the end of July. Before I left Peloton to go on mat leave, I told them: “I have a feeling Taylor Swift will come out with a new album.” I just sensed the new album, you know? So I said, “if she does, can you do me the favor of calling me and giving me the option of teaching the class?” 

I don't know where I'll be on my journey. I don't know how this will go. Cut to maybe five weeks after baby boy is born, I get a text message: “Can you hop on a call?” They said Taylor has an album out in about three weeks and asked me if I wanted to do it. I said, Hell yeah.

I had three weeks to get my life together. Birthing is, literally, so aggressive. It messes up all the years of everything you built in 24 hours. Literally, when they say Rome wasn't built in a day, no, but one day it can all fall—that's what happened. It all crumbled. I was trying to pick up the pieces. 

 I had something to look forward to, something I was excited about, something I was nervous about. I got back on the bike. I'm on the treadmill. I was going to hot yoga. I'm boxing. So, I came in to do this ride, and it was incredible. On the ride, I told everyone that I was pretty nervous. The stakes are high. This is a big deal. Taylor’s album was a big deal. Swifties are huge in our community. Like don't mess it up, or they'll come for you, which I love. Everyone showed up. I felt really reinvented; it was emotional. 

What's something about yourself that strengthened after you became a mom?

After I got married, which was one of the best times in my life, my journey to conceive was not easy, and there's a lot there that I have to unpack over time. But I kind of suffered in silence for so long and just tried to make it day by day without anyone knowing. 

What ended up happening is I started to play in the shadows. I started wanting to be perfect. I've always suffered from perfectionism, like many of us, but I was determined to be perfect. I didn't want anyone to say anything bad about me. If somebody wrote something bad about me online, it would crush my spirit. [I felt] so small and so scared because of where I was, that I didn't want to make any mistakes. You know the analogy of a frog being in water, and then slowly the temperature increases, and you don't know that you're about to be in boiling water. 

Coming back to work in January for good was when I felt like my full self again, like a weight has been lifted. Oh my gosh, I’m so loud again. I'm even yelling right now. I discovered that I was playing so small for the last four years. I realized now I'm big, I can make mistakes. I'm an adult, I'm grown AF, I'm here. I know people see me, so see me. 

I had my first ride back [from maternity leave] where it was like not all Swifties in the crowd, but all Ally Love folks. And it was by far, of my almost 10 years at Peloton, the single best ride I've ever taught and experienced. The room. I felt so held. I felt so missed and so appreciated. I was in my bag. It was a feel good ride, and it just exploded from there. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it; I did not expect that at all.

How have you leaned on your mom friends for support?

They always say the mom club is the best club, and it's true. After you go through this experience, you want to share every little thing, tricks that you learned with your little baby on like how to burp them. You just want the pathway to get to the result shorter for the next mom. I think that's what every mom wants. You don't spend all these hours trying to figure this out to keep it to yourself. Like: don't waste your damn time. Let me tell you what to do right away. I put up any question about parenting, about being a mom, about babies, immediately it’s the most comments I've ever gotten on social media. 

To hear another person's voice call me and say “let me tell you exactly what you need” is the best. My friends were like: I'm just sending you things. I put all these dirty toys that were my baby's favorite things. Just wash them. He's gonna love them. And they were right. My son loves this really grimy book: Guess How Much I Love You. My friend was like, “both of my kids slobbered all over that. So just wash it, but he's gonna love it.” She was right and I'm planning to pass this on to someone else. 

What has it been like seeing your mom become a grandmother?

My mom is now a new mom with my son. My mom never had a son. She FaceTimes constantly. She FaceTimed me this morning and on the way here; she even FaceTimed last night. When I put him to bed, she's like, just wake him up. I said, Mom, I'm not gonna wake him up. She's like, I haven't seen him today. I told her I'd send her a screenshot of the camera. I see my mom being a mom of sorts to him, and I didn't get to see that, obviously, because I was the baby, right? So I get to see her really care. I think she's obsessed with him.

How has becoming a mom impacted your body image? 

It feels like and this may not be true, but it feels like my postpartum journey to get back to the body that I used to have is a lot slower than any of my colleagues that have to wear sports bras. And even now I saw a colleague and she had a baby after me, and I'm like, damn, she looks so good. Like she looks closer to being ready than I am right now to be in front of the camera. I think for me, it's like my body looks completely different, and I'm getting comfortable with being a little uncomfortable, because that's okay to be uncomfortable in your body. But also trying, even on the bike, showing up and saying, This is how I look and everybody's journey is a little different.