Susan Power from Stop the Madness! restart your fitness program at 66

Susan Power, 90s Stop the madness! The fitness guru is returning to the spotlight after disappearing for more than 30 years.
She tells her story in a self-published memoir. And then Em died… Stop the madness! Memoirs, and an upcoming documentary.
“I knew despair,” she said.

“You will soon meet someone you will never forget,” the narrator says as he opens the live broadcast. Stop the madness! recording of the seminar recorded in 1993. “Her name is Susan Power. Today this phrase seems ironic because the world almost forgot Power, the ’90s fitness legend who sold millions of motivational programs and then disappeared from view. Now, after a “terrible” 30 years – mentally, physically and financially – the 66-year-old is on a mission to revive her brand and reconnect with her purpose, she revealed recently. People.

If you don’t remember Stop the madness! was a groundbreaking fitness program for its time. While the diet industry was feeding people restrictive, shake-based meal plans and dubious diet pills, Powter’s approach criticized the yo-yo trap and inspired people to get in shape through regular exercise.

In addition to live seminars, Powter’s company sold $50 million a year in books and motivational tapes, she said. People. But that money quickly evaporated due to a failed profit-sharing agreement with her business partners. “In the ’90s there was nothing but lawsuits,” she said. People. In 1995, she filed for bankruptcy.

After moving to Seattle and changing jobs while raising three children, Power did not control the funds available from her success. “Someone else was doing it. I never checked my balance,” she said. “I had to ask a question. I fully admit this. I made a mistake.” As she grew older, it became increasingly difficult for her to hold down a job to stay afloat. “I’ve never worked. I never thought I wouldn’t be able to make a living,” she explained. “But try getting a job as a 60-year-old woman.”

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By 2018, life had become “scary as hell,” she recalled. She was forced to leave the campground where she was living in her van and live in a weekly rental apartment complex in Las Vegas. To survive, she delivered food through GrubHub and UberEats. “It’s so hard. It’s terribly shocking,” she said of the experience. “I have known despair. Despair returns from the Social Security office. This is the shock of: “From there I am now Here? What, in the name of God?

At 66, she now lives in a low-income senior community and is recovering from a recent health problem that prompted her to apply for Social Security. “That check for $1,500 shocked the hell out of me. Whoever said money can’t buy happiness lied. Liar. This was not happiness. It was more than happiness. I took the deepest breath possible,” she said.

This stability allowed her to turn her diary into self-published memoirand then, last November, she met with director Zeberiah Newman, who proposed making a documentary about her story. Movie, Stop the Madness: The Search for Susan Power executive producer will be Jamie Lee Curtis and is expected to release next year, according to People. With the relaunch of her fitness brand this week, Power also plans to launch a podcast and exclusive live content for subscribers, she said. socket.

And just like that, Power is no longer invisible. Her dreams are no longer on pause. “It was healing and life-enhancing,” she said. “There has been no money for 25 years. I’m not looking for a big fancy life. I want to talk to the world, I want to write books. I want insurance, I want a credit card, I want to pay my bills. I want to go to the dentist. But if this happens, it will be well organized. It will go to my children and me. I want to give back to my children what should have been theirs.”

She continued: “I go out and I’m going to talk to women. I feel the possibility of possibilities. I feel grateful and hopeful. And being filled with hope makes all the difference in the world.”