No More Excuses Fitness

Cheryl Schneider felt she needed to make a change. She was 100 pounds overweight, but getting the courage to get fit was tough.  “I remember sitting in a parking lot of the gym crying when I was trying to change my life, because it was such an intimidating culture and environment,” says Cheryl. She lost the weight working out at home instead. “Going back to the gym after I had lost weight, I still found it intimidating. That’s when I became an active instructor in the gym, changing the culture there,” she says. Eventually, she broke out on her own to open No More Excuses – a fitness company focused on fitness and community, not body image.

She started small with just five spin bikes in the basement of a community league hall. It grew to where Cheryl now has two studios (one in the Ottewell area and one in the Terwillegar area), mobile fitness classes, a weight loss program and has developed programs for schools across Alberta to get kids active. “I knew we had something special because of the community feel in my classes. I took it outside the big box gyms and re-created it,” says Cheryl. “We believe in giving back. We focus on working hard but laughing harder. The whole essence of who we are is that we will not intimidate. We invite. We welcome [people] and we don’t make anyone feel less than they are. We are real.”