On to The Next One by Jay-Z is a hip-hop classic, in my humble opinion. The smart lyrics, syncopated beats, and audio distortion highlight constant evolution. In the song, it’s the evolution of hip hop and brushing off the critics.
Evolution is a consistent theme in this conversation with Emmy award-winning environmental journalist and Meteorologist, Sarah Pilla-Grobes, who didn’t just hop into strength training. She built her wellness and movement practice one layer at a time.
Sarah forecasts weather across three Spectrum News stations in California. She reads pressure systems for a living, watching what’s building and what’s about to break. This past year, she found a pattern in her own life. One small change created the conditions for her to move on to the next one.
She didn’t have a master plan. She started with meal prep.
On this episode we get into:
Why her journey started in the kitchen
How moving on from one career opportunity to the next turned her into a 5am gym-goer
A back injury without that never became an excuse
Why “movement cannot be moved” anymore
The pool party that proved her training was working
Why you only need one thing to start
It started in the kitchen
Sarah has been active her whole life. She was a dancer, then a yoga teacher, and she’d been going to the gym on and off since 2021. Last summer something clicked and it wasn’t a workout.
“I remember the day after the forth of July, 2025, I started meal prepping,” she said. “And now, I meal prep. I make all my own food.”
The results were fast! “My body felt a lot better. Like, miles better within a few weeks.”
I see health in five pillars: sleep, nutrition, community, stress management, and daily movement. Everybody has one domino, a pillar that pulls the rest into place. Mine is movement. When I move every day, I sleep better and everything else falls in line. Sarah’s was food. She’s gluten-free and dairy-free, and she was tired of being “at the whim of” her hunger and whatever was nearby. Taking control of nutrition gave her momentum she needed for everything else.
When one door closes, another one opens
Around the same time in 2025, Sarah got pulled off the morning show she was reporting for. On paper, that’s a career setback. In practice, it gave her mornings to herself.
“That was hard for me personally with my career, but it opened up a new opportunity for me to be able to start my day with movement.”
By September, she was lifting four days a week, every week. Adding in yoga and incline walking to her practice, too. She even started to log her workouts in her phone notes. Then she started progress pictures because she wanted to see the progress she could feel.
Look at the chain. The food made her feel better. The schedule change made room. The room became a routine. It wasn’t a plan, she let the process help her move on to the next habit she wanted to layer into her life. The process set her up to move on to the next one.
Setbacks are part of the chain
The year wasn’t a straight line. She got COVID a few weeks into her new routine. She took two massive trips, including her honeymoon. (Totally acceptable reason to intentionally back off and enjoy life.) Then in May, nearly a year into her journey, she tweaked her lower back badly enough that she couldn’t walk straight and had to skip a concert she’d been looking forward to.
Sarah quickly understood why moments like this are the reason that people just stop. When the reason to NOT do something keep coming at you, not doing it becomes the habit. (booo! But it’s true)
“I was concerned. I didn’t want to be someone who got injured and I’m just now gonna make excuses for why I can’t move.”
So she built a narrative for herself that aligned with her goals and helped her heal. And she used movement to help her release the excuses and keep moving forward when it would have been easier to quit. She walked around the block once, then twice, then four times. She went back to seated, supported lifts when she felt ready and built back up from there. This forced her to find movements that weren’t in her old routine, and right on cue, she started seeing different results.
“Going to the gym is this master of discovery and a big part of my recovery,” she said.
As a coach, this is music to my ears and something I don’t want you to miss:
The injury didn’t break the chain; it added a link making the chain longer and more durable. (Let’s go!)
Movement cannot be moved
Now Sarah covers the weather for all of California. Taking on this new role made her a lifetime member of the 5 AM gym club, something she wasn’t sure she could ever be.
“Before I got so serious about it, movement was something that could be moved. Like work can’t be moved, but gym time could be moved back then. I don’t see it that way anymore. Now, movement cannot be moved.”
I’ll say it: becoming a 5 AM-er at the gym is a tipping point. Those who roll out of bed, into their gym clothes, and into the gym before the sun rises have decided this matters enough to protect it before anyone else can mess up their day.
Sarah isn’t rigid about it, she’s aware of when she needs rest. After a big speaking event, she woke up drained and skipped the gym. “What’s the point of going when you’re running on 10% battery? I’ve learned to let myself recharge and go back when I’m at 100%.”
Discipline and grace aren’t opposites. We all need both.
Proof shows up outside the gym
Sarah’s muscle moment wasn’t about the gym, it was a pool party this past Memorial Day weekend with one giant step to get her out of the pool.
“As I stepped to lift myself up, I felt my body shift into position with ease. I was like, ‘That is because of all that work I’ve done with my quads, step-ups that I do every single week. I’m not here asking help for help, I didn’t need someone to pull me out of the pool.’”
It kept happening. She walked up the hills in Manhattan Beach without getting winded. A coworker offered to carry her stuff to the car, and she said, “No, thank you.” She had that shit handled.
This is what I love most about coaching people, is helping them learn how to handle your own life.
“Going to the gym is in our control,” she said. “Lifting weights is something that is in our control. There’s no one that’s stopping you other than you.”
You don’t need the big plan
Ten months in, Sarah’s advice sounds simple because it is.
“Just start. Because you know what? Time is gonna go by anyway.”
She started one day. No perfect plan, no official program. A simple goal to meal prep, and everything grew out of it.
“Be okay with sucking at first,” she said, borrowing a line from her yoga-teaching days: just show up and suck.
She describes it like compound interest. Small deposits, made consistently, grow into something you couldn’t have built all at once. “How cool is it when you commit to something for the long term? That is a flex.”
A little more about Sarah
Sarah came to strength training late. She came to the Beastie Boys late too, and Ill Communication has been her gym soundtrack. (Not Jay-Z, this time. That would have been too perfect.) She’s also one of the best cooks I know. Somewhere in the middle of this conversation, I told her that her love of cooking is a Substack waiting to happen. Consider this public record.
Your Turn
Sarah didn’t change everything at once. She changed one thing, and it made room for the next one.
What’s your one thing? Just the first domino. What’s one change you could start this week that might make it easier to move on to the next one.
ABOUT SARAH PILLA-GROBES
Sarah Pilla-Grobes is an Emmy Award-winning environmental journalist, meteorologist, and certified yoga instructor. She forecasts weather across three Spectrum News stations in California — Spectrum News California, Bay Area, and Sacramento — and she’s been in her body her entire life as a dancer and recreational athlete. While she’s always active, consistent strength training and intentional eating came together just a little over a year ago and she has a lot to say about what made it click. Sarah reads patterns for a living, looking at pressure systems to see what’s building and what’s about to break. Turns out, the same skill applies to taking care of yourself.
GET IN TOUCH
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