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Susan Powter, ‘90s Fitness Guru to Relaunch Wellness Brand at 66

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Susan Powter, ‘90s Fitness Guru to Relaunch Wellness Brand at 66

  • Susan Powter, ’90s Stop the Insanity! fitness guru, is returning to the spotlight after disappearing for over 30 years.
  • She is telling her story via a self-published memoir, And Then Em Died… Stop the Insanity! A Memoir, and an upcoming documentary.
  • “I’ve known desperation,” she said.

“You’re about to meet someone you’ll never forget,” a narrator says, opening a live Stop the Insanity! seminar taping recorded in 1993. “Her name is Susan Powter.” Today, that line feels ironic, because the world almost forgot Powter, the ’90s fitness legend who sold millions of motivational programs and then disappeared from the spotlight. Now, after a “scary” 30 years—mentally, physically, and financially—the 66-year-old is on a mission to revive her brand and reconnect to her purpose, she recently told People.

If you don’t recall, Stop the Insanity! was a trailblazing fitness program for its time. While the diet industry fed people restrictive shake-based eating plans and questionable weight loss pills, Powter’s approach critiqued the yo-yo trap and inspired people to get “fit” with regular exercise.

In addition to live seminars, Powter’s company sold books and motivational cassette tapes that amounted to $50 million annually, she told People. But that money rapidly vanished over a bad profit sharing deal with her business partners. “There was nothing but lawsuits in the ’90s,” she told People. In 1995, she filed for bankruptcy.

After moving to Seattle and job hopping while raising three children, Powter neglected to monitor the existing funds from her success. “Someone else was handling it. I never checked balances,” she said. “I should have questioned. I fully acknowledge that. I made a mistake.” And as she aged, it became increasingly difficult to retain employment to stay afloat. “I’ve never not worked. I never thought I wouldn’t be able to make a living,” she explained. “But try to get a job as a 60-year-old woman.”

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By 2018, life was “scary as sh*t,” she recalled. She was forced out of a campground where she was living in her RV and into a weekly rented apartment complex in Las Vegas. She delivered food via GrubHub and UberEats to get by. “It’s so hard. It’s horrifyingly shocking,” she said of the experience. “I’ve known desperation. Desperation is walking back from the welfare office. It’s the shock of, ‘From there, now I’m here? How in God’s name?’”

At 66, she now lives in a low-income senior community and is recovering from a recent health scare that prompted her to apply for Social Security. “That $1500 check shocked the hell out of me. Whoever said money can’t buy happiness lied. Liar. It wasn’t happiness. It was bigger than happiness. I took the deepest breath,” she said.

That stability allowed her to turn her journal into a self-published memoir, and then, last November, she met with filmmaker Zeberiah Newman who proposed making a documentary about her story. The film, Stop the Insanity: Finding Susan Powter, will be executive produced by Jamie Lee Curtis and is expected to release next year, per People. Powter also plans to launch a podcast and exclusive live-streaming content for subscribers upon relaunching her fitness brand this week, she told the outlet.

And just like that, Powter is no longer invisible. Her dreams, no longer on pause. “It’s been healing and life-enforcing,” she said. “The money has been gone for 25 years. I’m not looking for a big fancy-schmancy 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 a dentist. But if it does happen, it’s going to be well-managed. It’s going to go to my kids and to me. I want to give my children back what should have been theirs.”

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

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