ACS Athens has long been celebrated for its academic excellence and athletic culture. Known for producing world-class athletes and making sports a foundational part of its ethos, ACS Athens instills a lifelong respect for athletics that permeates all aspects of life, fueling success in both personal and professional arenas.

As an ACS Athens alumna, like many students, I found myself here during formative years, far from my birthplace and home in New York. Despite my Greek heritage, I felt uprooted from friends, school, and—most importantly—my track team. ACS Athens’ athletic program became a pillar of my new life. I joined the track and cross-country teams, made friends, studied and trained hard, and even went to Cairo where we performed miserably because of the heat but still felt like winners. Years later, I chose ACS Athens for my daughters, largely because of its strong athletic program. They played soccer, and as twins, they caused double trouble on the field.

This connection with athletics has remained an empowering ally throughout my life, acting as a thread of continuity and self-actualization. As I navigated for decades through the ups and downs of a demanding career as an HR professional while juggling the rewards and challenges of three amazing daughters, fitness remained a go-to life force, especially during periods of challenge or transition.

Two years ago, after the global “time-out” of COVID, I decided to leave my executive career and create one around my first passion, fitness. I became certified as a personal trainer and nutrition coach with the National Academy of Sports Medicine, joined forces with a multi-disciplined team of founders, including my daughter and fellow ACS Athens alumna Jenna, and we dedicated ourselves to building Ichor, a fitness company like no other.

It was in the transition between these two careers—executive and entrepreneur—that I somehow found my way back to the ACS Athens community, now as an adult responsible global citizen.

Why Fitness Matters

Fitness is unparalleled in its benefits, encompassing the highest levels of physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Maintaining fitness underpins personal and professional success in every arena. Fitness isn't just about strength, mobility, power, endurance, or lean body composition. It’s about having the vitality, discipline, and drive to get through the day, boosting your metabolism, gaining confidence and command, improving performance and sleep quality, and sustaining lifelong youthfulness. A healthy body and mind are intertwined: exercise releases mood-enhancing neurotransmitters, reduces stress, and improves happiness and memory. Most significantly, fitness acts as preventive medicine, guarding against and even reversing chronic conditions such as obesity, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and mental health issues—all-too-common ills of modern life.

Addressing Obstacles and Challenges

We know the benefits of fitness, and many of the most successful members of the ACS Athens community have benefited from exercise and sport at various high points in our lives. Yet many of us struggle with sticking to it. Working parents and busy professionals often find ourselves pulled in multiple directions.

One of the most common challenges cited is a lack of time. And yet the busiest people have developed time-management skills second to none! Have you ever wondered if the issue is not really about a lack of time? Isn’t it amazing how time magically becomes a non-issue when a true emergency or even an exciting opportunity comes up? How everything else falls by the wayside when we need to care for someone we love who’s in need? Well, perhaps that someone is you. In fact, a mere 20 minutes a day can be enough to drastically improve your fitness. That’s less than 1.5% of your day.

The issue is more about mindset, motivation, ambivalence, or perhaps a worry about performance or self-image—or any number of barriers, like the dark monsters under the bed we feared as children. It isn’t easy, yet we’ve made it harder in our minds than it is.

Making the Time: A Tip and a Challenge

We would like to share a tip and a challenge that might help you break the time barrier. Let’s shatter this “I have no time” feeling with a step-by-step process:

1. Map out your usual day and carve out a 20-minute pocket that will be your “me time.” You can be a bit of a time thief—steal a little from the previous activity and a little from the next. Do you have a lunch break followed by a routine meeting? Do you leave work at a certain time and arrive home an hour later? Take 10 minutes off each end and carve out that 20 minutes. Pick a time slot that instinctively feels right.
2. Create a physical space for this “me time.” It could be a corner of your living room or office, a gym or space you pass on your way home, a spot in your garage, backyard, or a reclaimed guest room.
3. For an entire week, claim and preserve this as your time and space. Put it in your calendar. Protect it as you would your most important client meeting or your kids’ activity. Make it officially part of your routine. Make it something you’d never miss, just as important as your work or family!
4. Step into your space and visualize your best self. Imagine showing up at that meeting with straighter posture, confidence, and poise. Fitting into your favorite jeans of yesteryear. Feeling strength, power, and range of motion. Having the energy for soccer time with your kid. Running as fast as ever.

As soon as you’re ready, make the most of this “me time” with an exercise plan designed around your goals, preferences, and needs, with built-in time-saving techniques. You will find that nothing has suffered for it, and in fact, everything else has become easier.

Ichor Fitness and the ACS Athens Community

At Ichor Fitness, our mission is to build healthier, happier lives. This aligns perfectly with ACS Athens’ goal of holistic growth—academically, intellectually, socially, and ethically.

Ichor Fitness is committed to extending its reach to the entire ACS Athens community, including alumni, faculty, parents, and staff, in various ways to promote health, fitness, and a balanced lifestyle, helping them to thrive as responsible global citizens.

We are proud to be a part of ACS Athens, then, now, and into the future. Stay tuned for more tips and information to help you on your fitness journey. We welcome you to explore our website, including our Holistic Health Hub, and reach out to us for services offered at a discount for the ACS Athens Community.

Learn more about Ichor Fitness here.