WORK, THEN SL AY!
These New Yorkers are 9-to-5ers, but at night, they transform — Superman-style — into fierce fitness gurus
B Y day, account manager Julie Brazitis is all business. “I have a high-pressure job at Google, and I’m in situations where I’m in a lot of very demanding client meetings,” Brazitis, 33, tells The Post.
But three nights a week, Brazitis steps out of her Chelsea office in a dress and heels and heads to Lyons Den Power Yoga, not to take class, but to teach it.
“I realized something wasn’t getting fulfilled by my day job, and after [I started teaching yoga], it had a great impact on my life personally and professionally,” says Brazitis, who lives in the West Village.
Busy New Yorkers are no longer just hitting the gym before or after work to let off steam; they’re moonlighting as fitness instructors.
For Brazitis, who describes herself as “‘type A’ professionally, ‘type B,’ personally,” teaching yoga classes was a way to unwind. In 2014, she was working grueling 50-hour weeks, and she suffered from colitis, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease, which she believes was related to stress.
“[Teaching yoga] helps me be strong on my feet and handle challenging situations with eloquence,” she says.
For others, leading workouts is a creative outlet.
Rebecca Miller started a financial-services company, Miller Tau Financial Group, with her husband in 2015, but the FiDi-based business manager and financial adviser felt stymied.
Prior to working in finance, Miller was a singer known as Bex whose dance single “Life of the Party” landed on the Billboard Dance Top 50 chart in 2012. And so to unleash her inner diva, Miller began teaching classes at 305 Fitness, a boutique studio that specializes in sexy dance-cardio moves.
“I love performing in front of
people,” Miller, 33, tells The Post, though she says she’s content to do it part time.
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the NYC health department’s deputy commissioner for disease control, also uses his side gig as a fitness instructor to further his passion — promoting health and wellness.
During the day, he wears a pinstripe suit and tie at his desk job, where he oversees the city’s programming for HIV and sexually transmitted infections prevention. But about four times a week, he slips out of his work uniform and into a tank top and breezy running shorts to teach class at Monster Cycle, a trendy NYC spin studio founded by Daskalakis’ husband.
There, he uses his platform as a fitness pro to promote sexual and mental health — installing condom dispensers at the studio and sharing resources for birth control and mental-health services after his classes.
“Work-life balance is important. The Department of Health stresses . . . wellness,” Daskalakis says. “I feel like dedicating time to my own physical health gives me a bonus workout to keep myself healthy . . . It keeps us walking the walk and talking the talk.”
Tara Bethune, who teaches at Flex Studios, a boutique gym that specializes in barre and pilates classes, and Bari, a dance-cardio studio, says her fitness career supplements her social life.
“It helps pay for my Uber and drinks and when I do go out,” says Bethune, who works full time as a marketing manager at Business Insider and lives in Eastchester, NY. “I have student loans too, so [teaching] makes a dent in those.”
But it’s not enough to simply show up and teach. It takes a lot of planning to prepare a challenging and rewarding class, from the moves to the music.
Daskalakis says he spends several hours a week creating an engaging workout, even learning how to sync his playlist to the music videos projected onto a screen during all Monster Cycle classes.
“I’ve become a little bit of a film editor,” he says.
Brazitis also takes pride in her playlists, spending about five hours a week to ensure they’re not only current, but motivating.
But these ambitious New Yorkers say all the extra work is worth it, helping them to develop new skills and succeed at their 9-to-5 jobs.
“Mindfulness in the workplace is a huge conversation at Google,” says Brazitis, who regularly posts Instagram photos of herself doing yoga poses in far-flung locales.
Right now, she’s planning a yoga retreat with a senior leader at Google.
Miller also uses her side hustle to set herself apart in both the fitness and finance worlds.
While she initially focused her Instagram feed on her 305 Fitness classes, she now plans to upload videos of herself providing money tips, including strategies for saving cash.
“I’m never going to be your typical, stuffy financial adviser,” she says. “That’s not who I am, and my clients appreciate that!”