Nia Peeples Plays Against Type in 'Pretty Little Liars': Exclusive Interview

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Can you tell me a little about The Elements of Life -- what prompted you to create it and what you’ve gotten out of it?

It has been such an amazing journey. I mean, is it making me money? No. [laughs] I would say that the whole process did begin with tsunami relief work. Then I was asked to write an outline for a book on health, beauty and fitness. When I sat down to write the outline I thought, “This is really bogus.” I have a lot of experience with being in shape, and skincare and keeping yourself together. I have a lot of experience to share, but a) I am not an expert, and b) none of that is worth anything if you don’t have the insight to together.

My outline for health, beauty and fitness became an outline called The 12 Elements of Life.

What are some of the 12 elements?

Things like individuality and authenticity, passion, forgiveness, adventure… You know, how do we place these back into our lives?

Can you elaborate on the Fitness Challenge that is on your blog? As a dancer I imagine you have some great advice.

Earlier this week we launched the Fitness Challenge, which I am really excited about! If you go to NiaPeeples.com, there is a little fitness tab, and you can click on it. The Fitness Challenge is based on what I call the Three ‘R’s of the Elements of Life: reassess, research and recommit.

So, there is quite a bit of looking inward built in to being fit…

Well those Three ‘R’s are actually in The Elements of Life, but we are launching a fitness challenge on that, and step one is Reassess. I really believe that, yeah we all know we need to be in shape, and we all know that nutrition is important, but unless you take the time to sit down and write out why, and how that’s going to affect your life there’s not going to be a true commitment to it.

The second step is Research. I have some very powerful programs that I believe have helped me out throughout my life in various incarnations. They can help people reach the goals they want to reach. Because, like I said, not everyone is going to get there in the same way.

Then we Recommit. We start a six-week challenge implementing those programs.

It’s a good time of year to be doing that!

[laughs] Absolutely!

Regarding fitness, what do you do to keep yourself fit and happy?

Well, there a lot of different things that I have employed in my life, and a lot of it revolved around the various roles I had -- lucky for me. I had to do certain things in order to perform the things I needed to perform. I had everything from dance training to yoga training to TRX training to martial arts training. But now, you know I am 50 this year, so there are not a lot of people knocking on my door to come kick somebody’s butt with a jump-spin kick [laughs].

I’m sure plenty of people would love to see you kicking butt.

[laughs] Right, right, right! So, I have had to create my own program again. There are a lot of aspects to it, because for me it’s not about being thin. Being in shape is having a body that can express itself. That means being limber, it means being quick, it means being strong, and agile.

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