The Mila Movement
Written by: Eloise Stark
A Fitness Movement Focused on How You Feel, Not How You Look
Camilla Lorentzen created the fitness app Mila to provide an alternative to the unhealthy diet culture that dominates many workout platforms today. There are no weigh-ins or calorie counting, just exercise videos that suit your mood, make you feel happier, and don’t give a hoot about how you look while doing them
Camilla Lorentzen went on her first diet at the age of nine. Although she was just a child, she already knew what society expected of women: to be skinny, curb their appetites, and take up as little space as possible. As shocking as this seems, it is not uncommon. Around 40 percent of elementary school-aged girls in the United States—between the ages of four and seven—have tried to diet to lose weight.
“I spent over twenty years at war with myself—undereating, binge eating, over-exercising, not exercising at all, and picking my body apart,” Lorentzen shares in an Instagram reel. After these twenty years of fighting her body and navigating a diet culture encouraging unhealthy eating and exercise habits, Lorentzen decided that the fitness world needed something different.
She created Mila, a fitness app that is designed for all bodies. It’s a space that offers workouts according to your mood and is free of calorie counting and weight tracking, a space where how you feel is more important than how you look while doing it. As Lorentzen puts it in another reel: “Mila is here to help you find joy in exercise and make moving your body accessible. It’s about ditching the endless cycle of dieting and creating a life you actually enjoy.”
Diet Culture
Dangerous diet fads are nothing new. The further back you look, the more absurd they seem today. The idea behind the so-called “sleeping beauty diet” is that you can’t consume calories if you are not awake. So you take heavy sedatives and sleep up to twenty hours a day. Think intermittent fasting, except you are in a chemical coma for the hours you aren’t allowed to eat. This dangerous fad was popular in the 1960s and ’70s and has sadly resurfaced recently. Doctors refer to it as narcorexia.
This is just one example of the dangerous weight loss plans that result from the toxic diet culture of our society. Others include the cotton ball diet, which involves dipping cotton balls in sweet-tasting liquids and eating them so that they fill up your stomach. Then, there is ear stapling, in which a surgical staple is placed in the inner cartilage of your ear to curb your appetite. There is no scientific foundation for this.
These fad diets might be extreme, but they reveal the extent to which diet culture has dissociated from healthy living. Diets are often focused more on how people look, upholding the beauty standard in which thinness is the only way to be attractive.
Many fitness apps today are focused more on weight loss than genuine physical conditioning. They encourage strict dietary restrictions, obsessive working out, and tracking of calories. Mila stands out because it doesn’t have any of this. “No diets. No scales. No bullsh*t,” the website explains.
A Safe Space
Founder Camilla Lorentzen sees the app as the culmination of her ten-year career as a personal trainer. “Having an app that is about creating a healthy relationship with exercise instead of striving for abs and starvation was exactly what twenty-year-old me needed,” she explains on social media.
Instead of focusing on numbers, Mila asks users to select their energy level and then suggests workout videos accordingly. There are high-energy, mid-energy, and low-energy options available. These range from a series of videos you can complete from a chair to a four-week plan
to get into running. Then, there are mindfulness exercises, guides on improving your relationship with food, and guided walks designed to make you happier.
For some users, this approach to movement and fitness has been transformational. “As a bigger person, I’ve always had anxiety about going to the gym,” explains Lo, a plus-size Instagram influencer, in a reel about Mila. “The guided walks make me feel less alone and less anxious—like I’m walking with Cam every time.”
She says that Mila’s mindfulness approach has allowed her to introduce meditation into her life and completely change her approach to food. “Instead of deprivation, I see food as a rainbow of options to enjoy.”
The app has also helped Lo get out of her comfort zone. “Trying new moves and stretches at home has been empowering. I’m proud of my body for pushing its limits.”
Celebrating Every Body
This sort of feedback makes Lorentzen feel emotional. She dreamed of creating a fitness space where everyone feels welcome. “We’re here to celebrate every expression of happy and healthy,” she says.
Throughout her videos, she suggests adaptations to suit various abilities and conditions so that everyone has an option. The app caters to beginners, those with busy schedules, and people who may feel nervous about high-intensity workouts.
“Seeing people who have never dared to move their bodies before actually love my workouts brings tears to my eyes. Seeing people understand that running can actually be for them makes my heart smile.”
Through daily activity suggestions, a growing library of workouts, and tips on self-love, Mila is helping people live joyfully and authentically.
A (Self) Love Story
The birth of Mila was closely entwined with Lorentzen’s journey of self-discovery. Before launching the app, Lorentzen was known as an influencer alongside her wife, Julie.
The two women met at a fitness event in 2017. They became friends, became inseparable, and eventually moved in together. During this time, Julie knew she was utterly in love with Camilla but didn’t dare admit it. Camilla, meanwhile, was convinced she was straight. “I just couldn’t believe anyone would find out they’re gay at thirty,” she shares.
When Julie finally told Camilla how she felt, the two women started dating and were engaged within just three months. They documented their love story on social media, quickly becoming one of the most well-known lesbian influencers on Instagram because of their honest videos showing their loving relationship and, later, their fertility journey. The couple’s account, @julievlorentzen, has over 2.4 million followers.
This platform helped Lorentzen launch Mila, as she already had a large audience. Thousands of users signed up for the new app. Yet the same platform that helped Lorentzen with her business can also be an unkind place. Negative comments about her appearance or criticism of her approach to fitness regularly appear beneath videos.
Lorentzen refuses to pay attention to these critics. She focuses instead on the people who tell her she’s changed their lives. “To see so many of you finally go on your very first run, move your body for the first time, or find the confidence to wear that dress has been so special,” she shares. For Lorentzen, this is what makes it all worth it. “I will never give up on making exercise as accessible as possible.” 
TrooRa Magazine
Written by
Eloise Stark
