Insights From A World Champion

 

[00:04:33]

Nardia: Now Hats for those people who may not be familiar with you, could you please give us a little intro and tell us how you are having an amazing impact on the world?

[00:04:43]

Hattie: So my name’s Hattie Boydle. I am a WBFF pro athlete. I was the world champion in 2016 but I’m still, I guess one of the top female athletes in Australia, in the world, which is an absolute, oh God, I’m just so grateful and just humbled by that. And I guess you know, I use my platform Instagram to share my thoughts, my reflection on the world, my reflection on experiences, my wisdom if I think I have any and I just want to, if I think about life and if I think about if I ever left this life, I often reflect what impact could I leave on the world? How did I help someone change? What change did I make? What did I give back? Like, what did I give back to people or give back to the environment or you know, I really feel that I would love to leave a mark somehow, but obviously a good mark, and I’m a really big believer that if I ever had a daughter, who would I want her role model to be?

And if I want it to be me, I have to live by what I would love my daughter to be influenced by, which is why I don’t go down the plastic surgery road or the steroid road for enhancing myself. It’s about, well what can I do? What have I got and how do I make the most of it? What are my weaknesses? How do I turn them into my strengths? What are my strengths? How do I make them even better? And yeah, I guess I try and use my platform, which is growing organically, which is nice to be able to encourage others to do the same, to help contribute, to change. I can’t make anyone change and I can’t make anyone happy but I can obviously guide them through things that have helped me and help put them in the right direction or change direction. So yeah.

[00:07:06]

Nardia: Beautiful. Can we just take a step back? So you said that you’re the WBFF world champion. For those of you who aren’t familiar with what that is, can you explain what that is?

[00:07:19]

Hattie: So there’s a couple of big federations or I guess the two biggest federations that are around in competing is the IFBB NPC kind of Olympia and there’s also the WBFF, which is World Beauty Fashion Fitness. And I guess the reason I chose that Federation to compete in is because it’s more of an athletic look. I’ve got pretty big legs and I don’t think that would suit the IFBB crowd. But I wanted to choose a Federation that would suit my style of training and as it is it’s world, it’s beauty, it’s fashion, it’s fitness, and you get to really own your own style, your unique style.

So I can come out and pose the way I want, you know, dress up in beautiful theme wear and the bikinis are you know, all unique and different and a reflection of the person wearing them. And yeah, so that’s, I’ve been competing since 2011 and actually Nardia Norman was the first person who inspired me to compete. I will never forget when you are getting ready for your figure show and you would just in unbelievable shape, and I thought, oh my God, I have to do this. And you also encouraged me like yeah, you should really get onto this. And yeah, it’s funny I started doing it just as a hobby and then naturally over time, like the more and more I did it, I just loved it and I still love it. I think I love it more now than I ever have before even though it’s probably the hardest. It just gets harder and harder and harder every time you compete. So yeah. Thanks for that Nardia.

[00:09:00]

Nardia: No thank you. I remember us having that conversation, I’m like, Hats you have to get on stage. You are phenomenal, and you’re like, I don’t know. Eight weeks later, eight weeks and by no means am I a comp prep expert at all, but we were like, let’s give this a nudge. Let’s get you up there and see what happens. I think for those who are in our worlds, because obviously you and I are both fitness and we would get hit hard on this stuff for ever and a day, but for those non fit who are not familiar with it people oftentimes look at you guys getting on stage and think, Hmm, what’s the big deal? You’re up there in a bikini, but can you just explain how difficult it is to actually get your body into a position where you can get on stage and then win a world championship? Because I don’t think we should dismiss the fact that you took out a world title two years ago and you’ve also placed top three in the last two, correct?

[00:09:57]

Hattie: Yes. Top two. I just keep missing that. Yeah. So it’s funny because when I look at the sport itself, if people want to call it a sport, I call it a sport because I like to think of myself as an athlete. It’s bloody bizarre, isn’t it? It is really bizarre. I do love it though. I actually put up a post this morning and it was a, I got sent a photo, sorry. It was a photo that was, that popped up from 2014 where I got fourth place. The first time I ever placed top five at the world titles at the highest level I’ve ever competed in. And I remember thinking, oh my God, this is unbelievable. And my physique, I thought, I’m like, oh, I’ve never been lean. And then I look at the photo that I, the photo of me from three weeks out from this year next to it and I just think, WOW, that is the result of hours and hours, like thousands of hours and thousands of reps and thousands of sets and a hell of a lot of discomfort and you know, and oh, just the accumulation of that time to get to build those foundations. It’s so underlooked by a lot of people.

And I’m a natural body builder and I used to hate the word when people called me body builder, I thought, oh, body builder, and now I’m no actually I am a body builder. I’m physically building my physique every time I step into the gym and now it’s something that I own and I love and I’m proud of and it really, it is blood, sweat and tears. Honestly, I cry every comp prep, every comp prep I cry and it’s just it, you know I went from when I was an amateur I would compete, I would do a 12-week comp prep. This year it was eight months. It was eight months to get down to 9% body fat reading on a DEXA, which I was over a month out, or two or maybe, yeah, month and a half out from the show, which meant I was even leaner than that by the time I got on stage and I just love competing. I well I actually almost think I love the competition prep, the lead up to the show more than actually show day because it is just discipline. And I feel that sometimes discipline gets a bad rap. People are like, oh, you’re not disciplined and it’s kind of like a negative, like restriction kind of thing. And I’m like, no, discipline is an act of self-love.

[00:12:42]

Nardia: Oh my God that’s what I say.

[00:12:42]

Hattie: Just the point of knowing what you damn well want and you fucking go and you do, you chop wood, you carry water, you follow the process, you reassess, you collect your data, you change what needs to be changed or you don’t change it at all. And sometimes that also means that Hey, maybe you don’t need to do that much. Maybe you can pull back a little bit. And I think the more you work with your body, the better data that you have, the better you can investigate. You’re almost a scientist. I tell my girls, you’re a scientist right now. You’re collecting data on yourself. You are a scientist. And this is really important for me as a coach because I can give you a plan, but you know how your body’s feeling, you know, that if you’re plateauing or if you’re not feeling great or if you’re not recovering and or you need more food or you think you need less food, or if you’re not being honest with yourself. Like this is also, you know, this is collecting data. You’re investigating kind of going off topic a little bit.

But yeah, too. I mean oh, the discomfort that you have to go through sometimes with training. You can’t, you can’t ignore it. And I’ve done many, I’ve done many different training phases. I remember I was at one period, I was squatting six days a week. There was no way I could squat six days a week right now ever again. Actually, I didn’t think I could. And I remember getting pains in my legs at night. I couldn’t sleep. I was, they were so over-trained. But then I got an amazing compensation from it. And you know training when you don’t want to train and pushing, you know, the importance of actually pushing into that discomfort sometimes and staying there with that discomfort has to be done, and also the discomfort of not allowing yourself to recover and deload that is also hard for people. That was hard for me. Deloading is hard for me. And it just, it’s the accumulation of years.

I think I started training when I was 17, weight training when I was 17 and I started strength training and following a proper plan when I was 24 and it wasn’t till I hit 24 and started training to a proper plan, how much my physique changed, levels of strength changed and even, you know, I didn’t start training my upper body really till last year. I never used to train my upper body. I like I’d stopped training it because I didn’t want to have big arms and then there was a period when I didn’t train my legs. I didn’t want to have big legs and it was like, oh my God, this body image dysmorphia, which took years to get out of, you know, I no longer have. Now I’m like, oh my God, body, what are we going to do this year? I get excited. I’m like, oh man, I cannot wait for foundation season. I’m going to rip this motherfucker apart.

[00:15:28]

Nardia: I love it. You just basically excite me.

[00:15:31]

Hattie: My goal is to be a beast. Like that is my goal. That and the world champion.

[00:15:40]

Nardia: Let’s because listening to you now. I mean I just want to point out that what you have just said is literally the mindset of a champion and it doesn’t matter whether you’re into fitness or not or you know, if you’re trying to be the best that you can in your business or whatever, those things that you’ve mentioned have parallels anyways. So I think that’s a really important takeaway is to really tune in if you want to get to the top of the game in anything you do, you need to have discipline and you need to be okay with being uncomfortable. I think that’s a no brainer. But it wasn’t always this way for you, right. You have a really well documented story about some of the struggles you had with your own body around sixteen. So would you mind sharing that with us?

[00:16:23]

Hattie: Okay. So if growing up, so I was a gymnast for nine years and I was a really bad eater in terms of I hated vegetables, I hated, I just ate the same things and my parents were like, I was training 32 hours a week as a 12 year old and they were just like, just feed her anything, just get her to have anything just so she has energy, but I never had an issue with food. I in fact loved food so much. I would eat my friend’s leftovers. Like my dad would call me the garbage bin. And I actually remember, funny enough watching, I remember walking into my mum’s room and she was watching this story on the news and there was this lady who had anorexia and how she was actually going to die if she didn’t look after herself and she had a little baby, and she was saying she’s going to do it for her little girl. I said to mum, oh my God, that would never happen to me I love food too much. And then when I was 16, I was in high school and a very good friend of mine passed away in a freak accident. And it just completely changed me. It just, it was more that I thought, oh my God, life can be taken away from me so quickly.

So what am I going to do about this? What am I going to do? And the initial reaction wasn’t to punish myself in any way. It was to go, how can I bring out the best in me? How can get the best grades? How can I go to the best university? How can I have the best education? How can I have the best career, how can I have the best life? That was, that was the thought process behind it. So I was like okay, so what don’t I like about myself? What do I want to change? And I was like, well, you know, I could probably start going to the gym, I could probably eat healthier. I could sit at the front of my class without my friends and get good grades because I was really naughty for a long time. So I remember going into class and sitting away from my friends and the teachers were like, what is happening? Like are you okay? Honestly are you okay? And I started studying after school and I remember I had this one exam in high school. It was a speech for English and I would stay back with the teacher making sure I was like, I wanted to get a really good grade, I wanted to really kill this speech, and I worked so hard for it. And then I went to do the speech and I got this teacher, a different teacher and she hated me because in the past I was really naughty to her.

And so she always was like quite funny with me and I can understand that, I wasn’t very good and she failed me on the speech. And I just thought to myself, oh my God, I worked so hard and I failed. I’m just not good at anything. And so then I started to take control of everything and I started to, you know if I didn’t go to the gym, I wasn’t allowed to eat this amount of food. If I didn’t do my study, I wasn’t allowed to eat until I’d done my study. If I didn’t do the exact same amount of work or more from training before, I wasn’t allowed to have this amount of food. And so I started to just chop away at allowing myself things. A little further back, I guess I missed you know in primary school I was really badly bullied for pretty much my whole primary school. And it wasn’t all year. It would be changes of years and I would never know when it was going to happen. And I think we tend to bring up a lot of things from our childhood into our adulthood and so I think, I feel that I kind of went back into some of those feelings of, oh well you’re just not good enough and brought them into, oh yeah, you’re just not good enough. You tried really hard and you failed. And so that snowballed into this really dark place over time. And the thing is, it was never about food. It was always about control.

So as much as anorexia is a physical thing, it is the mental thing. Your body is only a reflection of what your brain has told you to do. And for a really long time, I was like, oh, I was like, no, I’m not anorexic. You know I just want to be left, leave me alone. Just leave me alone. But I would just, I would walk, I just walked for hours and yeah, I went from, 58 kilos or 59 kilos down to, what was it, 28 or 28 kilos. I was like, yeah, I was half my size. I remember seeing a photo on my dad’s phone and I thought dad is that grandpa, he goes no that’s you in hospital because I literally looked like a 90 year old person. I was and I was, I got I was hospitalized so I was in emergency hospital and that was pretty scary. And yeah, it was just, it went on for a couple of years. The worst part was the first year and I had to get taken out of school and I tried to go back to school and that didn’t work. And the only, you know what, going to hospital was like actually a massive blessing.

And I remember saying to my mum, I will only go to hospital if you go and look after your grandparents or your parents. Because she was meant to go away on holiday and she couldn’t go because she couldn’t leave me. And I felt, oh my God, I’m so selfish. And that feeling of being selfish, I hated, I was like, oh, I have got to change. And that was one of the big things to me to create change. Because it was like I’m being that person I said I never want to be and going into hospital sparked the change or sparked the thought of how can I help? How can I help other women, you know, because I felt that I was strong enough to suffer, but these girls sure as hell weren’t. And they’d been in and out of there for 10, 15 years. And I thought that is not going to be me, fuck that, I hate being told what to do. I can’t do anything. Like people watching me. I was just like, oh, this is jail. And that was, I had almost had to go to hospital to get out I guess.

So, yeah. So it was, it was a really punishing experience. I used to, my mum used to take me down to the water. And I used to sit in the car and I’d just scream at the top of my lungs, just screaming because I was just in pain, like mental pain. It was just, I knew what I was doing is wrong but I couldn’t help it. And something that really also helped me recover was, I never associated the eating disorder with me. It was something else. It was something else that took over me. So I called it, my mum and I and my sister called it FED, fucking eating disorder and I would, and I’d be like, because I had me that wanted to get better and then I had this thing that was so powerful and if I dissociated with myself, I could help it lose its power over time. But it was a strong, a strong little monster that one.

[00:23:43]

Nardia: It is, and thank you so for sharing with us. I know there’s a lot of women who would be listening to that story and drawing some lessons from that for themselves. And I know it’s a very difficult time and disease to actually deal with. So there’s a gap between like, you know, you’ve got into the gym industry and here you are 10 years later. So as, are you 29 now or are you 30? I can’t remember how old you are?

[00:24:10]

Hattie: I’m 29 at 10.30 next month.

[00:24:12]

Nardia: Actually I figured that. Yeah. So here you are coming up to the end of your decade. You know, when you look back on that time what do you think and feel?

[00:24:25]

Hattie: It’s funny, I am so grateful for the worst experiences of my life. I’m so thankful for, yeah literally the darkest times, like being bullied in primary school was, I remember just being in a foetal position before I had to go to school every day, like that taught me not to hurt others because I would think I would never want someone to feel that way. So that was a really, you know I’m grateful for that experience. And then the going through the eating disorder. Boy did it teach me a lot of lessons in life. And I don’t think I would be where I am today without it. So it was a horrible time and it was a horrible time for my family and my friends. But it sparked the change and the calling to be a good person in the world and to help others and to contribute back because I feel very, very blessed and lucky. I’ve always had amazing people in my life and I’ve always had a lot of people very kind to me and I feel that I need to also give that back and contribute back to people that also need some kindness and need some help.

So I’ve grown a lot since that time and even from the years between 20 and 23 or 24, there was again, a big transition. You know I was still very insecure. I was still very, I was still learning. I was still recovering, as much as I was physically very, very well, there was still periods of darkness that I had to continually fight and yeah, so it does take time and it’s funny because the voices will be there, but it’s whether you act on the voices, and if you don’t act on the voices, you don’t give them power. It’s when you act on things that you strengthen it. And so it’s important that you start to act on the things that will make you stronger, not the ones that will make you weaker. And you know, so now like I think my best years of my life are, have been, you know, in the last couple of years because I’m so secure. I know my values and I know my work ethic and I know my beliefs and where I want to go and what my vision is for myself and my sport’s model team and I step into things that challenged me, whereas I never used to do that because I didn’t want to fail.

Now it’s like, I feel like there’s a gift in everything. Like everything life is, and that’s what makes life so precious because it can, you can learn something every day if you allow yourself to learn. You can be inspired by the smallest things and things that most people would just look over. And I think that came from doing so, I had to do so much mindset work because I thought to myself, if I’m going to be a leader, I must lead by example and I need to be able to practice what I preach and like honestly practice what I preach and own my words and step into the arena, and I think you know why, this is something that’s happened recently is like, don’t play small because it makes other people feel insecure. That’s not your responsibility, your responsibility is for yourself, right not someone else’s feelings. And so as long as you’re not hurting anyone and you are stepping into yourself and what you want, then you have to keep doing what your vision is, what you have set for yourself.

[00:28:27]

Nardia: There is a lot of wisdom coming out of your mouth Hattie Boydle.

[00:28:31]

Hattie: Good thing I stuck with the wisdom. I said wicked. That should be another story.

[00:28:37]

Nardia: Yeah. Okay. So I think that brings us really nicely to where you’re at. So you know, you’re currently, you have a social media following that’s well over the, you know, collectively over the 500 K mark. That with that comes, I’m going to assume big responsibility. Now also, when you do put yourself in the arena of being in front of all these people that you can’t control, I’m going to assume that there’s people who are either hating on you or trolling on you or just not being that nice or kind. So I’m curious to know how have been some of your experiences. Have you had any sort of really horrible experiences and how have you had to kind of negotiate your way through that?

[00:29:21]

Hattie: Yeah, I mean that’s it, and this is something that I speak to my girls about, it’s, you know at the end of the day when you step into the arena, there are people that are going to throw things at you. And because you sparked something in them. And honestly, I’ve been pretty damn lucky. I only get, a common thing will be, on steroids, and I just think, oh, you’ve got no idea. You know and sometimes I think, oh, you asshole, I’ve worked so hard to look like this. Like, and then it’s like, well, they’re just uneducated. They just are not, they’re not willing to, they don’t know what hard work looks like, they don’t know what discipline looks like or they don’t have the belief in themselves that they can do it. And actually funny enough that you brought this up, there’s some, or a guy over IN the Gold Coast actually that really doesn’t like myself.

And you know what? That’s cool. Not everyone is, you know I learned from a young age, not everyone’s going to like me and that’s just the way it is and I’m not going to, and it’s always so funny because it’s people that don’t actually know you and they make claims that I just think are so, that I can’t help but laugh at because I think where the hell did that come from? But they sell themselves off putting you down. That is also very much a reflection of that person because it’s, yeah, that’s, I’m not responsible for them. And as I said, like if I think about for like one or two or three people that don’t like me or whatever it is, there’s so many more people that do, and we are allowed to be inspired by whoever we want to be inspired by. You know, and I know who I am, I know what I do. I know what my vision is. I know what my calling is. I know what my message is and it’s never, it’s always about love, health, growth, your own success, helping others, contribution. But you can’t play small just because someone else doesn’t like what you do.

Not everyone’s going to believe in your vision and for anyone out there who’s starting a social media platform, you know, the funny thing is for, as I said, for every one person that doesn’t like you, you’re going to have 10 that do. So it’s important that you don’t focus on the ones that don’t like you, because they probably don’t know you either. And maybe you’ve sparked something in them that makes them feel uncomfortable. Maybe not. But this is just life. Unfortunately, this is just life and you are so far, and I’m so far on the other spectrum of, you know I might not agree with things, but I don’t troll it. I just stay in my own lane and I, because when I stay in my own lane, I’m so much faster at achieving what I want to achieve. So no, I get like, as I said, like I’ve got a huge platform of people that really enjoy what I write.

And so for me, that’s what my focus is going to be. It’s, and it’s funny, I recently put out some recent educational posts that you get a lot of people that say, yeah, and then you get people that are like, oh my God, this isn’t, they want to pull you apart and I think, again that’s just what you put, when you step onto that platform, you have to be willing to take some hits and there’re people that are going to like it, which is awesome and there are people that aren’t. So that’s why, you know, with my social media as well, I tend to more focus on just sharing my reflections. It’s literally like a journal to me. Although the things, the educational posts I put out recently were things that really meant a lot to me. You know it was women’s health and I didn’t just make it up, which is pretty [inaudible 00:33:40].

[00:33:41]

Nardia: No you didn’t.

[00:33:42]

Speaker 2:.It’s like yeah. Anyway, I hope that it did help some people. And for the ones that don’t, like, I just feel like there’s no need to tear things apart because you don’t agree with it. It’s like as I said when I don’t agree with someone, I don’t rant about it. I just, okay, I don’t agree with that and just move on.

[00:34:04]

Nardia: And move on. Right. Yeah.

[00:34:06]

Hattie: Yeah. Ranters say more about the person ranting than the actual rant.

[00:34:12]

Nardia: Oh 100%. And you know I’m glad you brought this up because when working with a lot of my trainers who want to start a platform, one of their biggest fears is they don’t want to be seen, because they don’t want to be critiqued. And what you’re saying here is if you know who you are and you have a calling and that vision and that calling is so fricking strong, then it does, you will get in the ring and you’ll do that and follow through because you can’t not do it. And it comes with the territory, doesn’t it?

[00:34:39]

Hattie: If you think about anyone that’s ever been successful, they’ve always had people that have challenged them. Always. The greatest people in the world, the most successful people in the world, the most successful leaders, they’ve always had someone that doesn’t like them, that challenges them. You cannot live your life under a fucking rock because you’re scared if one, two, ten a hundred people don’t agree with what you say. What about the thousands that do? What about the people that have agreed with you and they’ve thanked you for the transformation that you’ve given them, the ability to see things a different way, the ability to see things as half full, not half empty. What about that? If you’re always going to focus on the things that are negative, that’s all you’re going to bring to your life. You will not be able to grow. You will not be able to reflect and think and then observe and it’s not about reacting. It’s about taking action.

So if you, as I said like and self-belief, believe in what you are saying, because if you can’t believe in what you’re saying, then you’re not real. Not what you’re saying is not real because you’re not believing in it. You know as I said like take your own responsibility, you know I could get upset about these people, but that’s giving them power and I’m removing my responsibility for my own action and actually, I actually want to thank these people because they drive more business to me because people message me and think, oh my God, this guy. And they say, I love, I want to work with you. You know you’re the person I want to work with, not that person. And it drives business to me. And also, if they’re people that unfollow me from whatever the rant is, they’re not my people.

[00:36:22]

Nardia: Correct.

[00:36:23]

Hattie: Good. Don’t follow me. Success breeds success and negativity breeds negativity. You know, and it doesn’t matter if I lose those people because I want people who want to connect with me. I want people that love my message. I want people that share my message. I want people that want to engage with the things that I share. And that’s not going to be everyone. So understand as you’re building a platform, speak to the people that you want to speak to. We can’t just have everyone and anyone that loves us. Some people we can. It’s actually funny, recently on the Gold Coast, I had these women come up to me and said, can we take a photo of you. Our 11-year-old daughter loves you? And I thought, 11, that’s who I’m speaking to sometimes. And then other times I’ve got 65-year-old women, 70-year-old women coming up and saying, can we get a photo with you? We love you. I think, Holy shit. My platform is so big and it’s women, and that makes me go, wow, okay, so what’s my duty here?

[00:37:24]

Nardia: Yes.

[00:37:26]

Hattie: What, and that really makes me think, okay, so what’s the message? You know, what am I saying? What am I believing in? What’s, you know, who’s the audience? Because I don’t, I’m very careful, you know my photos. Yeah, of course I want them to be beautiful and sexy, but not sexual, you know, and not, I’m just really, I feel like I’ve really like pulled myself back over the years because I was like, well, yeah, who is my audience, and if I want a young girl, I would love the young girl to follow me because I feel that I can help plant some really positive seeds in their mind, particularly as they go through that transition of being a young girl to a woman and being uncomfortable or hormonal, and it’s like, well, what are the other ways of thinking about life? You know I always say to my girls, we have more than one currency. It’s not just about the way we look. It’s what about our intelligence? What if it’s about our wittiness, or our character or how we make others feel, our contribution to a community, our contribution to helping others. And that’s, they’re very important currencies which we can use forever in our life. They don’t fade. Looks fade.

[00:38:41]

Nardia: I love that.

[00:38:43]

Hattie: So build up your currencies, ladies, build up your currencies.

[00:38:46]

Nardia: So then you know that you’ve got this platform where you’ve got this amazing possibility to spread the message. So at the moment in this evolution of Hattie Boydle and your business, what is your key message? What do you want your people to know?

[00:39:09]

Hattie: Honestly, I believe that it all starts with love. Everything starts from the inside out. You know how you see yourself is a reflection of how you truly feel about yourself, the love that you have and there is no greater relationship than the one that you have with yourself. Right? You literally should be taking your own hand every single day and walking yourself and going, who am I showing up as today? Who, and it’s funny because we always get asked what do we want to be when we grow up? But I think it’s who do we want to be? Who do we want to be? What is the person? And I’ve made many mistakes and it’s unfortunate that those mistakes have hurt myself or have hurt others, but they’ve created a change, and it’s like maybe I needed those changes, maybe I needed those transitions. And it’s important that we learn from the mistakes that we have because that creates growth. It’s funny, people used to say to me, don’t ever change and I think, I’ve changed so much, but every stage is a change, at every stage of my change, people have said that to me. So I must have some, [inaudible 00:40:19] I must be doing something right. And then, you know, and we have to change. In order to grow you must change.

So the message, don’t be afraid to transition and to transform and to, we need low times to create strength. You cannot grow without discomfort. You cannot grow from a breakdown without a breakdown. You know, breakdowns create breakthroughs. So work through it, work through it and always ask yourself, what am I learning from this? What am I learning from this? Because you’re always going to realize you’re so much stronger than you thought you were when you get outside at the end of the tunnel, when you see the light, you know, and then you take that light and you live with that light. You take that light and you remind yourself. Hey, I’m so much stronger here in this position. Yeah, so I think, but it all starts with love, it all starts with love.

[00:41:28]

Nardia: So let’s go there. I’m going to play devil’s advocate for just one moment. Because I think, you know, self-love is quite a buzz thing of the last five or six years, especially on social media. You know ‘just love yourself’. And there could be some people who looking at you without actually knowing you go, well it’s easy for you because you get to travel the world and train with amazing people and there might be somebody at home who’s feeling not so great, they might be a little bit over weight and they’re like, well, how do I even start to feel, how do I even start to love myself from the inside out if I really don’t like it? Now earlier on you said you’ve done a shit load of mindset work. You’ve just really gone down that route to help you get to where you are now. So what, do you have any sort of practical tips that you could say to someone who’s not feeling so great about themselves that really wants to go on the self-love journey? What would you say?

[00:42:22]

Hattie: Do you know what I absolutely love that because it’s, I always think, oh yeah, it’s easy. You always see, you know the girls that are incredibly beautiful or whatever it is. Like, oh, just the universe, it’s just like starting to play, and just love yourself gal. And it’s like but what if you don’t look like that? Or what if you’re not in that position? What if, as you said, you’re feeling down, you’re going through a hard time. You’re not healthy or you’re overweight. It’s like, yeah bitch, that’s easy for you to say. And I totally understand that position. And I’ve thought about that position a lot.

And this is why I say we have more than one currency. And pain is one of the greatest motivators for change. Pain. There’s pain and there’s suffering. Suffering doesn’t always create a change. Suffering becomes an identity which we hold on to which we take with us for a long time. Pain, you have to have sometimes reach the lowest or the highest level of pain to create a change. And sometimes it’s reflecting back on, do I really want to continue living like this? What am I gaining from living like this? What am I gaining from having this thought process? And I’m not going to say you’re just going to make a switch and you’re going to suddenly love yourself and hallelujah. Life’s gold. It’s looking at well who do I want to be? What characteristics do I have to start to have and use and bring every single day to be that person.

And that’s why I love journaling, because sometimes you can, like a deconstruction of your mind. Start writing out. Write out your pain. Literally write out your pain, write out how you feel and how shit it is to feel this way and read it back to yourself. And then once you’ve read it back to yourself take it out and burn it and start to write what do I want to do? Who do I want to be? What’s my vision? Who do I want to be every single day? How do I want to feel? If I lived like that, if I was like this, if I took this process, how would that make me feel, what was my outcome? What is on the other side of that action? What would be my process, right? Because we can’t take action without a process.

So you might feel so lost right now because you’re like, I just feel shit. I just feel so unmotivated. I’ve always felt like this. So you’ve identified the suffering with yourself. There’s a period in your life where you did not feel like that. You just feel like it’s been forever because you’ve told yourself it’s forever. We didn’t as children. See yourself as a child, you were not, you were a shining light. There was a period where you liked that. That child is still in you. And you know as I said, like pain is an amazing motivator and you have to start to address the pain and then start to heal it, heal the pain and start to create a process where you are doing things that are based off nurturing and self-love. You want to be an athlete then you have to eat like an athlete, not like a skinny model you know, or not with junk food that’s not giving you the quality nutrition that your body needs to make those changes.

And you know looking at so well what’s healthy, start to do some research. What is healthy? Maybe you need to ask for help. You know a lot of you don’t want to ask for help or they’re going to the wrong help sources like sometimes Google and Cosmopolitan Magazines and not the right answer for you. Go to a dietician, go to a nutritionist, get a great PT. Like go to a psychologist if you’re having eating disorder issues, whether it’s over eating or under eating. And you’ve been doing it for some time. Anything that you’ve taken on for longer than a year, it means that you need to ask for external help.

[00:46:42]

Nardia: That’s powerful that I like that. Having that real clear timeframe. Like if you’re still indulging in your suffering for more than a year, like go and get help. That’s so good.

[00:46:55]

Hattie: This is the thing. Suffering becomes an identity and it’s always you are the victim and it can become that you get, that’s how you get your attention. Oh you poor thing, yeah I know but life’s so shit to me even though I’ve got a house over my head, I’ve got a husband, I’ve got a beautiful kid, I’ve got a job. I might just not have the body I want because I’m just bashing myself and I’ve gone quite, sometimes I’ve gone real fire here, but this is a really common thing and at the end of the day, if we’re always blaming everything else on other people around us, we are always powerless. You become powerless. You don’t know where to start. You don’t know what to do. Oh my God life’s so hard. It’s not hard. You might have periods of things that are testing you, this is just a phase that’s testing you. Or, it’s trying to tell you, hey, you need to start some change here. And you know, I always say life, we get one life, but we get many chances. So when are you going to take the chance to make a change? We have so many times, like so many lessons, so many chances to improve on ourselves and you’re not your pain and you’re not your past. That is something that’s happened to you. Yes. But you don’t have to live with that forever.

And as I said, pain is an amazing motivator and an amazing motivation to change. But at some point you have to let go of that pain because if you keep that pain as your identity you’re never going to be good enough. That’s going to be the reoccurring story. Oh, this isn’t good enough. Oh, but I’m still this. It’s like you haven’t let go. And if I was still holding onto my pain from years ago, I would not be where I am. I looked at [inaudible 00:48:32], so pain started, but Holy Hell, what can I achieve if I looked at myself and I thought, oh my God, okay body, what are we going to do? And even as I think of that, the excitement that I get in the, oh my God, what is possible for this body? You know, what can I really do? It’s so positive and powerful, you know? And at some point you have to let go of the pain because it will just, it’ll get you to a point and then it will hold you back. And that’s where a lot of people are like, oh, I did this. But then they keep dropping back to that pain. And so they go one step forward, two steps back, one step forward, two steps back. And the worst part is when you make the physical change, but you don’t see it because you’re still stuck in the mental state. That’s not a transformation.

[00:49:23]

Nardia: Holy moly. That, I hope you guys heard the power in that it. Say that again Hats?

[00:49:29]

Hattie: Oh God, what did I say? If you’re making a physical change, sorry, I’m going to take that back.

[00:49:39]

Hattie: The saddest thing is when you make the physical change, but you can’t see it because you haven’t made the mental change. That is the saddest part, and to me to not be able to see your success is failure. That’s the ultimate failure.

[00:49:54]

Nardia: I’ve got goose bumps.

[00:49:57]

Hattie: So do I. Because you know, and it’s something that I see a lot with women, particularly with competing. I’ve had some girls and they’ve made, God I look at them and I just have this feeling of just pride. I’m just like so proud of them and you hear them talk about themselves and you think, oh God, I’m so sad, that’s how you, you’re not even seeing, you just didn’t, you didn’t even see that whole last six months, like you didn’t even appreciate that small change. If I make the smallest change to my physique, I think, Holy shit, yes. Do you know how hard I had to work for that God damn fucking thing to glute [inaudible 00:50:35] God, that was so much work. And that’s why I appreciate it because I’m not stuck in pain. I’m not stuck in pain. I’m stuck in what is capable. What am I capable of achieving? You know, where am I, where am I going to push my boundaries? What am I, what are the edge? What is the edge of my capabilities? I’m going to test that, I’m going to test that every single time.

And you know, I had some girls, they like Hattie, I’m sorry, my attitude was so bad, you know, now that I’m not in that shape post show, I’m so upset with myself that I didn’t see it. And I was like, well, let’s not dwell on that. Let’s look at that as a lesson. And next time you start your prep. Let’s look at, let’s start to look at all the wins, right? Let’s look at the wins. Let’s not just work on your physique. Let’s work on your mindset. You know, because that’s where you will see the greatest gift. And that’s where you actually step into yourself. You’ll step into your boundaries, you’ll step into, well you’ll push past your limitations, you’ll rip down the limitations and that is the most powerful thing that they could go through.

[00:51:40]

Nardia: So for and we’ll talk about your business in just a moment, for a lot of the girls that you’re coaching, are either a comp prep or just for their own personal physical transformation. What I want to say, how lucky they are and blessed that they have you as a coach where it’s not just about here’s your macros and here’s your training. Although those are very key and important sectors. But it does sound like you do a lot of coaching around the mindset and helping them to see themselves in a much better more positive way, is that right?

[00:52:12]

Hattie: Yeah, absolutely. Mindset work, we do so much mindset work. That’s why I love teaching more than anything actually. And it’s funny because the, I only work with a small group of women that want to compete and actually sometimes I’m like, I would prefer it if they didn’t compete because competing is for one day. What about building a physique for life. What about, what about just being happier or just being more positive just daily and health comes first. The pillars of health come first. What are your markers saying, you know, are you menstruating or ovulating? Are you eating a significant amount of food? Are you building muscle? Are you moving well? Are you sleeping well? How are you managing your stress? How do you feel about yourself on a daily basis?

And you know, I think in life we build layers, layers create foundations and I said to my girls all right, if you want to compete, then the moment that you decided to compete is where you start to lay your foundations, right? We lay our foundations of health, of food, of muscle, of good mindset, healthy mindset, strengths and then once we’ve reached them and we’ve done that for a few months, then we put the icing on the cake and the icing on the cake is the decision to comp prep cool. So that’s the next phase. Put the icing on the cake. Now once you get to stage, the cherry on top will always be, did you place. But you still made a beautiful cake, even without the cherry on top. You know, the cherry on top is very, is not something that’s in our control, but the cake sure as hell is right. We make the cake and that’s based off our and its following instruction. You can’t make a good cake without instruction and a process. And I think that appears in many areas of our life, you know, not just if you want to get a certain place in your work, in your business or your workspace. You can’t just get there. You have to go through layers, you have to build, build, build, build, build. And sometimes you have to take the whole fucking cake apart and rebuild it you know.

[00:54:28]

Nardia: Smash the cake against the fucking wall.

[00:54:27]

Hattie: It just didn’t rise like it was meant to. Start again. What ingredient did we miss? It was probably bloody baking soda.

[00:54:39]

Nardia: I love the cake analogy because that totally makes sense. It so sits really well with this. Okay, so I’m sure there’s listeners going, Holy shit, how do I work with this woman? I’ve loved everything she said. How do they do this? How do they reach out to you? How can they get into your world?

[00:54:59]

Hattie: So I’ve got a website that they can go to, which is www.sportsmodelproject.com, and they can register for a phone call. I have a, I’ve got an amazing team of coaches to help me now build, build the empire because I realized I can’t do it on my own. And there’s only a certain amount of people I can do, I can work with them on my own I thought, God, I love what I share and I love what I do and just the testimonials we get and the changes that we create. I thought, how can I, how can I make this? How can I use, how can I help more people? And so it’s funny that the women that work for me have been long time clients who also believed in my vision and know my system inside out. And also have done a hell of a lot of mindset work just because that’s what needs to be done if you’re going to work for me because you need to be able to coach and listen and to be able to coach well we need to get rid of our own bullshit, don’t we?

So you’ve got the website or even my Instagram. You can send me a private message and then I can grab your contact details. Everyone goes through an interview process. Because to be honest with you, I don’t work with everyone. And not everyone is the right person for the sport model project. You know I’ve got a community of women who are on their own mission but have got things in common. And the thing that is in common is that they all want to live a happier and healthier life. They all want not just a physical transformation, but a mental transformation and are willing to do the work not just for 12 weeks, but for six months. And one of the reasons I do, I only work with people for six months. And the crazy thing is I’ve had women that have worked with me for five years, so they’ve kept re-signing for five years. I’ve had women that have come to me gone away, which I always encourage my girls to do. I’m like, fly away for a while, try something different. They come back, and that’s a massive compliment.

But the reason I get women to work with me for six months is because in 12 weeks time, you’re not going to change the 15 years of mental anguish you’ve put yourself through. Six months is just the tip of the iceberg. You know, that’s just, like even just going, oh my God. Almost like coming into about these breakthroughs of, Holy shit. I’ve been seeing the glass half empty for my whole life and now I’m starting to see it half full and that’s, this is just the beginning. So they’re probably the best ways to get in contact with me. And yeah, you go through an interview process to see if the sports model project is right for you and if it is awesome, if it’s not, we really, we try and point you in the right direction of someone that might be the right person for you.

[00:57:48]

Nardia: Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. And so don’t let the,

[00:57:51]

Hattie: Whether that’s a coach or even a psychologist.

[00:57:53]

Nardia: Yeah. Yeah. Great. I really liked that because I think what that really shows to me is just how genuine you guys are because there are so many, and this is the problem, right? So many people don’t know which coaches to reach out to because there is a plethora of Instagram stars with massive followings who don’t necessarily have the depth of knowledge, the wisdom like you do, or even the genuineness to actually want to truly help people. So I think anytime somebody has an interview process, I’m like, okay, these people are kind of legit. At least there’s a hoop that I have to try and jump through to see if I’m going to fit them or not. Now I kind see what happens at the back end. But anyways, the point is don’t be put off by having to go through the interview, the interview process is a very good thing. Okay. Sorry. We’re going to have to, I’m so aware of time and you’ve probably got a gazillion things to do, Hats, so quick fire round before we finish this off. All right. What is it that you are either watching, reading or listening to at the moment that’s really inspiring you or firing you up, if anything?

[00:59:02]

Hattie: Okay, so I often listened to a lot of, oh God, okay. I really love a podcast by Les Brown. I just love his voice and I just love his charisma and he always makes me think, and it’s funny, when I was getting ready for a comp prep, I would listen to a podcast every day that I did cardio. And I would also listen to Muhammad Ali on repeat going, I’m going to show you how great I am. And that is something I just like when I’m training, I’m like, that’s just something that repeats in my head and it’s something that I really, that gets me, oh, so fired up. And then I’m also reading, I’m reading a couple of things at the moment. Before I go to bed I like to read the mindset works. So I’m reading Oh, what am I reading? Mind blank ‘Radical Acceptance’.

[00:59:54]

Nardia: Oh yes, yes, yes.

[00:59:55]

Hattie: Which I think, have you read that?

[00:59:57]

Nardia: I’ve read bits of it.

[00:59:59]

Hattie: It’s so funny because do you know what I was reading it, I’m like God, I remember feeling that way years ago. So it’s been a really nice, you know, I actually want to write a post about this because it’s a really great way to reflect of, Hey, yeah, I used to feel like that, I’m on the other side, but there are, you know, they might be some little things that linger and it’s the things that I’m now addressing. So it was a really nice way to reflect on far out I’ve come so far in five years, and it’s a really great book and I feel like it would resonate with a lot of women out there. So that’s one book that I highly recommend.

Oh, another book that I highly recommend is ‘The Obstacle is the Way’ I feel like that really helped me. You know, I read that book in 2017 when I was in the lead up to defending my title at the world titles and I lost my title and I remember the next morning I woke up and I felt like there was this black cloud above me and I looked at my mum and said, mum did that happen? She goes, yes. And I was so upset, but after I took some days to kind of reflect and settle down, that book really changed me. It really helped me see the gift in that loss. I didn’t feel like I was a loser or not good enough. I really felt that I did the best I could, and it’s a competition and the judging panel is out of my control. It’s just, I did, you know, I can’t steal that away from me. And that book is a really great way to help you see, look at things as an obstacle. Things that you think, oh, you know, whatever excuse you’re giving yourself is to go, well, actually, what can I do in this incident that’s not you know working towards me. How can I see the gift or the lesson or the new direction in this circumstance. So that’s a really good book. And what else am I reading at the moment? I always go in and out of you know, the Law, McDonald books.

[01:02:06]

Nardia: Yep, that’s a bit more of a in and out of those ones. A technical book for the PT’s out there.

[01:02:14]

Hattie: Yeah.

[01:02:14]

Nardia: We talking about [inaudible 01:02:13]

[01:02:16]

Hattie: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, there’s, I’ve got like three, four that I’ve got. And then I also go I’ve been you know, I often go back to I’ve been listening to the seminars from the woman’s weekend with [inaudible 01:02:32] Lara Buckfiden and Kara Sutherland. So just combing through, I love combing through information and for me, I need to re listen to things a lot over and over and over again and write and write and write and write and rewrite. And yeah, so that’s probably my, what I’ve been,

[01:02:52]

Nardia: I love it. What’s your do you have a guilty Netflix pleasure? Like is there one you’re like, okay, I’m going to watch half an hour of this and just completely check out of this world?

[01:03:04]

Hattie: That was probably the worst question to ask me, because I don’t watch TV. Like I just don’t watch TV. I know. And when I’m on the airplane. I always watch Discovery Channel. I don’t even watch movies. The Discovery Channel is very good.

[01:03:19]

Nardia: Okay, so for this question, interpret this however you feel, but what really turns you on? First thing that comes out of [inaudible 01:03:32].

[01:03:36]

Hattie: Do you know what really gets me going? I love watching men or women squat really heavy, like when people like, I apparently like sweaty bodies as well. I’m like, oh it could be a man or female. I’m just like, yeah, yeah.

[01:03:55]

Nardia: Okay. A squat even?

[01:03:56]

Hattie: Yeah yeah.

[01:03:57]

Nardia: Right. I’m quite prone to the deadlift.

[01:03:58]

Hattie: Oh my God, I love it. Yeah, it’s just like either of those, it’s just like. It’s so funny, I mean I live in Bondi and I’m right near the bars and I just, I drive past in my car and there’s some days where there’s like all these like men with no shirts on doing, callisthenics also gets me going like, oh the crazy shit. Like the flips and I just think, oh my God, I’m in love with you. I don’t even know you, but I really like you. Yeah,

[01:04:28]

Nardia: I really like your sweaty body right now. It’s amazing. All right, last question then is what is your ultimate favourite self-love or self-care practice?

[01:04:45]

Hattie: Meditation then training.

[01:04:48]

Nardia: Yep. Beautiful. Do you find sometimes

[01:04:50]

Hattie: And getting my hair washed and blow-dried and a head massage.

[01:04:52]

Nardia: Okay yeah, that’s pretty epic. Do you find that training for you sometimes is quite meditative?

[01:05:00]

Hattie: So much? It’s, I love training. I just I spoke about this the other day, I just get such a kick out of it and I just love it, I just love IT. It’s all about me. You know? It’s about mind, it is mind, body, and soul. You know, it’s so much love for me. It is. Honestly, I just love that feeling, even when it’s hard I love it.

[01:05:32]

Nardia: Especially when it’s hard, like, you’ve always been such a weapon and I have some fond memories of putting you through some fucking intense sessions going, How is she still going? Like you just respond beautifully to training. I mean, you’re a genetic beast, you’re a freak.

[01:05:51]

Hattie: I’ve been really lucky to have worked with, like I think myself, I’ve worked with some masters to create some mastery and you know, you Brandon Harris, Tony Bitagi, [inaudible 01:06:01] Sebastian Oreb, even you know, being able to train with my friends over in Mexico and listening to them and you know even learning from online coaches that I never trained with in house to just, you take little bits of everyone and I love having a coach and I love, it’s not that I always, it’s funny when I have a coach I don’t ask them to tell me what to do. I like to work with them. So I like to be able to have guidance and someone to talk to and I often need someone to tell me, Hey, you’re doing too much or yeah, you don’t have to, you know, sometimes it’s about training smarter rather than training harder. And that’s one thing that I’ve really had to learn over the years of, you know, because I want to do everything at once and you just, I can do that for two weeks and then I’m completely bashed and it’s not, you know, when you get to that, the higher level of competing and even advanced in training, recovery is almost more important than the training itself.

[01:07:16]

Nardia: Totally.

[01:07:17]

Hattie: Because without it, you are not going to get that adaptation you’ve just busted your ass in the gym for. It’s like, what do, I call it pissing in the wind. I’m just pissing on myself, you know? Lovely. So it’s and I’m really sometimes bad recovery. Like and it’s funny though, in a comp prep, I go to train and I sit for the rest of the day. I’m like, no, I’m not moving my legs. I don’t want to move my legs. Got to let them recover.

[01:07:43]

Nardia: What do you do? Literally. So if that’s going to happen, so do you, is that where you listen to podcasts, read, research, write programs, but you just like, okay, I need to be stationary.

[01:07:53]

Hattie: Yeah, I’ll, you know, as an example, this use prep was probably the most training I’ve ever done for a competition prep. And it’s like, you know, 2016 when I won the world titles, I didn’t do any cardio. It was the six days of squatting and heavy lifting. Right. And it built my physique, you know, it took it to another level. Then towards the end of the year I got really injured. So I got told, you know, come in a little smaller. So what did I do? I went and flipped the complete other way. I didn’t do any squatting for a whole year, I did all unilateral work. So I had a lot of imbalances from doing so much bilateral work. Right. So I worked with Tony Bitagi [inaudible 01:08:41] and we did all unilateral work. We worked around my injuries. And you know, I added cardio in, I did the sleep low method, which was you know, I’d always wanted to do it and I’m willing to trial and error things to find an outcome even if I didn’t get the outcome I wanted when I got on stage in terms of placing’s you know, I lost too much muscle. My calories were too low for the amount of training I was doing. And that was even then like, I remember speaking to Tony, I’d be like, no those calories are way too low. I need to go higher. But I was still trying to not go so high. But in hindsight now I’m like, oh, I should have listened to myself. I should’ve gone higher. Not just a lesson.

[01:09:16]

Nardia: Can you say, so when you say too low, because I think this would be really interesting for people. What was too low for you at that time?

[01:09:26]

Hattie: Too low for me at that time was, okay. So I’ll just explain the sleep low methods. So the sleep low method is you’ll do a high intensity training session where you deplete glycogen. Generally it’s done in the afternoon and post-training instead of refuelling with carbohydrates, you only have protein and fat and maybe some, I had like leafy greens that were very low in calories and carbohydrates. The next morning you get up, you stay in a low or depleted state or you further deplete yourself. So when you get up, you know, after eight hours, nine hours, of fasting, you are further depleted. I would get up, I would do an hour of steady state cardio where I would clock up you know, 400, another 400 calories, then I would return to a normal eating structure. And then I would have a moderate day, which was like about 1,750 calories.

And I would eat, you know, protein, fat and carbohydrates, and the next day I would have a high day which was my calories were like 2500 maybe or 2300. I remember eating like 350 grams of carbs that day. And then the next day I would go down to a moderate day again and then I’d go back into the sleep low, do another glycogen depleted workout. And on the day that I did the high-intensity training, which I was burning like 600 calories, I was doing an hour of fit. Woo. It was fucking hard. Right. And this is an advanced method right. This is an advanced method which I do not recommend that you do.

So and on the days that I would do the high-intensity training, I was only eating 1200 calories and I would fast half the day to be able to, it was really tough. I’m, it was probably the toughest comp prep I’ve ever done. And because I was trying to get rid of muscle, I was trying to lose muscle and I stopped training my quads as well. And so I started training upper body, so I started to get some more upper body, which was nice. So I had, I got wins and I got losses from it. Okay. So this is the thing that you have to look at. You look at the data, what was happening. And it’s really cool to be able to look at that. And then, you know, when I got on stage, I was too depleted still. I could have done three days of high carbs and still looked insane but I was too scared, you know, and this was just something that I learned for myself. I should have done it, I’m off peak week coming into it, and I didn’t do that, but I learnt. And then this year, what I did is I combined the last two years of my training.

So I put heavy lifting unilateral work and cardio in. And my preparation was, you know, I had a higher base of calories before I started. I had a lot more muscle as well. I put back all the muscle that I lost from that comp prep, put myself in a really good position to be able to eat a lot of food. And yeah, so my calories this time coming to the show was like, my low days, my lowest days are like 1900. My lowest carbohydrate days were like 250. My highest carbohydrate days were 400 which I had multiple times, and this year my intake of food changed a lot. I would change it regularly and it was really cool to be able to talk to my friends that I was in Mexico with and be like, you know what are your thoughts on this? What about this? And again you know, they would be like, what about this? And they’d give me numbers and I would always increase it because I was like, you know what, I think that’s too low for me. But it was nice to be able to go, you know well that’s, you know, listen, listen, reflect, observe, make the decision. And yeah.

So this year I decided to put compound working in. I put cardio in which and I was doing, I was actually training seven days a week, which I’d never done before. Mixture of steady state and hit training. And I was doing three lower body days, three upper body days, which I’d never done before. I’d never isolated my upper body. I used to do upper body and lower body together. So you know, over the years it’s just like you use different training methods and you see what the outcome is. It’s not that one is better than the other. It was like, what is your starting point and what are you trying to get to? You know and as I said now I could not train my legs five days a week now, I just can’t. One I love volume and so I need days to recover from that. You’ve got to pick your battles I think.

[01:14:17]

Nardia: Amazing, amazing. I think the take home bit there is hopefully you’re really tuned into the amount of food that Hats is eating. Like it takes a lot to create a physique like you. You have to use your nutrition to build your physique. You can’t get away with doing a thousand calories and look like you, it’s just not going to happen.

[01:14:35]

Hattie: I think it’s, you know, and it’s just, well this is the thing, you know, some people have to go on lower calories. That is the way it is. But no, not a 1000 never no, no, no.

[01:14:46]

Nardia: No no no no.

[01:14:46]

Hattie: If yeah, this is, and this is why I say to girls, I’m like, so what do you want to look like and how far do you think you have to go? And this is the process that I think you should be on. If you’ve been dieting all year and you’re on 1500 and nothing’s moving, you have to get out of 1500 and it doesn’t mean going lower it means actually going higher and sitting there for a while. Let your health markers recalibrate. Like get yourself in a position where you’re actually, you can start dieting on, you know, you can start at 2000 or you can be in a position to start at 1600 and increase from there and get body recomposition. Not everyone, you know, I think body recomposition is a better way of doing things rather than the bulking because you’re still laying foundations down, you’re still building and you don’t have to be in that position of being really uncomfortable and having a lot of body fat.

The downfall is that some people have a lot of body fat and have to go through a different phase and might have to do dieting and then diet breaks and dieting and diet breaks and all the girls can re-comp themselves. So yeah, that’s the way it is. You know, and you know, speaking with Bret Contreras the other week, he’s like some people, sometimes I had to put girls on 900 calories and it’s just because of their diet history, you know your diet history plays a huge role. Unless you’ve given yourself a couple of years to get out of being dieting and allowing yourself to have a little bit more body fat. Body fat is not the devil. It goes, the beauty of it is, it can go, it’s just some people take a little bit longer. We’re all different.

[01:16:28]

Nardia: I love it. Let’s bring it to a close because you and I could keep going for hours.

[01:16:32]

Hattie: I know sorry.

[01:16:33]

Nardia: No, no, don’t apologize. I so I love this shit. But I’m pretty sure everyone who’s listening to this has just gone, Holy moly. I feel like I’ve just been talking to like a fitness Dalai Lama, and one minute we’re talking about soul and mindset and then we’re bringing it home with some technical shit, which I absolutely love and adore. So Hats thank you so much for being so candid and honestly just sharing with us who you are. I’m really glad that I can share with the world or my world you because I know that, I mean I’ve you for about a decade now and I’ve always loved you and you know, seeing your shininess and I think it’s really nice to be able to show this part of you to everyone else out there as well. So thank you.

[01:17:22]

Hattie: I’m just going to tell your listeners something very interesting. So when I was doing my PT course, Nardia was the teacher and she taught me and I got my first PT job in the city at a new gym, which Nardia then also started working with. And she was the one that actually put me forward because she saw my potential right from the beginning. And I am so lucky that you saw that and you know look where we are now, how long ago, 11 years later?

[01:17:52]

Nardia: 11 years yeah.

[01:17:54]

Hattie: That we can, you know do this together.

[01:17:57]

Nardia: I’m goose bumping,

[01:17:56]

Hattie: I know. You’re goosing, you’re goosing. And so I feel, you know, even with Brandon Harris, you know, it’s so cool to be able to people that I worked with when I was 17 just in the industry. I’m still connecting with and we’ve all grown. We’ve all grown. And that is so powerful.

[01:18:19]

Nardia: Mutual love and cruushing all around. All right. Thank you so much for tuning in team. Until next time.

[01:18:28]

Hattie: Thanks Nards, bye guys.

[01:18:32]

Nardia: You are amazing. Thank you so much for that.