Speaker 1: Welcome to Healthy Ish and happy new Year. Thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us on the Body and Soul podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: your host Felicity Hawley. To celebrate the new year, we
Speaker 1: are dropping our top Healthyish episodes from last year and
Speaker 1: this one was a goodie. You really liked it and
Speaker 1: we thought it was the perfect one to play again
Speaker 1: in the new year. When you're setting all those goals,
Speaker 1: What does it take to get a strong body? I
Speaker 1: was joined by high performance coach and motivational speaker Alexis
Speaker 1: Tawersi to discuss how to let go of body ideals
Speaker 1: and build full body strength. Now listening to extra Healthyish
Speaker 1: as well, where Alexis joined us to talk about her
Speaker 1: experience on the TV show Naked and Afraid. You can
Speaker 1: catch that episode wherever you get your podcasts. I can't
Speaker 1: believe we haven't met in person. I mean I think
Speaker 1: we have. Well, I've been following you for a long time,
Speaker 1: so I feel like I do know you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's every person I've ever met in person of social
Speaker 3: has never ever called.
Speaker 2: Me by my real name. What is it like, well,
Speaker 2: my full name, Like everyon's always like, oh, actional Lexa.
Speaker 1: I've set down the busy your handle.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: The guys at a table next to me being like
Speaker 3: actional Lexa, do you want an arm wrestler?
Speaker 2: I'm like no, Can someone ask me for my number?
Speaker 1: Are you good at arm wrestles?
Speaker 2: I used to be Yeah, used to get me free
Speaker 2: breakfast in Hong Kong. Well there we go.
Speaker 1: I should call you action Alexa, sorry something like that. Okay, strong,
Speaker 1: I mean you are incredibly strong. We'll talk about your
Speaker 1: strong minded, extra healthy ish, but your your strength of body.
Speaker 1: What does what does it feel like to be strong?
Speaker 2: God? Such a great question. You know.
Speaker 3: My love of weight training and being strong stems back
Speaker 3: to when I was fifteen and my mom was diagnosed
Speaker 3: with a mental illness. I was being bullied at school
Speaker 3: for being too skinny. So my nickname at school was
Speaker 3: that a Laxa and Arexa Gosh's cruel, aren't they?
Speaker 2: Yes? They are?
Speaker 3: And I went to the weights room on a mission
Speaker 3: for muscles and it was kind of that was my
Speaker 3: first ever experience with lifting ways and that place just
Speaker 3: became my sanctuary and I think from then on in
Speaker 3: it sort of it became the place where I learned
Speaker 3: to develop physical strength. But then I also learned about
Speaker 3: the connection between physical strength and the mental fortitude that
Speaker 3: came alongside that, and it's just I can't describe it.
Speaker 3: But for me, the gym isn't so much about Peb's
Speaker 3: in the gym. It's kind of about the bad assory
Speaker 3: that you get from lifting the heavy weights and then
Speaker 3: how that translates into the rest of your life, because
Speaker 3: I just feel like it's a catalyst for so many
Speaker 3: other areas.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're so right. I mean when I go heavy,
Speaker 1: which I like doing, not as heavy as you mind,
Speaker 1: you you just you feel unstoppable, you do, And I
Speaker 1: think that's what has given me the confident to do
Speaker 1: everything else that I've kind of tried to give a crack.
Speaker 3: And I think that feeling of empowerment. You know, not
Speaker 3: everybody has a really positive first experience with fitness, and
Speaker 3: I think I was just incredibly lucky to find myself
Speaker 3: in a place where people really had my back, people
Speaker 3: really inspired me, they really took me under their wing,
Speaker 3: and that sense of empowerment was such a gift that
Speaker 3: it's probably why I do what I do now, because
Speaker 3: I think, for you know, me, as both a coach
Speaker 3: and a female, there's nothing more rewarding than seeing a
Speaker 3: woman become empowered in her training and then watching how
Speaker 3: that translates into her attitude towards the rest of her life, Like,
Speaker 3: that's the coolest thing about what I get to do.
Speaker 1: And also linking that, I mean often we go to
Speaker 1: the gym and we left weights and we think, oh,
Speaker 1: we have to do this to keep fit and strengthen
Speaker 1: our muscles, especially as we're getting older. But to translate
Speaker 1: those same learnings from the gym into other areas of
Speaker 1: your life, perhaps that connection isn't made enough.
Speaker 3: No, And I think even when it comes to work ethic,
Speaker 3: like I find that if you can cultivate like a
Speaker 3: stellar work ethic and you're training, it often permeates everything
Speaker 3: else that you do. So there are so many connections
Speaker 3: that are really undervalued and not spoken about enough.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 1: Now on Instagram, you know you wrote you wrote that
Speaker 1: you're forty four, but your mind says you're twenty five
Speaker 1: when it comes to lifting weights. Now, this is probably
Speaker 1: I think something that a lot of as scrapp are we. Oh,
Speaker 1: I used to be able to lift this in the gym. Oh,
Speaker 1: I used to be able to run this. I used
Speaker 1: to be able to do this and now I can't.
Speaker 1: How do you, like, how do you manage this and
Speaker 1: navigate this?
Speaker 2: Look, I'm not going to say it's easy, because I
Speaker 2: think it's a really it's a really easy path.
Speaker 3: To fall into, especially if you're on social media and
Speaker 3: there's a lot of really fit, fine looking females out
Speaker 3: there where that genetically blessed twenty year old bodies who
Speaker 3: were doing incredible things. And I think when you get older.
Speaker 2: With filters Monday, yeah, you know, it's not.
Speaker 3: Everything that you see on social media is obviously not
Speaker 3: real life. And you know, if you put two people
Speaker 3: in front of me, who one was twenty years old
Speaker 3: lifting incredible weights in the gym and looking phenomenal, and
Speaker 3: then you have a forty year old lady lifting the
Speaker 3: same amount of weights and looking phenomenal, I'm going to
Speaker 3: be more inspired by the forty year old female and
Speaker 3: the gym lifting weights, because man, the dedication and the
Speaker 3: discipline and the commitment to cultivating that for so many
Speaker 3: years of your life and still looking like that and
Speaker 3: still being able to do like that is so much
Speaker 3: more impressive to me. And those are the people that
Speaker 3: I go to for education and empowerment and inspiration, and
Speaker 3: I wish more women would look at that and be
Speaker 3: more inspired by that, because I think the worst thing
Speaker 3: we can do as we get older is try to
Speaker 3: fight our bodies to get back to what we could
Speaker 3: do when we're twenty. And I think it's natural, Like,
Speaker 3: you know, when I was in my twenties, I had
Speaker 3: I started out in the gym purely for esthetic reasons.
Speaker 3: I wanted to look a certain way, and you buy
Speaker 3: into that. But I think inevitably along the journey you
Speaker 3: kind of then find how weights makes you feel or
Speaker 3: how training makes you feel, and you buy into that.
Speaker 3: You know, I shifted from aesthetics and then I went
Speaker 3: to performance, and now I train because I want to
Speaker 3: feel good. I want to be able to do all
Speaker 3: the things I love to do outside of the gym,
Speaker 3: and I also don't want to be in pain. You know,
Speaker 3: as you get older, your body doesn't respond the same
Speaker 3: way to either training or nutrition, and you can spend
Speaker 3: all of your time fighting that and have your body
Speaker 3: be like have an absolute tantrument about it and you
Speaker 3: not get anywhere, or you can lean into what your
Speaker 3: body actually wants, start listening to it, and start preparing
Speaker 3: for like, you know.
Speaker 2: Less summer bodies, more old lady bodies.
Speaker 1: You know, like, bring on the old lady bodies, ladies.
Speaker 3: We want strong muscles and dense bones to kind of
Speaker 3: carry us into a really strong future. Like the statistics
Speaker 3: surrounding osteoporosis and women quite terrifying, you know, like forty
Speaker 3: percent of women after menopause will develop, you know, will
Speaker 3: have an osteoproduct fracture. And by the time you're eighty,
Speaker 3: forty percent of women will have osteoporosis. I don't want fractures.
Speaker 3: I don't want to be falling over and getting injured
Speaker 3: and not having functional independence when I'm old, and we
Speaker 3: need to start preparing for that.
Speaker 1: What does your weekly strength through team of client?
Speaker 3: I since I had my head replacement, I had a
Speaker 3: head replacement six seven years ago now, and it changed
Speaker 3: the way that I train. It forced me to reassess
Speaker 3: the way that I trained. And now I probably train
Speaker 3: two to three times a week structured strength training in
Speaker 3: the gym. My warm ups and my activation and mobility
Speaker 3: and stabilization stuff are probably longer than my actual workouts themselves.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Take a long time to warm up.
Speaker 3: And then I have probably two days where I do
Speaker 3: some pilates and more restorative type stuff where I focus
Speaker 3: more on streets management.
Speaker 1: Now, talking about stress management, you are coming up in
Speaker 1: a show called Naked and Afraid Act. She's out in
Speaker 1: the US, it's coming to Australia in December. There must
Speaker 1: have been a lot of stress being in the Colombian
Speaker 1: junk call Naked? Were you afraid.
Speaker 3: God? More afraid of failure? To be honest, like, not
Speaker 3: afraid of the jungle herself, more afraid of failure. I
Speaker 3: think I spent my whole life trying to hit specific
Speaker 3: goals and being out there. The goal was to survive
Speaker 3: and that was the only thing I was really worried about,
Speaker 3: like not pulling my own weight for lack of a
Speaker 3: better term, out there. So I really leaned into all
Speaker 3: the physical hard work. I was like, the way I'm
Speaker 3: going to get through this is by being a workhorse
Speaker 3: and using the work ethic.
Speaker 2: That I've developed. And that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: We look forward to talking about about it next Healthy
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Hope you enjoyed this chat with Alexa Hearing from her
Speaker 1: now we have to get her back on when her
Speaker 1: a series of Naked and Alive drops. It is towards
Speaker 1: the end of the year, so yeah, if you do
Speaker 1: want a little snapshot of it, make sure you listen
Speaker 1: to Extra Healthyish because we talk a lot about it
Speaker 1: on there. If you did enjoy this chat, jump on
Speaker 1: rate and review it. You can subscribe to this podcast,
Speaker 1: share it with a friend someone who needs a bit
Speaker 1: of motivation when it comes to building strength anything else,
Speaker 1: head to body andsoul dot com dot you follow us
Speaker 1: on socials. G grab our print edition which is out
Speaker 1: in your local Sunday paper, and until tomorrow, Stay healthy
Speaker 1: Ish