Hi, my name is Lydia and this is my story of overcoming my rock bottom moment and how it inspired me to start my own business, Coach Lydia to help other women do the same.

If you have any questions or would like to get in touch, please don't hesitate to reach out. I'm always happy to help.

My Story

2007-2012 - My Introduction To Exercise

My fitness journey began way back in my hairdressing days in 2007. My fitness plan looked like rocking up to the gym not really knowing what I was doing, and leaving only to light up a durry, eat a milo chocolate bar and wash it down with a V drink.

Fast forward a few years I met a friend who changed my trajectory forever. Emma was a Personal Trainer and started teaching me how to use my bodyweight and free weights to exercise. I became obsessed with circuit training, loved being in the gym and decided I was going to leave hairdressing full time to study to become a Personal Trainer.

I started studying towards a Bachelor of Health Science majoring in sport and exercise science at Massey University. I managed to land myself a job as a Fitness Instructor and the rest is history. I continued to work part-time as I completed my studies and over the years worked as a Personal Trainer, Assistant Gym Manager and CrossFit Level 2 coach working at both Massey University Gym and CrossFit Central Wellington.

2012-2019 - Learning The Hard Way

Throughout the years of 2012-2019 I dabbled in all kinds of training styles from Powerlifting, CrossFit, Calisthenics/Movement, bodybuilding and general strength training. I struggled throughout this time with body image issues, and never felt like I “looked like a Personal Trainer”.

I developed habits that were not in congruence with my physique goals and without realising it at the time I was self-sabotaging which was only leaving me further away from achieving my goals.

I had the mentality that if I exercised enough I could train my way out of over eating junk food. It got me so far but would always lead me back to where I started, feeling more disheartened about being able to achieve a fit physique.

I literally would do cardio for hours thinking I had to “earn my food” later, then to only over-eat, feel shitty afterwards and then go back to overly restrictive diets. This cycle went on for many years.

2019-2020 - My Rock Bottom

At the end of 2019, here's where I hit rock bottom. After only living in Australia for 5 weeks, my partner at the time broke up with me after 5 years.

I felt blind sided, heart broken and like my life had done a 360.

I returned to NZ without a job, moved to Auckland to live with my Dad for the first time, bringing with me low self-esteem, no confidence, or sense of self.

I chose to seize this opportunity to start afresh, and to redefine who I was, who I wanted to become and how I wanted to show up in the world.

From then on, I decided that I would take full responsibility for everything about me and be intentional about creating a life worth living.

I started on my journey to Lydia 2.0 improving myself the best way I knew - through health and fitness. I started combining exercise, developing positive habits, upgrading my mindset and nutrition and leaned into my self-discovery journey doing a lot of inner work, healing and personal development.

2020-2021 - The Start Of Lydia 2.0

Our first lockdown inspired me to dabble in Calisthenics again and use this time to develop a new skillset and another level of self-mastery.

Despite having a lot of knowledge with exercise, starting Calisthenics felt really complicated. I reached out to this “High Fitness guy” aka Sam, who I'd heard about in previous years working in Wellington. One Skype call later, Sam offered me a job to work at ONI studio, we became best friends and now he is my life collaborator.

I've been training Calisthenics and strength training ever since and continuing on my path of self-discovery.

Sam and I had an opportunity to move to Dunedin and start our own businesses respectively.

With me creating my own business I wanted to do things differently in the fitness space. I was passionate about combining exercise and personal development to help women to achieve their fitness goals all while becoming the most badass versions of themselves in the process.

I definitely had moments of feeling like an imposter and second guessing if anyone would be interested in my approach. After navigating a lot of self-doubt and second guessing my abilities I committed to going all in and founded “The Badass Collective”.

I created The Badass Collective with a mission to empower and educate women who want to discover who they truly are and what they're capable of achieving and most importantly who they are capable of becoming using exercise and personal development to do so.

As I was trying to figure out this business thing, I was also doing a lot of inner work trying to navigate outdated narratives, and self-sabotaging behaviours that I still felt were holding me back from growing my business and feeling like my best self. And on top of that, I still felt insecure about my physique.

That year I ended up under-eating, over training, losing my period and feeling more frustrated than ever. I had lost body fat, but I wasn't happy with how I felt and achieving my goal of building a physique I felt proud of felt further away than ever.

I knew that in order to achieve results I hadn't experienced before, I needed to do things differently.

2022-2023 - Thriving Begins

After being fed up with trying to follow nutrition plans I wanted to take ownership of my cyclic all or nothing nutrition habits and invested in reading the 3DMJ Nutrition Pyramid by Eric Helms and investing in my own amazing coach Brad Loomis. You can get your hands on the book here - https://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/ and check out more information about Brad here https://3dmusclejourney.com/about/brad-loomis/.

Following these nutrition principles, Sam and I did our first fat loss phase together and after 8 weeks alone I'd achieved the unthinkable. I honestly felt like that was the best physique I had achieved yet, and not only that, I loved who I was and who I was becoming in the process.

The most satisfying thing was knowing I took full ownership of my journey and showed myself I could achieve what had always felt impossible.

I learned how to calculate my calories, and hit my macros along with adopting healthy habits to assist with my fat loss phase such as increasing my daily steps, sleeping 7-8 hours, managing my stress, ditching my all or nothing mindset, upgrading my limiting beliefs, being unapologetic in my pursuit, surrounding myself with like-minded people and training with intention and intensity in a way that allowed me to focus on my performance, strength and feeling like a badass all while building my physique as a by-product.

Changing the way I was thinking and reframing my approach helped me become obsessed about the journey of progression and feel good along the journey instead of waiting to achieve “the goal” before feeling good about my body and myself.

2023 - Present Day - Living My Best Self

I can hands down tell you that I'm so grateful for everything I've experienced because it's helped me become the version of me I am today equipped with the understanding, knowledge and tools that helped me go from surviving to thriving that allows me to help other women do the same.

It's been nearly 3 months since finishing my fat loss phase, and starting my maintenance phase and I'm loving my physique, growing my business and creating my harmonious lifestyle.

I'm currently training Calisthenics and Bodybuilding style training along with eating more food in order to achieve my goals of unlocking a strict bar muscle up, build more muscle, feel strong AF and continue discovering who I am capable of becoming.

This journey hasn't been easy but I wouldn't have it any other way.

I've had to learn more about myself more than ever before, but in doing so it has allowed me to build a body I feel proud of, a business I'm so passionate about and a create a life I'm obsessed all while helping other like-minded women do the same.

Coach Lydia xx

Thanks

If you have any questions or if there's anything you would like to discuss, please feel free to message me anytime, I'm always willing to help.