GYM GIRLS LOCKER ROOM - I had to BECOME the woman I needed when I was younger | maymah.lifts

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

EP 05 - in this episode Syd sits down with her friend and hijabi gymrat Maymah (AKA maymah.lifts). WATCH the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/kMdU4cLrWl0 💘 join the GGLR community: INSTA - https://www.instagram.com/gymgirlslockerroom/ FACEBOOK COMMUNITY PAGE - https://bit.ly/3TqhxDG TIKTOK - https://www.tiktok.com/@gymgirlslockerroom/ 📲 find Syd on socials: INSTA - https://www.instagram.com/sydgrows/ TIKTOK - https://www.tiktok.com/@sydgrows/ connect with Maymah: https://linktr.ee/maymah.lifts GYMSHARK - 10% off code: SYDNEY

Hi guys and welcome back to the Gym Girls are Coming podcast hosted by me, Sydney Cassidy. Today we have Maymar on. If you don't know Maymar, she is a social media influencer, Gymshark athlete and a very good friend of mine. She is a hijabi woman and has overcome quite a lot, has been a massive role model for Muslim women. And I'm just really proud of her. We've had a really lovely conversation. I can't wait for you guys to give it a listen. This is like the perfect episode for anyone that's just trying to really like show up

as their like most authentic self. And for anyone that's dealing with judgment or fear of what maybe loved ones would think of them or you know that sort of thing. She's overcome quite a lot and it was a pleasure to have her on the episode today. I do just want to give a trigger warning. There is a discussion towards the latter end of the episode about her eating disorder. Before we get into the episode I just want to ask you guys to give us a follow if you are listening on Spotify or a subscribe if you're listening on Apple or watching on YouTube. It really helps us out in pushing us out to a wider audience

and also means that you guys get to find out when we post a new episode you can find us at jimgirls.com on instagram and facebook and i think apart from that we are ready to get into the episode so i hope you enjoy and i'll see you in the next one mamal hello hi i feel like i need a cup of tea or something oh my god we can still get one yeah are you a coffee tea person coffee tea both you know i like tea for my biscuits because i'm a dunker oh I also are like I'm impartial to an iced coffee an iced iced in the summer in the winter of a latte or a mocha I I've actually had this like funny turn where I start I've started getting like really anxious having coffees now like yeah I pride myself on being a coffee connoisseur and right now it just gives me

like mad palpitations that's if I just have the coffee alone and nothing for the rest of the day so I have to usually have something with it otherwise it's a wrap for me it's a struggle being an adult um there's this thing that I remember you once saying at like one of the events we did which I feel like is like a perfect introduction to people that don't know you do you remember the time you said something we were like doing a panel talk and you said something like you like to lift heavy do you know what I eat burgers lift heavy and have fun doing it something probably something something so beautiful like that um yeah like for people that don't know you how do you like to define yourself I feel like I

hmm I like to break stereotypes with that being a Muslim woman and a woman in general in fitness because i like to push boundaries when it comes to being in the gym and the activities that i decide to do in the gym and just enjoy it and make it a positive experience and show people that there is balance just because you're into fitness and you go to the gym whatever doesn't mean that your diet's always going to be 100 especially if you're not working towards a goal so there's that that kind of balance as well that I like to show people that not everything is perfect and with social media as well it's so easy to just see the good side of everyone's lives but in reality it's just not like that you are a Muslim woman and I feel like do you think that is like a massive sort of anchor point for your content creation that you do yeah 100% because

majority of my audience are the muslim women and there's not a lot of us in the fitness space that kind of show our journeys with that from a cultural perspective as well as like a personal perspective so I feel like it's really important that there's more the more of us the merrier because it just it brings awareness and it gives people confidence to see other people like them online. Totally. I mean, it's funny because, you know, even for myself as like a white woman, I feel like growing up there wasn't I didn't have many like role models by way of like being strong lifting so I can't even imagine what it was like I mean did you have any no not really you had to I had to kind of become the woman that I wish was there when I was younger do you know what I mean I love that is that not just the dream like I think that's so beautiful it's weird you know it's really really weird thinking about about it

back then because when I first started going to the gym I had like no one to look to for like advice on how to style like my gym outfits in a modest way um I didn't really kind of know what I knew there was other like fitness influencers that were able to give me information on what to do in the gym but everything else around that there was kind of nothing no what was so like yeah what is your origin story like where how did you start going and yeah like what was the process particularly I imagine having loads of added barriers let alone just being a woman but so when I first started I was kind of in that gap between finishing A-levels and starting uni um and I was always one of those girls in high school that had to be with her

friends or with a group of people to do stuff like I didn't really have that much self-confidence and at the time I was on my mental health wasn't in the best place so I was like I was kind of like giving myself an ultimatum like I need to do this I'm going to try it and if it doesn't work out that's fair enough but if it does this could be life-changing um I remember so when I got my first gym membership I only got it for a week I didn't commit to the full month because that was too scary so I only got it for a week and then I started to go and looking back at first it was good because I was able to see the benefits after a couple months and I felt better in myself mentally but I really hated it sometimes because of how I think insecure I was in the way that I dressed and being the only Muslim woman in the

gym and I really struggled with that for the first couple of months but slowly slowly when I started posting as well people like oh my god I've never seen this before um and that it's so good to see and it's so inspiring and then that made me think that maybe there is something a bit deeper to this so I continued to post and then found my community and then it kind of all came together and it's nice because people tell me that I instill confidence in them but they don't realize that they give me that same confidence to know that they exist and they see my videos and that they take inspiration from it I feel like it's really wholesome oh my god no definitely how is women in exercise and you thinking like I'm gonna set foot in the gym what's that like within your community and within your faith and how's that seen feel like culturally there's a lot of barriers because of all the mentality and like stigma around women in fitness they're like oh

um there's kind of if if something doesn't make you money or make you more educated then it's a waste of time some people see it as um a masculine thing that women shouldn't be in the gym um like luckily my family aren't like this but I know that some other people have told me that their families are like saying to them that no one's going to want to marry you if you get too big. Or why do you want to go to the gym? You're already skinny. I did this sticker on my stories the other day where I asked people for different stigmas around the gym. And so many people like saying that they're going to say that you become infertile, that no one's going to want to marry you and things like that. And it's just ridiculous. And it's just it's sad because a lot of when you're a kid growing up you don't want to go against your parents you don't

want to go against you don't upset anyone because obviously you're still a child you can't move yourself away from that physically um so I feel like it all came from a lack of education um personally for me it was kind of just like being a muslim woman in the gym in itself there were so many times that i was the only one there and sometimes i still am um and kind of flipping my mindset to thinking that to be a limiting factor and something that would make me feel insecure and like i stick out like a sore thumb to something that's empowering um and like a statement to say that i i'm a muslim woman i do wear the hijab and i'm in the gym because obviously the fitness industry is so much about results results results like people want to see your glute gains and people want to like see your muscle flexors whatever and then to not do any of that and like not show your skin in a place where majority of people show their skin it's

quite daunting because it's like what you like why you even here but then I feel like over the years people have become really educated towards mental benefits of working out so slowly slowly it's become less daunting and like the whole thing about pump covers like not everyone like there's so much more flex and so much more range in the way that people choose to express themselves in the gym and I feel like with that coming emerging with that emerging it's helped a lot of people that may not want to show their skin kind of come out of their shell a bit more oh my god okay there's like so many places I want to go with this first off I wonder do you feel like that kind of like lack of education or so I'm thinking you're a child

you're a Muslim child I feel like for anyone growing up, when you grow up, your parents, like what your parents tell you is your truth. Like that to you is like, how am I trying to say that? That is the truth, right? Of like whatever it is. And I wonder, like, do you think that that's why there's such a like lack of like women in the space? Because they hear like these wild things and I guess they don't have anyone questioning that or I feel like it's a generational thing as well because if your mom's been brought up a certain way to think those things she's not obviously deviate she's not

deviated from that path to figure out that's not the truth so then you're built up trying to be told that same truth and then if you don't kind of break the chain, you're never going to know. No, yeah. No, definitely. So how have you found like the whole trying to dress modestly? First off, what does that, to people that are listening that don't know, myself included, like what is the extent of that? There's varying degrees degrees isn't there yeah yeah so like being a muslim woman would mean that you'd try to wear hijab now hijab isn't just the way that you dress it's the way that you act as well the way you carry yourself um as yeah there's all these different factors to it so it's the way that you speak to people it's the way that

you carry yourself it's the way that you treat others and things like that um but when it comes to the clothing side of it it's kind of there is a spectrum because there's like the extra not extreme but the other side of the spectrum which would be like like for like basically like a black maxi dress and like a big like a scarf on and then there's like varying degrees of that obviously because people are trying to are striving towards that. It can be quite a big jump to go from nothing to 100 in like a day. So I feel like people kind of work their way up or try to at least. So for me, the way I see modesty, it's just covering myself in a way that you're not really able to see what's underneath you know um so like I tend to go

for like oversized stuff all the time like big t-shirts just stuff that doesn't make me feel how do I say this so stuff that doesn't make me feel like I'm uncomfortable that my shape is showing when I'm in the gym yeah so is it about silhouette like making sure you're kind of obscuring that and that that's not showing okay and do you how do you feel the sort of experience has been over the years I imagine it's probably changed quite a lot like as I feel like there's been a lot more sort of variation with gym silhouettes and that sort of thing. Yeah.

How have you found that? And like when I first started going to the gym, I was actually so anxious that I didn't wear my scarf in the gym. It's really weird. I used to wear my scarf outside the gym, but inside the gym, I was so scared and so anxious. I feel like it was like, I felt like there was a bullseye on me if I had my hijab on in the gym. So I used to find other ways of covering my hair so like with a cap and a hood or just like a hood something like that instead of actually wearing a headscarf because I used to the thought of it used to terrify me when I gained the confidence though like I I was quite small at that time um so I used to be able to get away with like

wearing like long vest tops and like I used to wear leggings as well when I first started going to the gym um and then slowly but not slowly I kind of learned more about the hijab and what it truly meant so then I grew closer to that so then I tried other ways of styling so like I switched from leggings to joggers and then like oversized t-shirts and stuff like that and just trying different styles till I've kind of found what I like what would you say to someone that's listening right now that even they don't even need to be a Muslim maybe they just like have always felt sort of that gym culture kind of encourages feel makes them feel like they need to show skin when maybe actually they are like maybe I will dress a little bit more modestly like what would you say for you know people that want to do that that maybe don't feel like they have the confidence to particularly with like wearing a hijab and that sort of thing I feel like experiment find

what works for you just because it works for someone else doesn't mean that it's going to work for you do it in colors that make you feel happy and like styles that make you feel good um do small steps as well because again making changes really quick can be quite daunting um so like change up maybe a crop top for like an oversized tee try like some new joggers just and like getting yourself new items as well and not wearing them anywhere apart from in the gym because I feel like if you start using like wearing your pajama bottoms or like your pajama joggers in the gym it's kind of like you feel like you're not really making an effort so then you feel kind of less confident sometimes

so maybe experiment in that way as well and everyone's in the gym for their own purpose no one's looking at you i promise yeah even though it feels like you've got this massive bullseye they really aren't it's so funny when you do growing confidence you realize damn everyone is so concerned with themselves yeah and nobody no one cares cares in the best way possible yeah like in the most beautiful way obviously we're both Gymshark athletes and a lot of like our job will be being at shoots and um posing and wearing certain clothing and that sort of thing and I feel like I always you know because we are friends like I always kind of look out for you in those moments where like I can see that you I don't know I don't know what you'd label it as like whether it's a discomfort or what but I can I want to ask you about flexing and all that

sort of thing like do you feel a little bit like left out at times like that or yeah yeah like sometimes if it's like um like the vibe for the shoot is like muscles and aesthetic and strong women and then I just kind of feel kind of useless can't lie because I'm just like they're like I'm an undercover tank guys I promise I've got muscles underneath this t-shirt but I cannot take it off right now you're gonna have to believe me yeah if we could do like a changing room shoot where the photos go nowhere that would be great but right now this t-shirt's not coming off yeah sometimes it can be a bit uncomfortable when you you don't really feel like you fit the vibe of everyone else um but then I feel like there's different ways of showing your

strengths like when we did that deadlift photo with everyone and it was kind of like even though you can't see my muscles that doesn't mean I don't have any um and I feel like that message is so strong in situations like that because when you see a photo with all girls flexing and stuff if I was a modest person and I saw that it wouldn't really instill any confidence in me because I'll be like I don't really know what I look like in the gym if I ever look like that but if you start to integrate people who may not fit that same aesthetic it can kind of cater to people of different backgrounds yeah what's been like the importance of like community for you along your journey so so important it's so nice to be able to have a group of people that understand the struggles that you go through so like a bad hijab

day that might mean nothing to you but it means absolutely nothing it means so much to some other girls or um complaining about not being able to find like the right pump cover or just not feeling confident in myself and my hijab like on a certain day and then that resonates with a lot of other people and I feel like it really um personifies you as a presence on social media because obviously with socials you only see one side of a person and it's quite difficult to get to know them on a human level so when I start to vent or ask people about these issues they're like oh yeah I go through the exact same thing um and as well with like being on my period and like self-confidence issues especially

as a hijabi woman because we don't because we don't show our skin our self-confidence can kind of fluctuate quite a lot especially for me in the gym because sometimes I feel like damn I wish I could take this t-shirt off right now because I want to know what my pump looks like but I can't and it's like it can be quite frustrating sometimes but to know that other people go through that same thing it makes you feel a bit more less alone yeah Yeah, you almost like as a non-wearing, like how do I say it? Non-hijab wearing woman? Non-Muslim woman.

You know, you wonder like, you don't even consider these things. And I remember one time we were, it was the heat of summer and we were with a with a band doing yeah doing a um what was it like a high rocks yeah basically simulation they just threw us into it yeah and like that was really interesting that was something I hadn't even considered like you know everyone's stripped down to like minimal layers because it was absolutely sweltering but you didn't have that option and like that's just something that like I guess I wouldn't consider because I don't I don't

experience that um yeah like what do you do in summer yeah sometimes summer is really hard I can imagine yeah this is the thing is where you have to find ways of styling yourself through all seasons. So thinner layers, but also layers that aren't so thin that they see through. There's so many other things you have to worry about as well, like layers coming up and showing skin or whatever. Wearing the right bottom so that you don't start getting chafing or whatever. There's just so many different factors to start getting chafing or whatever there's just so many different factors to it so that high rocks or crossfit isn't something that I'd usually

do because of how much moving there is because I don't want to accidentally show anything but I also want to be truly focused in the workout so unless it was like in a woman's only facility I wouldn't really do it okay so do you do you find like would we say it holds you back in ways? Or is it just you don't feel comfortable doing certain exercise? I feel like it doesn't really hold me back. It just, because I'm anxious, it's going to detract from what I'm actually trying to do. Because I'll be thinking about, oh my God, all these layers. Oh my God, am I going to start sweating?

Like, am I going to be able to get through this workout? Or am I just going to end up sweating my head off and getting dehydrated whatever I feel like there there are workarounds so if I wore like a different type of hijab or if I like got specific bottoms for that type of workout or something like that then I'd be I think I'd be able to do it but with that day we weren't briefed we weren't told that we were going to be doing that so then I wasn't able to dress appropriately for the occasion obviously for everyone else was just like bring your favorite sprouts bring your shorts bring your favorite like light sports bra whatever and then for me it was like okay I've got these thick ass joggers on I had like I think I was

wearing like a vital seamless like a thick t-shirt on and I was like you guys you should have briefed me a bit better because I would have been a lot more comfortable yeah definitely is that something that you've come into many runnings with like brands and within the industry with like catering towards your need is it something that's like overlooked or is are they pretty good sometimes it's I feel like it's not overlooked it's just that they're just unaware and it's just like a lack of education then it's like it like brings up the conversation so I'd be like oh I might not be able to meet at this event because I'm fasting they're like oh why why why is that and then I'd be like oh because it's Ramadan and they're like oh right okay yeah and then like the conversation sparks from there

um so sometimes I feel like it's just not ignorance from the people that I've spoken with it's just lack of education ignorance almost I mean because I I feel ignorant things just because I don't yeah it's I'm just not aware um do you feel like people kind of get do people shy away from asking certain questions yeah almost like almost like a taboo but like not you know what I mean like between different cultures yeah I feel like people sometimes I don't know if it comes from a place of fear or if they just don't want to offend me but I feel like I'm quite open and I understand that if you're not brought up around these like around other Muslims or if you're not part of that kind of social circle you're never going to know unless you speak to one or speak to someone about it or educate yourself so I'm

pretty open to answering questions and um even like on my platforms and stuff sometimes I get questions like what is Ramadan like what even is a hijab and stuff like that and I'll answer them and not do it in a sarcastic way because it comes from a genuine place people aren't doing it because they're trying to take the mix people genuinely just don't know that's fine it's not a bad thing to not know I think it's a bad thing to be able to be given the opportunity to ask questions educate yourself and miss it um because you feel like you just don't care enough that's where like I can so see that to girls to young girls like young Muslim girls like it must be so helpful to be able to have social media now like those little things like oh you know in the

summer what do I wear what materials are like preferential what like can I yeah is there is there quite a um how do they say it like is there quite a good sort of spread of uh Muslim women across like all sports now like i know that i've definitely even myself like noticed there's like a much stronger presence within like the gym community it does it seem that way for sports as a whole yeah like the other day i was just scrolling and i came across this muslim mma fighter like mixed martial arts from russia or something and i was like that is insane first lady Muslim woman I've ever seen in MMA and it was amazing yeah so what did that look like so I think she was actually like in a

professional fight as well with someone else which was really really interesting and was she dressed modestly yeah so she had um like compression leggings on then shorts and like a t-shirt and then she had like um a one-piece headscarf on and I was like that is so crazy I want to be you that is so cool I love that um yeah I've seen everything apart from swimming because obviously you have to have like your hair out or like a cap on but it would really work the same way yeah definitely no it's amazing I think a reason why we've kind of been at maybe perhaps so many things together like brand wise and whatever is because I feel like we have quite aligned beliefs towards like women in fitness and just because I'm not a Muslim woman and I'm not

I don't dress modestly I still really at like my core believe in something that I believe you also do that like there's so much more to sort of um the world of fitness and empowerment as a woman um you know like strength and just like how it makes you feel and all those sorts of things um and I just wondered if you could talk about like what strength training because did you start doing strength training yeah yeah so like same with me like what did strength training because did you start doing strength training yeah yeah so like same with me like what did strength training do for you especially like within your sort of like niche you're in you know like yeah I always tell people that being a woman in fitness is scary being a Muslim woman in fitness is terrifying and starting off with something that before was seen as masculine and quite

dominating you know strength training it was really really scary at first but then you kind of have to flip your mindset to think that this isn't something that's going to make me stand out it's making me feel empowered this is giving me confidence and I feel so good when I'm doing it and over time as well when you work towards your goals and it's like you start to achieve them and get stronger and get better and you feel so good in yourself and you're like yeah I'm a woman I've got muscles what about it like what about it I feel so good in myself and that's all that matters um and strength training as well for me it just it showed me what dedication to working towards a goal can really do for you because even though every day might not be 100% um even though every PR attempt might not happen if you still continue to work towards it it will happen because of all the work that you put in yeah definitely where are you at

with your training now right now I'm kind of just vibing no I gave up I not gave up I just I fell out of love with deadlifting I just completely fell off the wagon I was like because it's just so mentally exhausting I've every week having to hype myself up for this and obviously the stronger you get the more tiring it is and it's like it takes me an hour minimum to do them and I was like I don't want to do something else because I've been doing them for two years. And I'm like, there's other goals that I want to achieve. I've been wanting to pull up for so long. And then I just switched completely.

So I stopped doing that. And then I started doing more like body weight stuff. Got my pull up, felt gassed. It's like so, so, such an empowering moment. And now I'm like, okay, maybe do I want to go back to deadlifts? I'm like, oh, I'm 25 now. Am I really built for that to deadlifts I'm like oh I'm 25 now I'm really built for that you know I'm a bit old now yeah you're always built for it I I remember someone saying like I think it was like my gym bros that like I used to train with um when I

was doing like a lot of like power lifting I'm just like it's just heavy and they're like Sid you've reached a point now where like every set is going to be heavy so you just need to push through it and keep going and I'm like I don't want to know but yeah I've been exactly the same because it's so funny we've been quite aligned on a lot of our journey like even down to us both PRing the same amount should have gone for 180 that day. We didn't have time. I know. I don't think I'll ever get back up there.

And then it's like the fact that like, you know, there's me in my feels like, I'm just like, I've fallen out of love with powerlifting. And then I find Maymont's literally doing the same. But yeah, no, that was just like, yeah, it's so funny. But I don't see it as a bad thing

because there's so many different avenues within fitness and like bodybuilding there's so many different goals that you can work towards this one can take a back seat for a while because it's it's been at the forefront of what I've been doing basically for the past three years I think it's time to let like other goals start to get achieved yeah and it's just fun like I think you're sort of similar like to how a lot of us are that like we do want to enjoy ourselves and I think it's just fun to learn yeah and to just see where it goes so what so what does like a normal training session look like for you what's like your split and so I do two lower body days a week and two upper body days a week with work and stuff I kind of just fit them in where I can um now every session apart from

the days I dead deadlift if I can't be bothered um I'll start off with pull-ups because I really want to get good at them so I've started not forcing myself but started conscience consciously integrating that into every single session so then I don't forget to do them because I'm always like oh yeah I'll do them at the end of the workout you're not going to do them at the end of the workout you're fatigued by that yeah it's time to just like give yourself up to win literally not doing that so I do it at the start um uh things I'm focusing on right now are like hack squat I really really want to get a three-planplan hack squat so I'm working towards that um started training glutes again I fell out of love with training glutes I just couldn't do it anymore it was just so tiring like setting up for glute bridges

and the doms I was just over it um but now I'm like okay let's reignite that fire so we start doing that again and upper body wise um actually training my upper body because I haven't well when I first started my gym journey I believed everything that was on the internet so I thought that I'm gonna get too big if I start training upper body so until about October-ish last year I never used to do any chest exercises or anything like that um so now I've actually started doing them I'm flipping love it it's amazing it's amazing yeah such an empowering feeling once you switch over to doing upper body you're just like how is this not a thing that women do yeah why don't I do this sooner yeah yeah do you love training shoulders I adore I'm

really into chest workouts right now chest and trice and arms in general shoulders okay that's fine you know what though I think perhaps maybe that is like because you do dress modestly like if I'm thinking about it like actually I thought of a really good question how do you like bouncing off what I was just saying how do you find like that whole like muscle my muscle connection like with dressing modestly is that something you've actually like struggled with or no yeah sometimes it's when you only see yourself in baggy clothes in the gym you don't really know what you look like so it's quite hard to visualize what your end goal is but I have started consciously like seeing what my pump looks like afterwards and like doing like

body checks and stuff because if I went so long without doing it I genuinely I didn't know what I looked like for such a long amount of time I didn't know like what my back muscles looked like because I never used to flex I never used to even know what they look like in motion and stuff um so I've started consciously doing that and um visualizing the muscle in my mind or what I want to look like when I'm doing my set I feel like it's that's really really helped quite a lot um and just visualizing the end goal as well yeah yeah I'm sure there's a thing about um there was a study and I can't give you guys any more details on that there was a study there was a study and I'm kind of paraphrasing but we'll go there this is why we actually miss Ellis when we don't have

her um I love that study yeah I know exactly the one you're talking about um but there's a study when they got like a a group of like participants and then they got another group one group were like really visualizing thinking through that movement um the other group weren't and they were still doing and they were doing the same workouts and the group that were visualizing were really thinking about that my muscle connection had like my like miles better gains they were doing the same exercises and it's just like there's so much like power there with my muscle connection because my um socials as well i follow a lot of bodybuilders so i see like what they look like when they're working out and then i start thinking about that in my head but with me so i want huge quads i want to see the lines in my legs

yeah yeah exactly fat pump even just like being more educated with the actual muscle itself means maybe you don't need to look at it. I feel like as long as you have an image of sorts in your head and you're thinking about growing that or using that particular muscle throughout an exercise, it helps. Yeah, definitely. So for people that don't know, you work as? A medical dosimetrist. Yeah, that's number one.

I know that so well. Could you explain what that is? Yeah, so for people that have cancer and have radiotherapy, I plan their treatment. So I did my degree in radiotherapy and oncology, so I actually used to work as a radiographer, which means I used to give them the treatment. So now I've kind of gone behind the scenes and I plan the treatment.

How do you... Do you do shift work for that no no no it's fixed fixed how how do you balance like training with just like working and do you feel like you're in quite a good flow with that yeah I feel like because luckily for me it's like a one day work from home so I'm able to kind of fit my workout sitting around that um and I understand as well like people with nine to fives how hard it is to integrate fitness I know after work it's so tiring as well because you have to think about your sleep as well and get that in check your meals as well because if you're having lunch at 12 or one or whatever five o'clock you're going to be starving and then you've got a session to do it's just it's a lot of mental endurance that goes into achieving your fitness goals if you have like a full-time job

um so I kind of just see what my working from home day is and I'll bash gym the day like the day before so then I'm sore but I'll be at home so I don't have to move so do you experience a lot of doms yeah you know sometimes sometimes yeah nine times out of ten I do I feel like I get more doms with muscles I haven't been training as often so chest and my arms because I never used to push towards like to my limit with those muscle groups until recently so now I've started to get DOMS um but for like sessions like back I don't really get major DOMS because I'm just so hench but also DOMS for anyone that doesn't know is like you know that like really sore pain you get after you've been training also I hear so many people saying like oh my god I've got the worst pain like don't worry if you're a beginner it does

go it isn't something that stays around for ages it's just because whenever you switch up or you're new to an exercise it just kills it reignites a muscle that you didn't even know you thought you had yeah you're walking up the stairs like and then you just nosedive down the stairs instead of walking literally um so is consistency something that like you really struggle with or not really sometimes yeah because it's like if you've had crap sleep the night before work and then you finish work and you're just like you know what sack it i'm not going because sometimes you just know as like in yourself if you've had crap sleep and rubbish diet you know your session's not going to go as

well as you want it to sometimes pre-workout can't fix everything. So it can be a bit difficult sometimes if I'm stressed out about other factors in life and then everything else is kind of impacted by that. But then sometimes I'm like, yeah, I'm tired, but I can survive. It's kind of like figuring out when to push through and when you actually need to give yourself a break. What do you do for like respite and downtime and stuff like that are you good with that I really like sitting in silence I just really love quiet time I'll get like true crime documentaries on oh yeah love those um and I'll either just like chill out and just watch the documentary and just like snack.

I like snacking. Or I'll do some like Lego or something. Something that completely detaches my mind. I see you playing Lego. Well, do you say playing Lego? I don't know, like maybe building. I see you building. Yeah, I really want to get on that.

Yeah. What's your Lego of choice? You know what? I used to bash doing like branded Lego kits. And then I bought this one set from like... Don't say. It's boot Lego. It's not real Lego.

It's like bootleg. Okay. Oh my God. I thought you were going to say TikTok shop then. No, no, no. Boot Lego. I love that. And the pieces are like minuscule, the size of like my little fingernail and it's so much harder but I love the challenge because I felt like normal lego was too

easy because it just gives you step-by-step instructions everything's segregated into stages I thought it was really really easy as long as you just know how to follow instructions so I've started doing that one and it's so hard oh my gosh no I actually really want to do that I'll send you some links please where do people get it you're gonna get frustrated oh god I didn't touch it for like six months last year because I just couldn't do it I don't have great patience yeah maybe start off with some actual lego first yeah maybe yeah i got a list the uh flowers one that's cute yeah yeah and my friends are like obsessed with it there's like a treehouse one that i really want there's a nintendo one as well like the the tv actually like changes scenes like the mario one that's awesome i really wanted the it's like a really cheap low-key one um but like they do like a campervan

one yeah that's cute I like that one um you have always struck me as someone who's like very just like self-assured I think that was quite like obvious from the first time we met and like throughout is that something that you have just like innately always just had within you or is that something you've worked on? That is something that I've worked on for a long time. When I, before gym, before socials, I was the most anxious, awkward person ever. I used to be so socially awkward that like during, just before my fitness journey, if if the phone rang I used to like pretend that I was deaf so then I didn't have to answer it because it just it set me off that much pretending to like it was like um when I was on work placement I remember like you know when you

have to get you have to get experience I'm not answering that phone what are they gonna tell me you just wouldn't think that looking at you like or like knowing you yeah you know like yeah no I was so so bad I could even make eye contact with people it's just awful yeah and then throughout the years um I feel I've been through certain experiences that have really helped me become self-assured like hate comments sometimes when you do like a one-off collab post or something and it doesn't go down the way that you thought it would or you just see a cute a few comments you're just like why would you even think that they're so far removed from the actual message of the video so how did you even come to this conclusion but reading them and thinking you

know what my social circles support me my family support me I'm not hurting anybody and I'm feeling happy and I feel confident and I'm so sorry that my existence offends you and upsets you that much that you have to you know type something out on a keyboard to make yourself feel better and that you've achieved something um and it just I feel like now hate comments kind of just make me laugh they're a humor point for me because it's like why am why am I triggering you so much that you feel like you have to lash out you know otherwise you're gonna have some sort of internal breakdown um but before they used to really really upset me I remember the first time I was ever down to shoot with Gymshark we it was the day before I was gonna go to lifting club to do like a podcast segment and that actual like major shoot and I

had a bunch of hate comments I was like is this even worth it like should I just delete my account I just I don't see the point in this anymore. It really, really shook me. I think that was a real pinnacle moment for me to think, am I going to stick with this? Am I going to believe in my own message first before I put one out there? Am I going to let these people that I don't even know kind of hurt me? I went to the shoot anyway. Then that whole day, even know kind of hurt me um so I kind of just I went to the shoot anyway and then that whole day I was kind of feeling a bit off and then when I got back and I reflected on what I'd just done I was like I've just done a shoot with like one of the biggest fitness companies in the UK and you think that some little shitty comment is gonna make me feel bad no do you deal with that

quite and has has like hate comments been quite a big part of like your sort of existence within the social media space I feel like yeah because it's such a it used to be such a rare thing for people to see and because it was so different to them the only way that they could respond was negatively because they didn't know like what I was about um and I don't get them a lot now it's just the odd you know video whatever that goes viral or whatever on whichever platform actually but it's just I feel like it comes from a place of fear it comes from a place of again lack of education and it comes from a place of um just being brought up a certain way to believe only and to think in only one plane like one plane like one direction so that you you can't

see you can't you can't mentally open your mind up to other possibilities of like, it sounds so stupid, literally just a Muslim woman in the gym and you're being triggered by that. It's just insane to me. It's like, I always feel that like what I try to tell myself is like, those hate comments are just a reflection on themselves. They're nothing about you. They really aren't.

It's actually just saying a ton more about them than it is you um have you ever like encountered anything within the gym space that's been like hateful or anything or is it largely quite a positive yeah sort of when you actually got out of your own head thinking everyone was looking or whatever is it actually like you know what yeah nothing yeah sometimes you're like oh why is this person like giving me side eye whatever in the gym and then a funny thing that happened to me actually is that someone was doing that to me and I was aware of it but I didn't really care at the time and then they came up to me and they're like oh my god you're so strong I've never seen that before I think you're the first girl in this gym to even do that I was like wow thank you for supporting me and not being mean yeah like it was such a nice wholesome moment it's like

not everyone even though you might get hate comments and then you might want to generalize a certain group of people not everyone is like that um especially in real life as well you'll find that you have more positive positive interactions in the gym because again the gym is a place where everyone's there to work on themselves no one's got any place to judge you in the gym even if you're like day one gym goer or day 500 it doesn't matter because we all started from the same point and I feel like it's such a it's an environment where everyone's working on themselves mentally physically and we all just want each other to do better so that's why like in the gym whenever you see like

someone doing a PR you're probably like silently cheering them on in your head or you're like yeah go on but you might not have the confidence to go up to them or you might you know might not even speak to them but we're all working towards something and when you remember that core message about being in the gym it just makes it such a more positive and wholesome experience when you're there. As you are the deadlift queen. We were deadlift queens. I don't know what happened. I don't know. Hey, we've moved.

We've grown. We've evolved. We could be back. Oh, yeah. I just decided to give everyone else a chance to catch up before. Completely. By the time there's the next uk lift we'll be back on the grind we're just you know diverging a little bit you know she's doing a bit of crossfit she's

doing a lot of calisthenics um what tips would you give for people that are looking to improve their deadlifts um i feel like first and foremost is don't exhaust yourself with chasing and chasing numbers so far yeah they're gonna come naturally they're gonna come on a good day you might not even want to deadlift that day you might not even have them down for that day and you're like you know what i feel like deadlifting today and then you get a pr um don't build up a lot of mental hype around deadlift day i used to do this so much and i used to like take two scoops of pre-workout, a dry scoop used to get really really like ah in the gym, like super high energy and then sometimes it might not used to work

out or the session used to go bad and they'd be like oh my god why has that happened, everything was on point, whatever. There's so many different external factors like your sleep, your diet, how you're feeling mentally as well. Lifting is such a mental game. If you even let the thought of you failing come into your head it's probably not going to happen you're probably already lost by that point so you need to really go into it with laser focus and enjoy it failure is part of the progress and it's part of the journey to success you're not gonna pass with flying colors every time you're not gonna get every single pr you might set out to but that's okay and don't exhaust yourself with it i only used to deadlift once a week and people

used to think that i used to deadlift like every other day no once a week and don't put pressure on yourself some pressure is good pressure because then that drives your ambition and your kind of desire to reach your goals but don't get so hyped like overhyped about it especially if you're not training for a competition or you're not there's no like deadline to what you're working towards chill out enjoy it I feel like becoming sort of friends with failure is such a like important part of anyone's sort of fitness journey just realizing that failure is such like an integral part of your journey and I think I used to take it so so personally like I used to take it so personally especially if you're someone who's like quite either a perfectionist or you're quite driven

you're like oh my god why why is it not working but it's actually yeah so important and you know the people that are the most successful have just they're only really there because they've passed through so much failure and they've sort of come out the other side i'll give you some attention was there anything you wanted to discuss just talking about life outside the gym oh my god please yeah do yeah and like how have you got going no no just in general like oh food having a good time and not feeling bad oh my god yeah okay yeah fine yeah like I over the last year I made new friends and our only way of socializing was by going out to eat that's amazing because we're all gym rats

but every time we saw each other we used to eat and I'm not talking like a little snack we used to eat like how did you meet them um on socials and then we only really started meeting in person last year um and at the time as well I wasn't going I was going through something that kind of really hurt me or put me down mentally so I was using them not as a support system but it really those kind of days really picked like helped me feel better yeah but it was all about food and then I put on like 5kg in two months I didn't actually realize until I'd actually put it on because I'm not weighed much because I don't routinely weigh myself that's one thing I just don't do um I kind of just go by what my body looks like and then I started realizing things weren't fitting

I was like oh my god I'm gonna have to what do I do do I like this weight do I not like this weight and I was like okay might try and go on a cut um so that happened and then can I just add in I think it's like interesting how you worded it like this just I don't know if this was relevant to you but this kind of thing of like just because you've added weight doesn't actually mean it's necessarily a bad thing is actually let me just let me just take note how I'm feeling with this like in my you know how am I having it how am I feeling how's it looking and then let me decide if it's a good or bad actually you know what it doesn't even need to be good or bad maybe it's just something that you how did how did you feel like is do you feel I was glad because obviously I got more muscle but I was also like hmm am I

really used to seeing myself like this and was this just from sort of overindulging yeah so just eating surplus yeah I was like you know what there's no such thing as being good I'm gonna eat what I want when I want how much of it for too long though um and in the end I was like you know what I actually fancy a cup because I haven't done one since I've started my fitness journey which is surprising to a lot of people because when I this is pre before I started my journey I used to suffer with anorexia, but it's not the primary reason as to why I got into fitness, so previously I have suffered from it, so I've never had to go on a weight loss kind of journey since then, so the idea of a cut to me is quite triggering,

so I'd not actually tried to even think about cutting, I was all about that bulk life, I was like, I'm gonna get huge, and I used to, I was so good, bulk life I was like I'm gonna get huge and I used to I was so good because mentally I trained myself to start like celebrating myself when I've gone upper dress size because I was like you know what this is a step away from who I used to be so I used to kind of forget about old me so going into this new cut I was like okay I'm gonna have to mentally really just stay on the right track and I've been taking it really slow so I haven't done a major cut but I have done a cut and it's not been as bad or as mentally damaging as I thought it would which was really good well do you mind talking about your past so I don't even know that because it's not the primary reason or one of the factors as to why I started going to the gym I don't really

talk about it yeah and I think something that Anna said is like because I said the same to her I don't even really see that within even her sort of content or whatever you know I don't see that that's part of her I don't see that that's part of you and she kind of said well that's because I've actually I've recovered and I'm beyond that and like whatever and so I wonder if it's the same for you like yeah what was do you are you able to look back with hindsight and reflect and think that's why we do you know at its core what it was about for you like why you did have an eating disorder I feel like it was just because everything came up once for me like I was depressed my anxiety stemmed from that and then anorexia at the same time so it was like I was getting punched up by three people at the

same time and it was like a downward spiral because it and I don't know if it wasn't really the control thing for me it was just the depression was so bad I was like I was happy that I was punishing myself it sounds so bad but that I feel like that was it not the control factor just being really bad to myself um which is again which is why I'm so passionate about fitness and treating yourself right and doing things that make you happy because life is too short literally because I could have not been here anymore if I continued with that so it's really important to kind of learn not learn from these experience but kind of think about how much you've changed and how much that's a good thing like for me now fitness isn't about oh I need to recover from my anorexia like I don't

think about it all the time but I think about it in a way when I've gained weight or when I'm getting bigger that it's a good thing it's gained weight or when I'm getting bigger, that it's a good thing, it's a positive thing. And I'm happy that I'm healthy and I'm here. And I'm not part of that, but not suffering with that anymore. Do you think that kind of what you grew up with or maybe some like stereotypes either within society or within your culture had an effect on you or was it just like I feel like all those sort of depression just being a teenage girl in those years what what year was it I can't remember like 2013 2012 and like I used to read a lot of Vogue and I remember just seeing like the way that they

looked and stuff and just wanting to be that because I used to think that was better that was the standard um I think social media wasn't as major then but I remember having like an account where I used to look at like Thinspo and stuff um but I don't really feel and I used to go to an all-girls school as well there was a lot I feel like there was a particularly our our generation there was like a lot of misinformation within like what we were consuming on the internet at that time yeah and I can imagine for a really impressionable I mean I've had very not an eating disorder but I've had disordered eating for sure you know it's only when I reflected with Ellis in

a conversation she was like damn Sid that's like not normal um and so a product of like what we were growing up with yeah like I've seen a couple of videos online where people have been posting news articles or celebrity diet regimes from back in the day when we were younger and how wrong they are like they're glamorizing a 1200 calorie diet for a grown woman a grown woman and they're talking about fitness regimes and it's all abs or it's all cardio all toning ton. I know. Because that was the thing. I feel like we're still dealing with like the repercussions of that. Like this like spot reducing fat. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Can I get rid of my hip dips? Oh my God, yeah. But I feel like we've made good progress for sure. So what was recovery like? And was that something that you actually just managed to work through yourself or did you have support yeah so it was kind of like it came to a point where I could either continue down I was like again I had to think of future me and think about me now and I was like I could continue spiraling down this really negative path or I could start to take small steps to becoming better um it took a long

time I feel like physically it was easier because you just eat more but mentally to get rid of that voice in your head and to get rid of all the the constant counting and like the ways that you used to eat like I used to um cut my food a bit really small pieces then I used to cut my food up into really small pieces. Then I used to feel full quicker because I'd be eating more in a sense. So getting rid of all those little habits and all those ways of thinking was a lot harder than actually gaining weight again. Even though I was at a healthier weight afterwards, I feel like those mental habits kind of lingered for quite a long time. And then with fitness, they kind of just died because I was like I want to get a fat bum I think so yeah totally and you know the two cannot simply cannot coexist and I think you become aware of so much more so many more like aesthetics and like yeah sort of silhouettes and

body shapes and that sort of thing it's a shame though that um like media and what body shapes they promote and that kind of becomes the trend I feel like at the time for me when I first started going to the gym being like slim thick was the thing which at that time because of the circumstance I was in I've just come out of anorexia that was kind of it kind of worked out for me because I was like I want to gain weight to look at them but to look like them but in hindsight that's not a good thing to want to base yourself off a trend oh it's awful yeah and that is literally what you took the words out my mouth like this idea that like your body is something that you will shift and change as if it's a trend and you know what happens with trends they come in and out of fashion so expect that that sort of thing you're trying to conform and follow you know

the rest of sort of the society doing it's like yeah it's a slippery slope I yeah I see things online and I kind of wince and i'm just like you know like there was obviously the um was it the grammys and everyone started going crazy about miley's arms it was like it was like flashing back to like 2010 where people are like glamorizing thigh gaps and thin arms and stuff yeah there's the leggings uh leg in legs yeah yeah i've seen that as well have you seen the thing about wanting to be like when you're working out and you wish that you were a yoga girl instead of a muscle mummy yeah that kind of thing you know i actually kind of resonate with that sometimes i'm like um what would happen if i like was a pilates girly instead but as long as you're

self-assured and you're self-confident then you know that you're doing it yeah totally it's it's it's hard because these things on social media they prey on like our vulnerabilities you know they know where to get you right in the core and so it's just about being I guess more resilient and self-aware seems like you have quite a lot of self-awareness you know yeah or try to you've got to be otherwise if you start letting other things impact you then it can really get you down so as long as you're like social circle are really strong and you're strong in yourself then yeah what's one thing you um feel wish people understood about you that's an interesting question i know it's a good one to finish on um

for all those haters out there for all those haters out there i think your words cannot affect me because I know who I am I know the message that I'm giving out I'm self-confident I'm self-assured I'm not hurting anyone I feel good I'm giving out a positive message I'm benefiting people and no one's been harmed absolutely um where can people find you at memelifts on instagram tiktok and youtube amazing memel I love you thank you so much for coming you are amazing and you're such an inspiration and I hope you never stop kind of doing what you're doing because you're when you When you start deadlifting, I'll start deadlifting too, don't worry. Okay. We're in this together.

I'll hold you to it. Okay, thank you so much. Bye. Bye. Hope you guys enjoyed the episode. Don't forget to give us a follow if you are listening on Spotify and a subscribe if you're listening on Apple or watching on YouTube. You can find us at Dreamgirls Locker Room on Instagram and Facebook

and we look forward to seeing the next one. Bye.