“I was over 100kg when I started, probably verging on 110,” explains Hayley. She’s been a member of Rebuild Health and Fitness for eight years and has shed nearly 40kg in her time here.
“I had had enough, hit that brick wall where I had a little son, and it was just me and him then didn't want to be fat anymore.”
Hayley has been training at Rebuild for the past eight years and has become a key part of the Rebuild family.
She’s also the Rebuild Member of the Month for March. Not only is Hayley making strides in her own training, but she’s also hugely supportive of other members of the gym and encourages everyone around her. During the Rebuild Friday Night Lights events, Hayley supported other members to hit their own highs and managed to hit her own 1RM on the barbell complex.
Hayley joined Rebuild when it was still called CrossFit 4178 at Glenora Street, she joined after a friend (who's also a familiar face at Rebuild now) moved over to the gym.
“I knew Rhani from boot camp. And one day she didn't turn up. It was pretty boring; you'd go there, and you'd do a half an hour boot camp. They used to talk for 10 minutes, you'd probably train for 10 to 15 minutes and then talk again, so the novelty wore off really quickly.”
One day, Rhani didn’t show up, so Hayley looked her up on social media to see where she was training – and saw Rebuild. “It took me probably like a month from canceling that membership to actually getting the balls to walk through the doorway.”
Hayley came to Rebuild looking to get her health in check. “Walking in here, I knew nothing about nutrition; you don't get 110 kilos and have a healthy relationship with food or knowledge. So it took me a long time to accept that I couldn't out-train my eating habits. That was probably the first thing.”
Incrementally, over a long period, she got her weight down. “I was never like, ‘I want to be 60 kilos’ - I was never sort of that way oriented. I think if I went that way, it'd be too much in my head, I'd overthink it. So, each time I'd say ‘I just want to get to 100 kilos’ and then, ‘okay, I'm at 100 kilos, I just want to get into the 90s’, so, I just sort of went increment by increment.”
She’s now a healthy 70kg – and has established a good balance in life now, even enjoying her holidays and down-time. She explains that even when you have a slip-up, it’s not about thrashing yourself. She says: “It's okay, we've done that so let's rein it back in and get back on track and keep doing what we do, train when we train and get those steps in and bring in the food and eat and get the protein in. So it's definitely a healthier balance where I probably was a bit obsessive, where you'd put off things for work or things for extracurriculars because I had to go to the gym and you get that bit selfish, but now we found a balance.”
What’s kept Hayley coming back for so long – is the people. “It's not just the coaches are great, it's the people that train here, the people they've selected; not selected, but they've weaned out any egos, have weaned out anyone that's sort of a bit of a show pony and it's just genuinely good group supportive people. It doesn't matter what kind of day you're having. It could be a shit day; it could be a great day. If you don't turn up, you're accountable for not turning up. Whether it's one of the coaches messaging you saying are you alright? Or it's a mate saying where are you? Why don't you train today? Everything okay? Or whatever. You've always got that accountability with someone.”
She's been described by members as 'a weapon', 'supportive' and 'encouraging', but says she's gained as much as she contributes to the gym. Hayley embodies Rebuild's values, about balance, the balanced model of health - overarching wellbeing and making balance a priority, as well as being a supportive and inspiring person around other members.
Hayley says: “What I've learned about training and health; and myself, since being here - you can't put a price on that.”
