Kayla Itsines is an Australian personal trainer. At the age of 23, she has a following of millions of Internet users from the four corners of the world. No media fanfare or extravagance, just a passion that seems to have no frontiers – today Kayla receives tour offers from all over the world! What is it that charms the 2.7 million fans who follow her daily life on Instagram, and the 1.5 million on Facebook?

Kayla has created a guide to get you into shape within 12 weeks, the Bikini Body Guide (BBG), with impressive results. The proof is in the inspirational pictures she has posted.

However Kayla’s approach doesn’t stop at fitness coaching. She has developed a real community which allows women to exchange information, encourage and help each other. She also uses her celebrity status to give healthy motivational messages. Above all, she shares our philosophy: “A healthy mind in a healthy body”.

How can we live a healthy life and beat junk food addiction? Let’s hear Kayla’s advice for life with sparkle!

– Where did your passion for fitness come from?

– Once I graduated high school, I actually started studying beauty therapy. However, my love of sport and basketball lead to me to take up Personal Training, and that’s when I discovered how much I loved helping people to become healthier and happier!

– What are your health tips?

– Consistency and dedication. When it comes to making changes, it is important to have realistic goals so that they can easily be maintained in the long run. Find what works for you and STICK to it. A lot of girls put their body under a lot of stress as they ‘yo-yo’ between taking their health seriously and not at all. When you find something that works for you, stick to it, even if it’s just small changes! They will soon become a habit and you will find it easier to continue to make other changes in your life.

– How would you define your approach in your BBG?

– The guide is focused on a healthy, balanced lifestyle that is maintainable for the long run – it’s the best thing about my program, it doesn’t have an expiry date, it is purely a guide for women worldwide to be able to stay on track and maintain a healthy lifestyle in order to feel healthy, happy and confident for all 12 months of the year. When committing to a new lifestyle, I strongly believe that education is important, which is why I incorporated such an extensive education section in each of my guides.

– Best tip for weight loss?

– Less is more! Most people are under the illusion that you have to train twice a day, seven days a week and weigh all your food to the gram to get results. This could not be further from the truth. Overtraining places a lot of unnecessary stress on your body and quite often girls burn themselves out by going too hard, too fast which will not return any results. Most of the time this is overtraining and cutting out calories like there is no tomorrow. This not only will cause fatigue but also can put a heavy drag on weight loss.

– Do you have advice for someone who wants to quit eating junk food and jump into a healthier lifestyle?

– I think the biggest mistake women make is that they try to change overnight and often cut out an entire food group. Changing your diet in such a drastic way will cause withdrawals and will leave you with little to no energy, making it extremely easy to fall back into an unhealthy eating pattern. I would recommend setting realistic targets, eating protein with every meal; as protein helps to balance blood sugar levels and keeps you feeling fuller for longer, staying in tune to your body and your individual needs, knowing why your craving junk food is a really good way to change those habits.

– What do you think of ‘cheat meals’? Is it better to eat one big unhealthy meal or are we better off getting smaller treats more often?

– Personally I believe that a single meal a week outside of your eating plan is enough! You need to make sure you’re keeping things realistic and not being too strict or you’ll end up caving in and giving in to all those sweet treats you’ve completely cut out of your diet and having a big binge. Try creating some small healthy snack treats such as protein balls so that you can treat yourself with those to satisfy that sweet tooth craving, these are really handy for when you’re on the go too!

– What would be your cocktail of choice? Can you drink alcohol on your program? If not, why don’t you recommend it? 

– I personally don’t recommend drinking alcohol and will never promote the consumption of it recreationally. Despite this, whether or not people consume alcohol is entirely their choice, but as a role model I need to send certain messages to educate my clients and in this case I strongly recommend not drinking alcohol. Liver stress, toxicity and metabolic stalling are all negative effects that alcohol consumption has on the body and are a few of the reasons why I personally haven’t consumed any alcohol in nearly 3 years. 

– Do you have a message, an invaluable tip?

Consistency. Set yourself achievable goals that can be obtained with a realistic lifestyle. Stick to that and you won’t go through the ups and downs. People who go too hard, too early, can sometimes end up further backward than they started.

So are we starting the BBG?

You can find a full article about junk food addiction on Kayla’s Blog.

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