MERGING her love for photography and fitness, Illovo Beach resident Hanna Elliott aims to help women realise they have a unique role to play in this world.
Her love for fitness developed as a result of her awareness of her dad’s untimely death at the young age of 48 and as she approached her mid-40s.
Weighing in at 132kg, (see PHOTO below) she realised her morbid obesity was preventing her from living her life to the full. “I never had any serious health issues, but I was impeded by poor body image and a lack of mobility. I made better choices and even though I don’t support dieting or food restrictions, I started to be more in tune with my body. I added more nutritional food I knew my body craved to look and feel better,” said Hanna.
She made the choice to hire a trainer who enabled her to do and be better. “Soon enough my body started to change, but more than that, I felt accomplished and proud. I was so inspired by what he did for me that I too wanted to help others in the same way, which is why I became a personal trainer myself,” she added.
Hanna has been a professional photographer for over a decade after searching for a way to fuse all her passions – photography, fitness and cultivating a positive body image in women. “There are arguably few things in this world which make one pause and think as quickly as a striking image. Beauty exists in every form, colour and shape. It is my aim, through my photography, to make women realise that they are worthy, that their bodies should be celebrated and not hidden. I want to make them feel amazingly gorgeous regardless of the size or shape of their bodies,” she said.
FOLLOW HANNA ON INSTAGRAM: BodyBolder
As a self-love mentor and wellness advocate, her biggest passion in life has become to help women realise they have an unique role to play in this world, if they are willing to show up authentically regardless of their shape or size. “I’m also a passionate activist for bringing down the walls that keep women small, which prevent us from claiming our greatness and autonomy. A lot of that nonsense is perpetuated by the diet industry. You don’t want to get to the end of your life and realise all that diet-time could have been focused on more meaningful goals! I want women to realise you don’t need to lose weight to be a woman of value and to contribute boldly in this world,” said Hanna.
“Most of us grew up seeing one body type represented in the media: Thin, able, white. Despite the fact that there is beauty in that stereotype, it is simply not representative of the millions of women who exist. So if those images were all you ever saw and you look entirely different in comparison to how your brain has been programmed, of course you are going to have low self-esteem.” Hanna believes we have been brainwashed in our standards of beauty. “Comparison is what make people feel inadequate and unworthy. We have to re-programme our minds to realise there is beauty in bodies of all colour, shape or size. Luckily there seems to be some change with the media becoming more inclusive.”
As a trainer, Hanna urges women not to wait on the weight – she believes one should not think they need to first lose weight before they can start taking part in life. “There is so much that people in bigger bodies across the world are doing on a daily basis, including extreme sports such as triathlons,” she urged.
Her eating and exercise routines have become largely intuitive, with nothing forced or based on strict rules. Hanna believes long-term severe restrictions and working yourself into the ground will only lead to rebound weight gain.
Every photoshoot she has done was said to have left women overawed by the way they were presented in her images. She minimises editing of her photos. “These shoots are a celebration of real women and therefore it is very important for me to show the stretch marks (or tiger stripes as I like to call them), back rolls and birth marks. There is no need to hide any of the things which make us real. When I show women their images, they are liberated as the images show them as they are, in the same way their partners see them – raw but stunning,” she explained.
“I always thought I would be happy once I was thin and fit, that somehow my life would fall in place once I attained my ideal body. When I hit rock-bottom in my life, by the grace of God I realised it was quite the opposite. No lasting transformation can take place when you cannot look at your current self in the mirror and embrace all that you are,” she added.
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