icon-account icon-glass

Popular Searches

Popular Products

The Lean Protein
Whey protein powder for weight-loss.

CATEGORIES

7 Strong Women To Be Inspired By This International Women’s Day

2nd March 2022

Community Life

2nd March 2022

By Shivraj Bassi

Held annually on March 8th, International Women’s Day (IWD) is a celebration of women around the world. Countries rave over the huge achievements of women and rally together for gender equality and rights for women. 

It's a day of celebrating women everywhere. All women are inspiring women, and this day is all about celebrating that. 

A history of International Women's Day

The first ever IWD was celebrated in 1911, so it’s a storied tradition that’s great to take part in. It's a time to celebrate the women who over the years have showed their strength and power and made history. Even better, it’s a chance to celebrate the women who are looking towards the future to encourage future generations. 

Each year sees a new theme, which unifies everyone’s efforts and raises awareness of specific issues. For 2021, the theme is #ChooseToChallenge. On the IWD website, organisers said: ‘We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women’s achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world’. 

Celebrating International Women's Day

There’s no better time now to celebrate the women in your life (drop your mum, sister or friend a text to say hi, we guarantee they’ll appreciate it!). The IWD website reads ‘the pandemic won’t dampen our spirits in the pursuit to connect communities around the world to collaboratively forge positive change for women’. 

In that spirit, we’ve assembled an inspiring list of women on social media who are doing sterling work in the fitness and wellness worlds to inspire others every day to live their best well life in both body and mind. If there’s one thing we’ve all learned since lockdown started a year ago, it’s that social media continues even when no-one leaves the house, so try freshening up your feed with some new inspirational female figures. 

If you’re keen to show support for IWD 2021 on your own feed, the organisers have suggested posting an image of yourself on your favourite social platforms with your hand raised high, to show you’re choosing to challenge and call out inequality rather than letting things slide, with the hashtag #ChooseToChallenge.

Some of our favourite Inspiring women in fitness 

So, lets take a look at some of those women in fitness, shall we? 

Nesrine Dally, @nez_healthhub

 

Nesrine is not only a Nike trainer and a Muy Thai instructor, she also has degrees in both sports science and biomechanics. Her main focus is empowering young women through sports - a goal very suited to an inspiring IWD. She encourages girls to feel confident trying out martial arts, as well as providing the kind of uplifting content we all need in our feeds.

Melissa Alcantara, @fitgurlmel

 

You know that the woman who trains Kim Kardashian knows what’s up. Melissa is a true powerhouse of an athlete, who specialises in motivating women to push themselves past their mental limits and achieve things they didn’t think were possible. Plus, her inspirational captions are just what we need to get us going on a weekday morning. 

Joan MacDonald, @trainwithjoan

 

Hit 30 and worrying that you’re past it?

Age is but a number, darling. This is the attitude taken by Joan MacDonald, who started bodybuilding at 70. Now 74, she’s a truly inspiring figure and shows that you can do anything at any time if only you put your mind to it. 

Roz the Diva, @rozthediva

 

You only need to look at a single one of Roz the diva’s posts to feel the warm, inspiring energy radiating from her. Her platform is a lesson that body type is meaningless when it comes to fitness and happiness, and that nothing apart from your mind is stopping you from trying new things. Oh, and she’s also very funny. 

Lauren Fisher, @LaurenFisher

 

Lauren’s feed will make you realise that you have more hours in a day than you though you had. Not only is she a college student, she’s also a Crossfit competitor and an influencer who manages to make her thousands of followers all feel like they’re her best friends. Her fitness feats are seriously impressive and will make you want to get out there and try for your own personal bests. 

Jessica F., @alltherightbites

 

You don’t just need inspiration for the gym - you also need it for the kitchen, and Jessica F. is where you’ll find it. A holistic nutritional coacher Instagram page is stuffed with all of the food that you want to be eating every day, and it’s intended to leave you not only satiated but nourished in both body and mind. Think chocolate sea salt cookie dough and cheesy stuffed tomatoes. Yum?! Sign us up. 

Tiffany Ima, @tiffanyima

 

Tiffany preaches the message that all bodies are valid, and it’s one we all need to hear. She uses her Instagram to show you how to ditch feeling ashamed about yourself, and to feel at home in the body you have right now. There isn’t just one way to look ‘healthy’, and Tiffany can show you how to gently coach your mind to that place. Her calming, inspirational messages are sure to make your day every time. 

< Older post Newer post >

Need Expert Advice?

Take the quiz

Take the quiz

If you're not sure where to start, take our 5 minute health consultation to get product recommendations tailored to your goals.
Read more

Other Insights

The Glow Blend: A Confession

The Glow Blend: A Confession

I need to tell you something I've never said publicly, and it's not flattering. When our product team first brought me a plan for a collagen supplement, my honest reaction was no. Not "let me think about it." A flat no. And if I'm being fully honest about why, it wasn't the science. It was that collagen felt, in my head, like a beauty category. Something for someone else's brand. Not ours. I built Innermost around performance and evidence. Protein, creatine, mushrooms, electrolytes. Things I could point to a study for and feel comfortable talking about at a dinner table full of people who workout regularly. Collagen sat in a different mental folder. Skincare aisle. Jars with gold lids and brand sponsorship by one of the Kardashians. I'd absorbed a version of what "beauty" meant without ever examining it. The argument in the room So we had the argument internally. A proper one. A few people on the team pushed back hard, and rightly so. One of them put it to me plainly: we started Innermost to follow the evidence wherever it goes, not to follow it everywhere except the places that feel awkward. That line stuck with me. Here's what changed my mind, and it wasn't a feeling. It was the research. What the evidence actually says Collagen is the most abundant protein in your body. It's structural, it's in your skin, your joints, your gut lining, and production declines steadily from your mid-twenties onward. That's not a marketing claim, that's basic physiology. The question was never whether collagen matters. It was whether supplementing it actually does anything, and that's where most of the category falls apart. Most collagen products on the market use whole collagen molecules, which are too large to be absorbed effectively when you drink them. The ones that do use hydrolysed peptides, which are broken down into smaller chains your body can actually take up, still run into a second problem: dose. A lot of labels list collagen content that sits well below the 2 to 10 grams used in the trials that show measurable effects on skin elasticity and hydration. You're paying for a placebo with good branding. The ingredient most brands leave out The third problem is the one that convinced me completely. Vitamin C isn't a nice-to-have alongside collagen. It's a required co-factor for your body to actually synthesise collagen at the cellular level. Without adequate vitamin C, the enzymes responsible for stabilising collagen structure don't function properly. You can take a perfectly dosed hydrolysed peptide and still get a fraction of the benefit if the product doesn't include enough vitamin C alongside it. Most don't. They sell you the raw material and leave out the one thing your body needs to use it. Once I saw the category clearly, laid out like that, the decision stopped being about how I felt and started being about what the evidence supported. That's the whole operating principle of Innermost. I couldn't defend saying no to a legitimate, well-evidenced product category. What we built So we built The Glow Blend properly. Hydrolysed collagen peptides at a dose that reflects the research, alongside vitamin C, hyaluronic acid for hydration, biotin and folic acid for hair and nail health. Nothing in it that doesn't earn its place. What surprised me after launch The part I didn't expect was the response once we launched it. A good number of the messages came from women, as you'd expect, and they were generous and specific about what they'd noticed. But a surprising number came from men. Customers writing in to say they'd felt exactly what I'd felt, that awkward little flinch at "collagen," and had quietly bought it anyway because the ingredient breakdown made sense to them. That response told me more about why this category needed an honest voice in it than any research paper did. I'm not going to pretend I have this fully figured out. I still catch myself, occasionally, hesitating slightly before I mention it in a room. Old habits sit deeper than good evidence sometimes. But I take it, and increasingly a lot of men I respect take it too, quietly, without needing to make a thing of it. If this sounds familiar If any part of this resonated, and you've felt that same small resistance to a category you assumed wasn't for you, hit reply and tell me. I'd genuinely like to know I'm not the only one who had to get over it. And if you know someone, a friend, a partner, who could use this exact reasoning rather than a tesimonial, forward it on. It might do more good coming from someone else's honesty.
Read more
Your Summer Survival Kit (From Someone Who Travels A Lot)

Your Summer Survival Kit (From Someone Who Travels A Lot)

I'm putting the finishing touches to this post from an airport, which feels appropriate. By my count, I'll be going through three countries in the next six weeks. Meetings, a trip to see family including my niece and nephew, a supplier visit in Italy that I've been putting off for a year. And every summer the same thing happens. The carefully built routine, the one that took months to lock in, gets thrown into a suitcase and I hope for the best. Most people react to this by either giving up on the routine entirely ("I'll sort it out when I'm back") or overpacking so aggressively that half of it never leaves the bag. I've done both. Neither works. What actually works is deciding, in advance, which two or three things earn a place in my bag and which ones can wait until September. So here's mine. Not a wellness influencer's "what's in my bag" video. An honest list, built over about a decade of getting this wrong first. Why travel breaks routines specifically It's worth being precise about what actually changes when you travel, because it isn't just "less discipline." Three things shift at once. You sweat more and drink less water than usual, because you're distracted or the flight dried you out or the hotel room is warmer than home. You're outdoors more, often somewhere sunnier than wherever you live. And your meals stop being yours. You eat what's available, when it's available, and protein is usually the first thing to slip, because sugar, carbs and fat are what's on offer at 6am airport cafes. None of this is a discipline problem. It's an environment problem. The fix is making sure two or three specific things are in my bag before I leave home, so I’m not relying on willpower to begin with. 1. Electrolytes, non-negotiable Most people remember to pack sunscreen. Almost nobody packs electrolytes, and it's the one that actually catches up with you. Water replaces volume, not what you lose through sweat, which is mostly sodium and potassium and magnesium doing the quiet work of keeping muscles firing and fluid balanced properly. Miss that balance for a few days in the heat and you get the symptoms everyone blames on jet lag: the headache, the flat energy, the slight fog by 4pm that a coffee doesn't fix. It's usually not jet lag. It's electrolytes. I take The Hydrate Blend  for exactly this reason. Six electrolytes, no sugar, no synthetic flavouring, dissolves in a bottle of water in about ten seconds. One sachet on a travel day, first thing in the morning, does more for how I feel by evening than anything else in the bag. 2. Something for the sun you're actually going to get Here's the part most people don't think about until it's too late. UV exposure accelerates collagen breakdown, which is a slightly clinical way of saying that a week of proper sun does more to skin structure than most of the year combined. This isn't about vanity. It's a straightforward mechanism: UV generates free radicals that degrade existing collagen faster than your body can replace it. Sunscreen protects against the burn. It doesn't do anything for the collagen you're losing underneath. I've been taking The Glow Blend through summer for this reason specifically. Hydrolysed collagen peptides paired with vitamin C, which matters because vitamin C is a required co-factor for collagen synthesis and most collagen products leave it out entirely, then wonder why customers don't notice anything. It won't undo a week in the sun. It gives your skin something to rebuild with while it's under more pressure than usual. 3. Protein, especially when the meals aren't yours This is the one I've learned the hard way. When your diet goes inconsistent, protein is usually the first macronutrient to drop, simply because it's the hardest to find on the move. Airport food, hotel breakfasts, whatever's left at a conference buffet by 1pm, none of it is built around protein. And the honest science here is less dramatic than people expect: you don't need to train harder to maintain muscle through a disrupted period, you need to keep protein intake somewhere close to normal. That's the whole trick. I'll say this honestly because I'd rather be straight with you than pretend otherwise: my go-to for this is still The Strong Protein (whey based) and The Health Protein (vegan). They earn their place in my bag because they travel well, mix with nothing but water, and does the one job that actually matters on the road, which is making sure protein doesn't disappear from your day just because your routine has. The actual point None of this is about maintaining perfect discipline on holiday. Nobody does that, and if a brand tells you they do, they're not being honest with you. It's about deciding in advance which three or four things matter enough to bring, so the choice isn't being made for you by whatever's in the hotel minibar. If you've got a system that works for you when you travel, reply and tell me. I read every one of these, and I'm always looking to steal a better idea for my next trip. If this is useful, forward it to whoever in your life is about to live out of a suitcase for the next few weeks. It's the email I wish someone had sent me a decade ago.
Read more