Welcome to Healthy Ish. Yes, you have tuned into the almost daily podcast from Body and Soul. I'm your host of Felicity Halle now model Laura Dundavic. Well, she's been around for a while. Gosh, that makes her sound old. She is not. But you've probably come across her and perhaps you follow her on social media and damn that girl is strong. So I thought we needed to get her on the podcast to well pick up brains about
how she approaches fitness and her strength training. Laura is, of course a certified personal trainer, nutrition coach, and she has studied a Bachelor of Science in psychology. She knows her stuff. She joins us today to share how she approaches fitness and strength. Now make sure you're listening to extra Healthyish as well, because she talks about how Hashimoto's disease has upended her life in the past couple of years. You can catch that reveget your podcasts. Laurah. Nice to
have you back on the podcast. Nice to be back here a while. Do you know we did the last one when when we were in COVID Wow. Yes, So it's nice to have you in the studio.
Yes, to be face to face finally.
Yeah, and we have known each other for a few years, but we so it's nice to see you again too. Let's talk about your fitness. I mean, you are one of the strongest people on my Instagram feet. I like to hear that, and perhaps I am a bit envious. I want to talk about how you approach well, not just fitness but strength training.
So for me, it's never about I don't train for esthetics. I trained for longevity, and so I think I was quite blessed growing up to have two very fit parents. They're in their sixties now and they run seven kilometers every day. You'll see them going through Sydney Harbor.
Amazing.
They're amazing. And I also had a next door neighbor growing up, and he was probably in his late seventies and he still used to sail and get out on his boat. And I realized that during that period of probably your late fifties onwards, there's a big difference in the activity that people can do. And there's people who I know will say I'm getting married overseas, but my grandparents can't come. Then there's other people whose grandparents are going. And I always I'm such a go getter if you
know me, I get the biggest fomo. I want to be doing everything and I want to do as much as I can for as long as I can. So I think earlier on I never had any upper body strength, and I sort of used to let that define me. I'd be like, I can't do push ups, I don't have upper body strength, and then all of a sudden, one day I thought, why do I not have upper
body strength? And I started training that. And so for me, it's about things like being able to carry heavy groceries, being able to, you know, walk all day while I'm overseas and not get tired, and that's kind of what I do. And I think the aesthetic part obviously comes with that, but it's about just having my whole body being strong, not just one area.
Do you feel strong?
I do feel strong, yeah, And I'm doing things that I could never do. Like years ago, my train array, I was like, I can't do a pull up and he's like, oh well, why don't we work on that? And things like that I never thought i'd be able to. And then even doing boxing and just having that full body workout, I just feel a lot more, I guess balanced than I was before.
This a new approach for you, the longevity thing.
I've actually been like.
This for a long time.
I really treat.
My body like a temple.
And then, as I said, just seeing people around me and the difference in what they can do with their bodies, I was like, there's no reason if you start young and you look after yourself that you can't end up that way. So that's what I aim for now.
Before we pressed play, you did tell me that your hit and that you should be doing lots of yoga. Talk to us about this whole conundrum.
So I have an autoimmune disease and a genetic disorder, so high intensity is not supposedly my friend. I've also had I had glandela fever when I was sixteen and got chronic fatigue as a result of that. I personally feel better when I train Medically. I'm not supposed to train as probably as hard as to do, but I really enjoy and it's what gives me energy.
What do you do? What's the hard? Look like?
I love strength training like love love love, so heavyweights that's not too bad. But I also love my running. So I did half marathon a few months ago. I did one train full one last year and I broke my ankle.
When you were training.
Yes, so I likes I know, so that was the beginning of me finding out about my autoimmune But yeah, I broke my ankle. And then prior to that, I used to do marathons and triathlons and I'm sort of getting back into that. I just don't really have an off button. And then boxing is just to meet It doesn't even feel like training.
I love it, So what is it like? What does your week look like?
My big rule with training is that I don't train because I have to. I train because I can, and so it's never something.
That I have to do.
If I've got a really busy week and I can only make it to the gym two or three times, I don't feel bad about it. Just recently, I got knocked out with that stupid fl cold thing that everyone had, Yes, and I honestly had about four or five weeks off, And that's fine. You know, my body needed to recover. That was more important to me. But on an ideal
week that I when I can. At the moment, my train array has a run program that I'm doing, and that's four runs a week and then I'm supplementing that with I use the base body Waves app and I'm doing three training days of that at the gym waits and then boxing whenever I can.
So are you training for? Are you doing it aiming for another half marathon? Or are you just fine a marathon? Can we do a full?
Yeah? Next? But again I just I enjoy it. It's a nice social thing. If my friends are doing something, I go, yeah, great, I'll do that.
Now you are a certified PETE. Yes. When you got this qualification, I think it was a few years ago. Now was Yeah, did this change how you approached workouts or did it change your what you actually did?
It changed my understanding of my body. So I started going to the gym when I was quite young. As I said, my mum was fit. I always looked up to her, and as soon as I was allowed in a gym, I was like, I'll do it with you. But as I once I got my qualification, I started learning about, you know, things like my mobility. I'm not very good at squatting. I have to raise my heels
when I scored. I've got poor mobility. But then working out ways that I can strength that or other exercises that I can supplement, and so if I do, I like to work off a program just because it's easier for me and don't think about it. If I've got a program, I know how to make the changes that I need to make. If I turn up at a hotel and they've got three or four weights, I know how to do a full body workout off that and just having that understandings being great.
So for people listening who aren't pts, how do you what do you recommend? Like if we do turn up to a hotel, I mean I'm probably that person where I'm like, Okay, what am I going to do? Where do I start? What's some give us some tips here?
I think that anyone that's not a PT the consistency is key. And so some people get really overwhelmed in being like I have to do this program and I have to do this, and I have to do that, and rather than thinking that just moving every day, whether it be just a walk, is all you can manage today or whatnot, is the most important thing. So I think consistency is my number one thing and to make
it something you enjoy. So if my friend, like the other week, my cousin was in town and she wanted to go for a walk and we ended up walking twenty five thousand steps. We did die and went and got lunch, and I didn't train that day. You know, I was supposed to go to the gym, but I'm like, oh, I've done my walk, that's my exercise for the day. And so I think probably that And then the other thing is just realizing that we all have our first
time in a gym. I have a lot of friends that asked to go to the gym with me, and it makes me sad because I did it when I was young, but because they're embarrassed of walking up to a weight on their own, and especially being a woman, And I think not.
Knowing what to do machine, like how do I pull those like levers down on that machine? How do I lose the weights?
And I mean that's what I was saying. I used the base Body app and on that they've actually got videos of how you know to use each piece of equipment. So if you're stuck, you know, everyone's on their phone at the gym, pop up an app. Well, even you can google a movement and I know all different I know every movement you can do at the gym, but I google things sometimes to check that my technique is right,
and I think that's the one thing as well. I would always put a technique over a heavier weight, So even starting with body weight, getting that correct, you'll get much better results than lifting a really heavy weight with poor technique.
Now, just quickly before we go, you're a health coach as well, Yes, talk to us about the importance of nutrition for your fitness.
Food is fuel. You'll never get good results without training hard. I think as women, we probably don't need as much protein as we should. So that's the one thing that I really focus on. And I would always say to you like, oh, yeah, like you know, I get plenty of protein. And it wasn't until I started tracking it. I don't track it every day, but I did it to understand because one thing with having autoimmune is that
your body doesn't absorb anything. And the doctor kept saying to me, don't have enough protein, and I was like, well, I'm eating plenty. And then I started tracking it and I realize that, hey, like you know, yes, a piece of chicken might have say, thirty grams of protein in it, but you're supposed to be having, say around, you know, double your body weight or whatnot. That's not a whole day's worth. So I think just making sure that you're
having adequate fuel for your training is so important. And if you're not fueling your body, you're not going to train hard.
Yeah. Absolutely, Laura, great to have you back on healthy, Yeah, back on what's your fitness ethos? Do you see it through the lens of longevity as well, or perhaps you see it through a bit of both longevity and whatever you do helps you, well, just be a bit of human and be better at life today. That's how I view it. Anyway. If you did enjoy this chat with Laura, tell us rate and review this episode, or of course
subscribe to this podcast. Anything else, head to body andsoul dot com dot you for loos and socials, or of our print edition which is our your local Sunday paper. And until tomorrow, of course, stay healthy, deep,