10 Quick Questions - Makaia Carr, Motivate Me NZ Founder

We love finding out about the philosophies of Aotearoa’s experts on health, nutrition, wellbeing and fitness! This week we asked Makaia Carr, Motivate Me NZ founder, the NZ Real Health 10 Quick Questions:

1. In a nutshell, what do you do for your job?

My part time job and full time love is directing Motivate Me NZ, a members-only community created for like minded Kiwi women looking for positive support, encouragement and advice during their journey of living a healthier, fitter, stronger lifestyle!

This takes a lot of my time, and I balance this with my full time job as regional manager for a large finance/retail company. I oversee the day to day operations of 12 branches across the north island and approx 75 staff. It’s crazy busy every day with lots of travel thrown in, plenty of challenges and I love it!

2. How did you get into your line of work?

The idea for Motivate Me came to me when I had set a goal for myself to get fit and feel fantastic for an upcoming tropical holiday. Changing my diet, moving my family onto a clean eating diet, and getting stuck into some really good exercise helped me see not only fantastic changes to my body and mindset, but showed me the bigger picture – that these changes were able to be done by anyone, with the right support. Friends and family were the first guinea pigs for learning the Motivate Me philosophy, and it was soon rolled out nationally. To date, over 440 members are part of the Motivate Me NZ (MMNZ) network and they are Kiwi women from all over the world. These numbers are growing fast!

3. What’s the best thing about your job?

I absolutely love that I am able to be a part of the success and milestones that my MMNZ ladies achieve – we celebrate and motivate together. The real sense of community and belonging we have established within MMNZ is powerful and I am pleased in knowing that I am a part of encouraging women to feel great, look great, think positively and ultimately be the best version of them they can be!

4. What do you do to keep fit?

Go to the gym for weight training sessions, attend MMNZ Shake Ups for a mixture of cardio, strength, speed and agility training. I love to run and try to enter as many running events as possible, I attend cross fit sessions and my favourite fitness type is playing sport – I love playing netball, basketball and touch in the summer.

5. What’s your philosophy on nutrition and diets?

I don’t believe in diets. I believe in a balanced healthy lifestyle. I eat cleanly and aim to remove as many processed foods from my diet as possible. It can be a challenge in today’s hectic life but not impossible. I like to keep food simple for myself and my family and eliminate as many preservatives and artificial ingredients from our foods as I can. Keep it whole and as natural as possible I say!

I try not to feel like I have ‘failed’ if I choose to eat a treat while out for dinner or socialising – we need to be able to live life with friends and family and enjoy ourselves – I just make sure I work hard to earn those moments.

6. What does keeping healthy mean to you?

Feeling good on the inside and out! Healthy mind, healthy body. Having the knowledge to fuel my body with nutritious foods that will enable it to perform at its best as well.

7. What motivates you to stay on track with your own nutrition and training?

I love to stay in control of my body and the way it makes me feel, it does get hard at times but that is my main motivation. Plus all my fabulous members in MMNZ – the support, drive and encouragement we provide each other on a daily is very powerful!

8. What’s your best health or fitness tip?

Eat breakfast like a queen, lunch like a princess and dinner like a peasant! With a few clean snacks thrown in between!

9. If you were stranded on a desert island, what three things would you want to take?

My husband, a good book and sunblock (sounds like the perfect holiday actually!)