Auckland fitness professional Melissa Chalmers is launching an app called StrongHer to help Kiwi women feel and look their best selves.
The app, which launches this week after a few weeks of beta testing, is a full wraparound training, eating, mental health, and motivational companion app for women pursuing personal health.
“StrongHer is a personal trainer in your pocket,” Chalmers explains.
“That’s the goal we set out with, and we’re so proud of what we created. All women can have access to my workouts, nutritionist-approved food guide, and mental health tips whenever and wherever suits them.
“You can use StrongHer to knock out killer workouts in the gym or in the comfort of your own home. You can use it to achieve whatever health and fitness goals you have; everything is totally customised to helping you achieve what you want.”
Chalmers has been inspiring hundreds of thousands of women through her Instagram page, which has more than 350,000 followers. That audience has grown from virtually zero in just the past year.
Her own journey to health began by wanting to get in shape for her wedding.
What started as a purely aesthetic goal soon became much more than that as she began noticing huge positive changes to her mind, not just her body.
She began feeling great and decided to use her career to help other women make the same transition she has.
“My message is simple: being healthy doesn’t mean you need to go to the gym seven times a week, twice daily and eat unrealistic meal plans. Being healthy is doing some form of exercise at least three times a week.
“Being healthy is not restricting food groups, but moderating the food you eat. It’s about being balanced, realistic, and not getting into a self-hating mindset which seems to be so prevalent in the Insta-health world.
“With all the fad diets being forced down people’s throats by so-called ‘health experts’ on social media, I advocate a much healthier lifestyle of mental and physical health based on realistic goals and lifestyles.
“Most importantly, my goal is to help women jump into a journey to health because they feel empowered by doing so, not because they feel pressured or guilt-tripped into it by themselves or society. Healthy living should be positive and fun, not threatening.”
Once downloaded (on iOS or Android), the StrongHer app asks women what their goals are in using it and how much they want to train.
Tailored video workouts, led by Chalmers, are created for the women to follow. They are encouraged to log meals and water intake each day so they can track whether they are reaching recommended nutritional intakes.
Eventually, StrongHer aims to have other trainers offer workouts through the platform.
Chalmers founded StrongHer with husband Bill-George Chalmers. Both were group fitness instructors and personal trainers at Les Mills in Auckland for a decade before deciding to launch StrongHer so they can reach more women on a global scale.
In testing, almost 40,000 women have downloaded the app.