Heidi Somers understands that when it comes to health and fitness, everybody has to start somewhere. While the fitness pro may boast millions of social media followers today, thanks to her super-motivational attitude and easily accessible workouts, the “Buffbunny” was once at rock bottom with her own health and happiness.
Thankfully, as a driven entrepreneur, Somers has been able to use her personal journey as fuel for others to kickstart their own road to fitness. M&F sat down with the influencer and trainer to find out how she developed into a strong and powerful female and why, more ten years on from her own glow-up, Somers is always looking to improve herself, her community, and her brand.
Fitness from Experience
Anyone with a cursory knowledge of Somers’ story will know that she was unhappy as a college freshman. Overweight and spiraling mentally, it would eventually take a fresh start, moving from her home town in the North Pole, Alaska, to pursue medical school in San Antonio, Texas, in order to give her the much-needed motivation to turn her life around. In leaving behind family and friends, Somers found herself with an open road to navigate her future, her way, and started on the path to losing weight. Her fans will tell you that Somers soon fell in love with CrossFit and even found success on the bodybuilding stage, placing top 5 in her first NCP run competition in 2014, and winning the NPC Alaska Crystal Cup in 2015. These days, Somers can squat almost double her bodyweight and imparts her experience and knowledge on to her millions of avid followers. But what fewer people might know about her story, is just how tough it was to get started in those early days of grinding in the gym.
“I had a lot of men that were giving me advice. I’ll take men’s advice all the time, but I think in that sense of being very vulnerable and very new to the gym and nutrition, I felt I struggled a little bit with taking men’s advice at the time,” recalls Somers. “When I started learning a little bit more about nutrition and fitness, I got into great, phenomenal shape, and that’s when I kind of started doing social media. I want to give women the tips that I wish I would have had, when I started, just like a sense of community and also like, hey, like these things really worked for me.”
Courtesy of Buff Bunny
Self Confidence Through Self Empowerment
As the beauty’s relationship with her body and her social media audience grew, Somers not only developed her voice for motivating the masses, but she also worked on the ability to listen intently. “At the end of the day, women just want to feel seen, and heard,” says the 4’ 11” pocket powerhouse. Listening to those wants and needs is what kickstarted her Buffbunny clothing line, since many women felt that gym clothing wasn’t made with them in mind. “I love chatting with people, like next to someone on the plane or in an Uber. I think that you can learn things from all different types of people by just absorbing that information, just being a sponge and taking the information that you’ve learned and applying it to your products.”
Somers is still a huge CrossFit aficionado and likes to begin her workouts with 15 minutes of high-intensity internal training. But, she also understands that for those just starting out, there are serious mental obstacles that go along with the physical trials. “I remember, I just felt very isolated and alone,” recalls the personal trainer. “All I could hear was the weights slamming and people grunting, and it just made me feel very overwhelmed. So, a couple of tips that really helped me in the beginning is to purchase some noise cancelling headphones for sure, so that you can just kind of really focus. And then: group classes. I think for me, it was less about wanting to do the group classes and more so that it made me feel less lonely, doing classes where people cheer you on.”
In addition to her clothing line, Somers is also developing a female focused fitness app Grounds, and continues to both talk and listen to her followers as she continues her own personal and professional journey. “I think it’s really important to find your people when you get into fitness,” says the forward-thinking fitness icon.
