International Plant-Based Health and Nutrition Guru, Mandy Gill, recognized by corporate sponsor, Reebok, as a Super-Athlete
Every now and then you meet someone whose story touches your heart, stays with you, and motivates you to really squeeze life’s lemon. Mandy Gill is one of those people.
At five years old, Mandy thought she had lost everything. Her father filed for divorce; her grandfather died; her mother lost her job, fell into a deep depression resulting in suicidal thoughts, and ended up in a psychiatric hospital.
Mandy was confused. And while she was dearly cared for, Mandy felt as if it was her responsibility, at least in her own mind, to take care of everyone, and vowed to make all well again.
Months had passed before her mother checked herself out of the hospital—ready to be Mum again—the first of many returns to ‘normal’ that would not last long enough. But lack had settled in and normal was in short supply. The carefree days of childhood were gone.
One afternoon, Mandy came home from childcare, hungry, only to face a new low. In her mom's half-empty home she searched bare kitchen cupboards, using stools and her tiptoes, to find only a single can of mushrooms.
“That’s all we had left,” Mandy recalls. She had a choice that five-year-olds shouldn’t have: Eat the mushrooms right then as an after school snack, or wait and share with her family for dinner later? Mandy weighing hunger pains against an instinct to nurture in this small measure. She chose to share.
“That was the moment,” Mandy recalls, “Looking at that can of mushrooms. After that I became restrictive.”
Mandy Gill at five years old.
Developmental years of self-doubt manifest into insecurity, anxiety, depression, a struggle with her school grades, and body image issues that became deadly anorexia. She had the misguided belief that if she managed what she ate, she would have choices in her circumstances.
She recalls, "I thought that if I could eat just five grapes a day, and feel okay, then maybe I could go down to four. I could give myself these choices.”
She was a child turning into a teenager and starting to become aware of the ideals of beauty and ultra-thinness portrayed in magazines and on the internet.
“I remember reading Seventeen Magazine at thirteen years old and I thought that the only way that I can find love and have somebody love me is if I can match that,” she explains.
Her rock-bottom was 80 pounds at eighteen. She admits, “I didn’t understand the body’s purpose, nor did I really care.”
Life was slipping away and Mandy was literally and figuratively sick of less. She yearned for more—more freedom, more love, more acceptance, more energy and more health. She had been taking her pain out on her body and knew that it had to stop.
At last, she made a new decision: to learn everything she could about health and happiness and take back her life.
She says, “I wanted to live and I wanted extraordinary experiences in life. I realized that I needed my body to take me there.”
She recalls her very powerful epiphany, "All of this ignited a fire in me stronger than ever before to continue answering questions from a place of faith, freedom and gratitude for how strong the human body and mind is when we treat it with love and respect.”
She set out on a mission to heal, and in doing so, to also help others overcome powerlessness and perfectionism and instead strive for abundance and joy. She discovered fitness and wellbeing. Through following her passion for total health, she formed a new meaning and purpose for her life. She says that whenever she’s working out she’s “that five year old girl again” and can gift herself the joy and self-love and confidence that she didn’t have back then.
“I wanted to live and I wanted extraordinary experiences in life. I realized that I needed my body to take me there.”
Today she is featured in magazines, endorsed by national athletic and fashion brands, regularly booked as a fitness and nutrition expert and motivational speaker, and has appeared hundreds of times on talk format and morning television programs.
Her message is far beyond fitness and nutrition: it’s about healthy living and fueling yourself through total body-mind-spirit wellness. “Freedom is found when you let go of who you think you’re supposed to be, and embrace who you really are,” Mandy Gill says, adding, “Well fed people are happier people.”
International Plant-Based Super Athlete, Mandy Gill
Mandy Gill is the founder of the international brand MGM FITNESS, plus the MANDY GILL FITNESS APP and the MANDY GILL NUTRITION APP—for personalized fitness and nutrition guidance at your fingertips. She has been honored as a YWCA Woman of Distinction 2017. Mandy Gill is proudly a Reebok Sponsored Athlete since 2010. Other major sponsorships include health-space brands Vital Supply Co., and Vitasave.ca. Follow Mandy on Instagram @MGMFit_Mandy for everything from goal setting, to easy travel workouts with only a yoga towel and a resistance band, to finding the best plant-based proteins and restaurants around the globe. For news, appearances and motivation, visit www.MandyGill.com.
Fall 2017 marks the launch of the Mandy Gill Fitness APP and the Mandy Gill Nutrition APP. Look for them on the APP Store.