About SSH - Soul Sister Health

meet anna + em

Real life sisters and founders of SSH…

We have a desire to simplify health and fitness for busy mums and inspire them to make small sustainable changes to their day-to-day, in order to be their best most kick-ass self.

Work with us!

Hi there gorgeous, we are anna + Em

Founders of Soul Sister Health (and real life sisters!). Self-proclaimed lovers of all things health with a good dose of ‘everything in balance’. We are one personal trainer and one exercise physiologist and both certified Integrative Health Coaches, and we established SSH to pursue our passion for women’s health and to inspire women everywhere to reclaim their health, put themselves first and feel their freakin’ best.

After working face to face with hundreds of women, locally in Brisbane, through group and personal training, nutrition workshops and health coaching, we wanted to bring our down-to-earth, simple approach to health & fitness, to thousands more online.

In a nutshell, we are two mums with 6 kids between us. We love a little active wear, our daily coffee hit and we might be slightly addicted to peanut butter. We totally appreciate that life is a balancing act and when it comes to good health, our philosophy is simple…if you can make small, sustainable changes, to your every day, you can begin to live life, full of energy and with more balance.

So welcome beauty, we are so thrilled that you are here.

A + E xx

“the girls are so supportive

And so Committed to individual results with an absolute sense of fun and friendship in every session”

Meg

mum of two

“3 years and going strong

“Anna & Em are the first women i’ve signed up with to actually helped with my Exercise and I am so much better for it”

Abby

Mum of three

“I cannot recommend Anna & Em highly enough

I have noticed an increase in my core strength, fitness and wellbeing. Anna and Em understand women and how to get the best from our bodies so we can cope with our busy lives”

“Working with Anna & Em has been life changing

I credit the girls for putting me and my family on the path of a decade of good health. I love that the girls keep up with the latest in health and wellness and generously share that in their programs and coaching. Thank you so much SSH!”

Kim

Full time working mum of two

We are a community of Kick-ass women choosing to up-level our health everyday

With over 25 years combined experience working with women, we know what makes them tick, we understand what they want and need at different stages of mum life – from early post natal recovery through to the rollercoaster of peri-menopause. Through our local group fitness, health coaching and our SSH Move Online Studio, we are helping busy mums take control of their health, show up for themselves and be their most kick-ass selves.

You want in? Start with us today, beautiful! A + E xx

I’m ready sisters!

Meet Anna

Hi, I’m Anna, the big sister, an Exercise Physiologist, personal trainer, certified Nutrition Health Coach and a mum to three teenagers (send help ;-)). I am also crazy passionate about helping women achieve their best health and a life, full of energy and vitality.

I have always been sporty and pretty focussed on being fit. What I now realise though, is that while I was always fit, I was not always necessarily healthy – in fact at times I was pretty unhealthy.

While my entire ‘health’ focus was on fitness, my relationship with food and nutrition was pretty disordered. Deprivation and extremely restricted diets were interspersed with periods of binge drinking and eating. I had always just felt that if I was exercising, I could do whatever I wanted with my nutrition – with no impact. Ha!

It was only after the birth of my three children (in a quick 3 and a ½ years!) that I really started to struggle with energy and motivation. I was just so tired – and all the time! I went to my GP in order to get to the bottom of my exhaustion. He organised to get all of my blood work done so that we could see what was going on. When delivering the results, he was quite pleased to tell me that apart from an iron deficiency, my blood work looked ‘completely normal’ and that was I was experiencing was just ‘normal’ for a mother of three young children!?! WTH…. I was not willing to accept for the foreseeable future – that this was as good as it was going to get. And so began my journey down an alternative route to better my health.

I began to see that my life was so out of balance and that health was so much more than just an intense exercise session. I was learning the hard way, the critical role that nutrition and emotional health was playing in my overall wellbeing. Ouch. Looking back now, I see how much I was struggling with not only physical health, but with my mental and emotional health too. These were elements of my health that I had never really paid too much attention to, but this time I was being forced to and I’ve never looked back – gratefully, I now have more energy, confidence and vitality than I did 20 years ago.

What my greatest passion is now, is to inspire other women, young and old, to strive for a more balanced life. To feel full of energy. To be able to take on anything. To feel confident, empowered and comfortable in their own skin (because I wasted many years not feeling like this either!).

The day that Em came to me and suggested that she wanted to pursue a career in health, was such a defining moment for me. I had had such big ideas and plans for my own PT business, but didn’t want to work alone and I was unsure (and a little scared) as to how I could take things to the next level, on my own. What I was being offered with her declaration, was an opportunity to work with one of the most amazing women I know and who is aligned with my own beliefs about life and living – of course, it was a big “hell yes!” from me and Soul Sister Health was born. I feel so privileged to have partnered with Em – we both know that this is an incredible privilege.

So if you are a woman, big or small, we want you to join us. We want you to learn, live and love with us and create your own health journey!

Anna x

Meet Em

Hi! I’m Em, mum to three beautiful babes, personal trainer, certified Nutrition Health Coach and your co-founder of Soul Sister Health.

Staying active and keeping fit has always been quite a natural part of my life – I enjoy it, I have always been quite good at it and it was the one thing that continued to make me feel like I was being really ‘healthy’. With the benefit of hindsight, however, I can confidently say that for many years, I had a heavy reliance on just exercise to stay ‘healthy’. There were other parts of my lifestyle, habits and wellbeing that were quite dysfunctional – always choosing extremes of everything (diet, exercise, partying) and if I’m honest, there was very little, if any balance.

I enjoyed my ‘freedom’ years after high school a little too much and if I’m honest never really felt great, physically. I spent my first years of Uni study just barely passing and admittedly never really felt that undeniable passion for the direction I was taking in my working life…

The years went on and I was becoming much more aware of looking after different aspects of my health and slowly creating a little more balance, however I still leant in to the ‘extremes’ sometimes – and I never would have admitted this at the time, nor did I think it was a problem.

This did became a big reality check for me after the birth of my first child, when I quickly raced back in to intense exercise and experienced numerous pelvic floor issues, including a grade 1 prolapse. I was completely blindsided and was initially advised that I had to change all aspects of how I exercise. Initially, I was not in a good way, I felt as though I had lost control over something I enjoyed so much, that gave me so much pleasure and that I was good at! I also felt as though there was a real lack of good information and resources for women in my situation.

After a little time, I forced my way through this funk and did not want to let this negativity drag me down, I quickly sought out invaluable professional help and with endless support from family and friends, I was enjoying getting strong and fit again…just in a different way. My mindset around ‘extremes’ also started to really shift.

So how have these experiences brought me to where I am now? Previously in the finance industry, I had a realisation following the birth of my two babes that my true passion lay elsewhere and I desperately wanted to feel fulfilled in my career. Once the decision was made to change careers in to the wonderful world of health and fitness, I felt immediate relief and so much happiness! More specifically and given my own experience, I wanted to continue to learn about pre and post natal health and fitness and help create awareness in the pre and post-natal space and to educate all of these women around the importance of approaching exercise the right way – which can be extremely individual.

The decision to take my first step and to complete the initial personal training study (and to make it real!) was given the final nudge by Anna. If it wasn’t for this amazing woman, this change for me may have never actually happened. Anna has always been the most incredible support for me and I have always looked up to her for guidance – whether it was study, work, kids or just life in general – she has never let me down.

So of course it made perfect sense to join forces and create this beautiful business together.

So thank you for visiting us here at SSH, we hope you will stay and enjoy everything that we have to offer and we are always happy to hear from you, so please drop us a line!

Em x