We secured a seat with Alrieta De Wet – USN Ambassador, WBFF Bikini Pro and Personal Trainer.

Photography by Mariska Du Plessis

Take us back to the beginning. Tell us where you grew up and what sparked your love for fitness? I am, and have always been a Pretoria girl. Since my school days I have been active and grew up in a house where we always had home cooked meals. Since the age of 16 I was tearing exercise pages out of magazines and making my own workouts. The book even had a dancing Timone from The Lion King with flowers around its neck, coconut cups and a dress to motivate me for summer.

How would you advise someone on maintaining a healthy lifestyle? Maintaining a healthy lifestyle throughout the year is a choice; it’s the best I have made so far. It is not just about choosing to live healthy but is also about educating yourself. As females, we tend to forget that our bodies need food in order to function properly and that yo-yo dieting and starving ourselves to fit in our dress by the weekend is not the healthy option. If you did not plan your meals or just want to start off slow, always remember to base them off having protein, good fats, light carbs and veggies.

Tell us a bit about what motivates you to get up daily and continue living a healthy lifestyle. Motivation is definitely the key; I am privileged to have amazing clients in the early morning hours from 5am that want me to help them change their lives. It motivates me to see the difference I can make in someone else’s life by educating them in something they can take with them forever.

Which muscle group is the most difficult for you and how do you go about ensuring your progress in its development? Personally, the muscle group that takes the longest for me to grow is my gluteus. I have started training them twice a week by doing a heavy session in the beginning of the week (so I can secure my Sunday cheat meal), and my second session would normally be focused on the burn and doing isolated exercises like Single-leg Hip Thrusts.

Give us a little insight into who has motivated you most during your journey in the fitness industry. My biggest inspiration throughout my journey I would say has been Jaco de Bruyn. He has not changed since the first day I met him (except in size). He has time for everyone and is a genuine and honest individual.

2017 has kicked off and is in full swing at this point, we’d like to know what fitness related goals you have set up for yourself? My fitness related goals for the year are to work harder, eat healthier, fall in love with this lifestyle over and over again and to grow my glutes and shoulders.

We all know nutrition is king and we’d love to know what supplements you cannot live without? My favourite USN supplements are Amino- Lean orange flavour, Phedra-Cut Slim Packs, Diet Whey Wheytella and the new Trust Protein bars.

By Charelle Johnson

By MFH