I thought I’d kick start my very first introduction to you all by rewinding it back to when Amal and I made the ballsiest move of our 20’s quitting our full time jobs at Google, deferred our degrees and taking a one way ticket to San Francisco.
Whenever I tell this story I laugh at the certainty and confidence that we both had, it was the same level of crazy as if we were to have hit the jackpot on the pokies and thrown all the winnings on red hearts with 100% certainty. Literal insanity but it by far is my most treasured moment in my highlight reel and definitely a turning point in my storybook as an entrepreneur.
I was doing a double degree in Law and Media and Communications, majoring in Journalism. I know what you’re thinking, ‘they don’t even go together - you sound confused’... I was SO confused. I thought maybe I’ll be a journalist, maybe I’ll write books, maybe I’ll be a lawyer, maybe I’ll be a barrister, even a judge.. Not only did I have no idea - either did my heart, my heart didn’t sing any one of those occupations loud and clear enough for me to follow it.
I was out for coffee one night with my girlfriends when I ran into Amal. Amal and I went to high school together and weren’t exactly friends, but we always had dieting in common. When our friends were getting pies and sausage rolls from the canteen, we were shaking Biggest Loser shakes, invested in the ‘meal replacement diet’. Amal looked great, she was a fraction of the girl she was in high school – so thin I couldn’t believe it. I asked her how she did it and she told me she had been ‘clean eating’ and weight training and invited me to come and train with her. So I took her up on her offer and we started training together. It wasn’t long before our tenacious natures gelled and came up with the brilliant idea to take things to the next level and start prepping for a fitness modelling show.
At that stage we both started working for Google, I was selling ad space and Amal was working in the experiential marketing space. We prepped for our show under the strictest conditions and ate quite literally chicken, broccoli, fish, asparagus, egg whites and oats for 6 months straight and both stepped on stage honestly still looking like a work-in-progress. Baffled that we’d done everything by the dieting books we started asking questions which then led us to finding our second coach and knight in shining armour Jonathon Dixon. Jonathon was passionate and a library of knowledge, as well as a health and fitness tycoon. He ran a supplement store and lived and breathed all things diet, training and supplementation. What drew us to Jonathon was seeing his lean athletes share their experience of eating food they loved and getting to tip top condition. Intrigued and also desperate for change, Amal and I nestled under Jonathon’s wing as client’s and he prepped us for our first bikini comp under a Flexible Dieting protocol. It was here that we put science to the test and became the proof in the pudding in that we met the science based calculations of our body using foods we loved and got to our goal conditioning. Amal and I were mind blown as to how the world didn’t know about this!? As we began under Jonathan servicing customised nutrition plans for all body transformation goals our passion and commitment to a mission of educating the world on the science of nutrition and allowing people to build a better relationship with food became the cornerstone of our ‘why’.
As two girls from Menai, joined at the hip by a really unique bond, determination and a common goal, we quit our jobs at Google, I deferred my Law degree, gave my Dad a heart attack and Amal and I started Equalution. 6 years on we have grown Equalution to a team of 20 beautiful, strong and determined young women who contribute to our brand in coaching, our database, accounts, graphic design and social media as well as an additional 8 full time developers located in Wollongong in our Devika partnership who are responsible for the digital development and tech side of the business. Equalution is recognised in the tech space as one of Australia’s fastest growing tech companies and responsible for changing the way people think of food.
And the rest is still unwritten….
