Chatting With Olympic Gold Medallist and Survivor All Star, Lydia Lassila
Today we sat down with a real life wonder woman.
Lydia Lassila is a mum of two, a wife, a successful business owner, three time world record holder, an olympic gold medalist, an Australian Survivor competitor, and still manages to prioritise her health and nutrition!
I mean WOW, we needed to take a breath just reading through this list of achievements! If you thought one woman couldn’t do it all, then you obviously haven’t heard of Lydia!
Lydia grew up in the suburbs of Melbourne and started her career as a gymnast, it wasn’t until her final year of high school that someone suggested she looked at aerial skiing. Turns out, she was pretty good at it. She now has 16 World Cup victories under her belt and has on display both an Olympic Gold & Bronze medal on her mantle piece! Lydia holds three world records and is the first woman in history to perform the quad-twisting somersault. Gah, sounds like guaranteed broken ankles to us!! Most recently, Lydia has taken her fierce competitive spirit to the popular reality show Australian Survivor. In 2019, Lydia competed in Champions v’s Contenders and because 40 odd days of island starvation wasn’t enough, she’s now back on our TV screens in 2020 for Survivor All Stars!
So how does she do it all and especially how does she stay so strong? We feel very fortunate that Lydia found time in her busy schedule to talk to us and provide some insights into how she manages it all. No tips on that quad-twisting somersault though, you’ll have to work that one out for yourselves!
Q: What does a day in the life of Lydia look like?
My days are usually pretty full. I normally start the day with some form of exercise, whether it is yoga, going for a run or surfing. It’s a good day when I’ve been able to do all of those things!
After I get my kids ready and off to school, I put in some hours on the computer running my business BodyICE until around 5pm. By that stage the kids are home from kindergarten, school and sport and the focus turns towards dinner, homework, reading, bedtime routines and cuddles. Depending on how productive I’ve been during the day, I’ll then jump back on my computer for a couple of hours or watch a movie before bed.
Q: Tell us a little bit about your current relationship with health and fitness?
I love the feeling of being healthy, fit and strong. So even though I’m not an elite athlete anymore, I like to keep up some level of exercise. These days I tend to not want to go to the gym, but prefer being outdoors or on my yoga mat.
Q: What role does your diet play in achieving a healthy lifestyle?
Diet plays a huge role in my overall health. I’ve always loved cooking and I buy very little processed foods. As I’m getting older, I’m developing a keen interest in wanting to grow my own produce and find that to be really satisfying. My husband is from Finland, so we visit quite regularly and it’s had a huge influence on me. In the summer, we pick wild berries and wild mushrooms and catch fish from the lake. My father-in-law hunts his own game and grows nearly all of their produce. It’s a nice feeling to be eating produce that is self caught or self grown and so the notion of being self sustaining is certainly the direction I’m heading in.
Q: How do you incorporate hemp into your diet?
I love sprinkling hemp seeds on poached eggs or on my smashed avocado toast in the mornings. Hemp oil is great in salad dressings as well or drizzled with some lemon juice on steamed veggies like broccoli and asparagus.
Q: What are some of your tips and tricks to incorporating healthy foods and snacks into your kids diets? Do they like hemp?
I feel like I can sprinkle a bit of hemp in most of my kids' foods and snacks. It’s an easy addition to soups, smoothies, bliss balls and granola, so my kids don’t really know it's there! However, my 8yr old Kai loves the seeds atop smashed avocado. I also make a lot of banana or carrot loaves so the hemp powder works really well in those.
Q: How did you prepare for your role on Australian Survivor All Stars?
To prepare my body I cut down on coffee but other than that, I just ate normally. Survivor is such an unpredictable game and I don’t think you can fully prepare yourself for the experience. However, I felt fit and strong going in and was ready for the unexpected!
Q: How do you manage to balance your family, career, health and fitness?
It’s a tricky balance, as there are only 24hrs in the day! However, balance is not something I compromise on and to be able to fit everything in, I need to have a clear plan as well as be able to adapt my plans if need be. I’ve also relied on a bit of help. My husband and I both work from home, so this helps us with drop offs and pickups of the kids. We often have a live in aupair which we find very helpful in minimising interruptions throughout the day, plus the added bonus of that extra pair of hands for help around the house.
Q: Why do you choose hemp?
Hemp is an amazing plant that I have only learned about in the last couple of years. What I love about Hemp is that so many products are derived from it. Food, oil, fibre, textiles etc making it so versatile. Not to mention it absorbs more carbon dioxide than trees do…. It's a truly sustainable product and solution.
We are also jumping on the hemp train with plans to release a hemp clothing range under my business BodyICE. The new wellness range called ‘Zone’ recently launched this year and includes; cork yoga mats, accessories and Australian essential oil.
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If you are now as obsessed with Lydia as we are, you can follow her on Instagram @lydialassila.