E117 - Why I Deleted Everything & Started Again: Leana Deeb's Modesty Journey

0:00The commodification of women's bodies has gone too far. society. It's pushing in the direction that women have to look beautiful, look a certain way in order to be successful. The opposing argument was saying that one of the most influential female content creators of our time. She is the founder of Uplift U. Please welcome Liana D. I always loved being able to hear or read comments about my body. I didn't ever do it just for validation. There were so many times that I wanted to wear shorts and a sports bra just because I felt confident in it i connected with my faith learned the meaning of modesty and it meant deleting everything and starting all over it was just notifying all my partners and stuff like so many people have invested into me and now i'm going to just like delete everything and cover up you shouldn't let your previous content and what you've always done necessarily define you i went from having like millions of likes every time and so covering up i had to learn this is the question i want to ask you what is your definition of female empowerment oh gosh just a quick one guys we have an offer running on the thirst app right now and for those who don't know this is an app which i built to give you everything that you could possibly need in order to get yourself in shape so this is everything which i've learned over the past 18 years of training speaking to all of the experts and coaching thousands of clients since the launch of the app we've helped over a hundred thousand people to get one step closer to achieving their goals so those people no longer were wasting time in the gym trying to figure out what exercises they should be doing how many reps how many sets when they should rest what meal plan they should be following that's going to be best suited for them no more of that for less than the price of one pt session you can get access to over hundreds of programs to help you build strength power and size along with meal plans to help you build muscle lose fat and optimize your health and well-being whilst also allowing you to have some degree of flexibility in your life so now's the time to get in shape make it easier for yourself with a system that actually works with minimal input and the absolute maximum output let's get into the video what's up guys and welcome back to first things thirst we have liana d in the building thank you so much for having me here i'm so excited to do this podcast yeah is it the first one you've done for a while yeah the first ever podcast i did was maybe last year and didn't end up going out and then I did one with um my manager and then also Sean you know Sean yeah so I haven't really done a proper like podcast in a minute so um this is kind of like the first everyone I guess yeah yeah good stuff I'm sure after the the speech and the debate which you did in Oxford this will probably be a breeze yeah like do you still get nervous i definitely still get nervous but i don't know podcasting is just like a different kind of you're like two two i mean two people are like sitting down like staring into each other it's like i i guess i think it's like i don't know i feel like if i continue to keep doing it more and more it will get easier but um definitely still get a risk it's like anything it's just the repetitions of doing something the more you do it the better you get like when i when i first started doing this podcast it was so intimidating for me that we had to sit on either side of the table because i wanted to be like a little bit further apart so it wasn't like so on your face but now you don't like that setup no this is much better now i think okay i was thinking i mean for those that don't know i am going to be starting a podcast too i haven't really announced it yet so um but i was thinking of doing it like that far apart so maybe maybe i should you can just ease yourself into it whatever you're comfortable with what's uh made you want to do that I think being able to reach people and to share my story a little bit more and also to also speak about other people's stories and to relate to them.

3:44And I think, I don't know, there's not a lot of women in terms of like covered women really in the space being able to coexist and speak to just a normal, like, for example, like me and you speaking right now. There's not a lot of hijabi women that are going to go on. I don't, you just don't see it in the space. So I feel like it's definitely needed. And I guess, yeah, I feel like podcasting is definitely the next thing for a lot of people. It's definitely getting more popular. Yeah. But not necessarily everybody should do a podcast, I think. Okay. That's, yeah, I didn't mean that, to be honest.

4:24But I think you'd be very good. Yeah. Because you're smart. you could have a lot to offer your great role model for people and there'd be a lot of good conversations you could have yeah I also think short form you can't really speak your truth as much as we want as much as you want in like a 60 second clip and so I love I personally despise doing short form content yeah I don't I don't look I mean it depends on what it is but I don't love doing short form content as much as YouTube I feel like YouTube is just like you can create a movie you can speak however you want to speak and you won't also get judged in that 60 second clip as much as like a whole youtube yeah video how long have you been creating content for now it's been almost four years now i think going on four years i started in 20 like 2020 ish was it or no covid when was covid 2020 oh yeah like right before covid okay yeah So it's been definitely a good journey, but challenging as well.

5:24How long has it been for you? For me, I start, I mean, Instagram, I was doing little bits of that since like 2012. But YouTube, I decided to bite the bullet and do it. My first video went out in 2016. Okay. Yeah, you're an OG in this phase. So it's, yeah. Well, I'm quite glad that I still have some sort of relevancy. Because a lot of people have come and gone. and I think for you to kind of stay there over a long period of time is is difficult because not only do you as a person change but also like the the trends can change and also you get older as well so the content which you used to make you kind of grow out of it a little bit and then maybe the the journey that you now take is something which maybe people aren't as interested in or people just decide to not want to do it anymore because it is if you want to do it properly it's like a full-time business now yeah it's like it's it's full-on you've got to sort of dedicate yourself to it either you're doing it all by yourself or you have a team and then if you have a team it costs money so you gotta get money coming in so you can pay the team no the space is super competitive as well i feel like because i i guess you could say i was kind of like i started at the perfect time i feel like if i would have started now it would be completely different because everyone is taking i think everyone wants to be a content creator nowadays it's not like they want to grow up and be a lawyer as much I mean of course there's still people out there doing it but now everyone Gen Z is coming up and realizing that content creation is the next like nine to five so yeah I think I don't know who said this but I think in the Middle East a lot of the kids who are going to school the number one most popular profession that they all want to go into is content creation so it's like it's also scary in terms of like I don't know what if i mean if everyone starts doing connegration yeah for me i think it would be to start from scratch that would be quite a big task so i'd be like where where should i even start what do i talk about and you just gotta do you gotta do a lot to build up that brand and to have that reputation and have that just solid you know mountain of work behind you like you can't just become an overnight sensation well some people can you know there's people like ashton hall who got viral very quickly but then i don't think going viral is what you want it's nice to have it like slow and gradual yeah mine was definitely overnight really which is not great for like now i'm realizing it wasn't as i wish i would have went through the pain of like building it slowly over time because i would have learned to like deal with i don't know more stress i think like mine took like took off overnight basically it was like i think i was growing like a million followers a month at the time and yeah so it was i need to be taking notes no no no it was it was it was intense like i was kind of just like where is this all coming from that's when i was like obviously i was i mean i was showing my body at the time and my hair and fitness was kind of it was super pretty like there wasn't maybe in the like male space it was more like intense but for women in terms of like women posting content online i didn't ever see women sweating or like repping out super intense like you know like when you're training till failure and you're like going so hard like i didn't see a woman training that way but when i found the gym that's how i started training and then like that's kind of when i like put like started posting content and um i guess the way that i edited like my content and it was like obviously the whole thing was like a movie I also used so much like rap music and and then I guess that was like different at the time in TikTok and Instagram and that's kind of what like blew me up overnight and uh how did how did you know how to edit things in a certain way do you feel like oh this is just my style I like it I'm not gonna do what everybody else is doing so I'll do my own thing I think it started off with first just practicing and then I started like playing around with like the zoom levels and then I would always edit to music.

9:30So I loved like trap music, like super like, like Keglock, Drake, Lil Baby. And so I would take the music and then start off with like a first, a clip that was going to grab somebody's attention, like the three second, like first three seconds you have to grab their attention. And then I would make sure that it was like aspirational, something that people wanted to see, which was like me sweating my body my hair and then um yeah showed the full workout made sure i was giving them value in the content and then and then yeah i just kind of found that like that consistent thing and then just continued on with it every single day for like two years straight i like did not take one day off because it like once it i guess once everything started going you kind of don't want to lose that and when the momentum's there you gotta keep going yeah yeah yeah well how are you handling that you found same oh my god it was a lot i feel like when you when you i mean i'm sure you relate to this when you start having a social media platform people around you some people around you don't really understand and you kind of go through this like i don't know not lonely chapter a little bit but no no i went yeah yeah it was definitely like a lonely chapter trying to figure it out but i also found like my management at the time i was like i didn't understand like i was going to sign to some agency in the beginning, but it seemed really dodgy.

10:54And then like, I was like looking online, like marketing, I didn't even know what I was looking for. And I found GenFlow. And I guess my manager, Saad, found me through there. I emailed them and I was like, I need help with like managing my platform. And that kind of just became like also learning from a team. And I think like management and stuff like that is also, did you have management or any no okay i was doing everything myself i think this was i remember 2017 when i was taking it seriously okay things were quite different then i think i definitely should have hired a cameraman sooner or at least an editor because i was doing everything by myself you're editing your own youtube oh no i never edited my youtube i was doing everything myself but more so because i don't know if i particularly i wasn't fully confident in front of the camera and I was quite selective with how I wanted to portray myself and I guess because a lot of the content I was making was very technical with the gym stuff so I knew that I had to edit things in a certain way so that when I spoke about something the exact perfect visual clip would go over it right which a normal editor wouldn't get that maybe an editor who had a little bit of background with lifting would understand but I knew that like there would be too much changes that needed to be done and then I became a bit of a control freak but anyway that like you said about lonely chap so that year was my version of the lonely chapter because all I did was film edit film edit lived in London had loads of online clients just doing one-to-one coaching via Skype at the time so that was my life what were you doing before like social media uh personal trainer okay yeah just like the old school personal trainer just I did have my own gym in Newcastle your own gym it was a like a studio gym we converted this warehouse into a gym nice so it was me business partner we would train our clients there and that was i did that for a few years uh but i'm kind of glad i did it because it built up the foundations of my knowledge and the experience with coaching people yeah which i think then allowed me to have the success i had on youtube it was like i was talking to a client yeah i knew all the mistakes they were making all the problems they were facing and i was just trying to simplify things as much as possible so people understood what it is that they need to do when they go to the gym and that you know if they're lifting a weight what do they need to think about what are the cues what are the mistakes they should not be making yeah and that was yeah i grew a lot in in that year yeah i mean editors and like editors won't really understand i mean unless you really teach them like yeah the yeah the nitty-gritty parts but um yeah i guess in terms of like lonely chapter i think now like at the part of like your career like i mean i am kind of going through a phase where like you still have love for the people in your circle um or like your previous circle but it doesn't feel as like you don't have similar i don't know is it um like similar you can't you i think conversations are forced a little bit yeah do you have that now or do you have you found like i had that more so uh when i lived in the uk i had to move from the place where i had my gym to london because i knew as much as i loved them all my friends um like we all had each other's back and stuff they were just they didn't really have the same level of ambition that i had and i could see and predict what my future would look like if i was to just stay in that city yeah and i was like if i want to make the move and you know progress i'm gonna have to move to a bigger city and i'm just gonna have to start from scratch and i think my biggest problem when i moved to london was i just didn't go out and try to make friends i kind of locked myself away a little bit yeah but when i moved to dubai um i guess it was kind of easier because i had a you know a following behind me so it was easier to reach out yeah um but now a lot of my circles are not necessarily in fitness like i have my entrepreneur friends um are people who are just they're doing their own thing but they're successful they're not necessarily influencers so it's a good mix okay i see yeah so what was it that made you make that decision to change the content that you were putting out that was working for you and just get rid of it all and almost rebrand yourself i think when success came so quickly i was i was questioning where it was coming from like i understood if you work hard and you give value and treat people well like the the universe the creator will reward you i wasn't really like practicing faith at the time i grew up in a household where my mom was like a catholic revert like she converted to islam when she married my dad and why is a catholic griever so like we say revert because oh revert yeah or convert like she converted to islam um so i like kind of understood faith a little bit but i didn't really have a great relationship with islam i kind of thought the religion was oppressive towards women but it was like more so i mean learning now it's like culture is oppressive not really religion um and yeah so i had a really like a bad relationship with religion but i always believed in a higher power so i was like where is this all coming from?

16:15I felt extremely grateful. And I was having a conversation with my manager and because it was like, I felt extremely low, even though all that success was there. I was like, brands, like the dream brands that I wanted to work with, so much money was coming at like the tip of my finger, like at my fingertips. And I was just, I didn't really know how to manage. I mean, I guess like I just felt empty I felt empty and he had mentioned you need to give in charity which is like zakat is one of the pillars of Islam means like giving in charity and so he had mentioned that and it kind of like drew me closer to learning more about the faith and having just a deeper purpose I guess a connection to something because I just felt extremely empty.

17:07I was also like not really having a great relationship with my parents and didn't really have like many friends at the time. So I just felt so I guess alone. Now I'm good with my parents and stuff. But like, yeah, I felt just extremely empty. And I guess, finding faith and learning about modesty and the reason behind modesty. Because I kind of thought hijab was yeah i thought hijab was oppressive i thought you had to wear it for a man if i'm being completely honest and i didn't because i wasn't taught it from a young age and i think there's a lot of like even here in dubai or like um in the u.s you grow into a like a religion you grow into a family that maybe practices or doesn't really practice it my parents never like enforced it onto me my mom doesn't wear hijab a lot of people think that like i don't know muslim women get forced into it um it's funny that like a lot of people in the west their opinion on uh like middle eastern women yeah and how oh if you if you're the type of woman that has to wear a hijab then you're literally not allowed to do anything yeah well that's actually not quite true yeah no it's i'm and i think i even thought that living in the west um and so i thought i could never like be a career woman and even speak in settings like this.

18:30I thought I was never able to do, I guess, normal things, but that was, that was more of the culture. And so I learned truly what the meaning behind modesty was. And it's not for a man. Of course, it does have things to do with like men in terms of it can like be a form of protection in in some cases obviously there's there's all types of people out there but like in terms of like when i was not covered the amount of catcalling or the way that people would like not treat me with as much respect as as well not saying that women are that don't cover are not like respected but i i I didn't feel, I mean, now, because I've lived both lives, or like both, yeah, I guess both lives, I could tell the difference between being covered and not being covered.

19:25But it's not just for men. It's also like who you are as a person, how you treat others, learning how to rely on more of like internal love versus like validation, which like in the gym, I was obsessed with validation. Like I always loved being able to hear or read comments about my body. And that kind of that kind of becomes worked hard for it yeah of course in which you love i love that i didn't ever do it just for validation and i think that people say that oh women dress a certain way just to be validated by men like there was a thing going on on tiktok for a while which that's not true at all because there were so many times that i wanted to wear shorts and a sports bra just because i felt confident in it and now it's like sorry i just went blank where are we going yeah the the decision to wanting to do this yeah yeah so yeah anyways i connected with my faith and um learned the meaning of modesty and it meant deleting everything and starting all over and so it's quite interesting how it wasn't like a oh let's just gradually move into this it's like right delete everything yeah i mean to be honest i did kind of gradually go into it a little bit I mean, like, I knew it's what I wanted, but I went from, like, shorts to leggings and then sports bras to, like, a crop top.

20:51And then once I made the decision, okay, I'm only going to wear leggings and only a crop top, I'm not going to wear a sports bra anymore. Then it was like, okay, I need to cover my body, my stomach, which, like, you know, in fitness, you have abs or something, it's your selling point. And I think that was my fear because I built this brand around Gymshark. I was selling so many leggings, so many sports bras. I have a fitness app and selling a fitness app, they need to see your body in order. I mean, I believe that. I know exactly what you mean. Exactly. So they need to see your body to even be inspired.

21:24Like, why should I trust you? Right? Because you built the physique. And so it was just notifying all my partners and stuff. Like so many people have invested into me and now I'm going to just like delete everything and cover up. And so I think a lot of people were definitely scared. I mean my manager was like he's like okay wait let's just like let's do this like let's do it slowly but there was like a time where I just knew instantly like and I called him and I was like I'm deleting all my content and he was like wait just wait let me notify the brands like let me notify them and I was like no I'm doing it now I need to do it now otherwise I'll never do it because it's like you have to kind of just like pull the trigger a little bit and just get it over with and yeah so um that's so cool like just the amount of effort that has gone into creating everything yeah for it to vanish that's like one of my biggest fears if particularly for example like my youtube and instagram like this there's so much effort gone into it but also it's like uh i don't know it's like it's like a diary for myself like i like to look back and watch some older videos or look at some things which i've done even if i look back at it and i cringe like I look at some of my old content or somebody puts it on.

22:37I'm like, I can't even watch that. Like that's not me anymore. But I like, I'll leave it up there. Yeah. So I. I mean, I've archived it. So sometimes I will go back and like look at it a little bit because I definitely think transitioning from being uncovered to being covered. It's in being in the fitness space still. It's extremely, it's been challenging. I believe and love the meaning of modesty, the meaning of hijab. But it's still, since I've been uncovered all of my life, and it's only been two years of wearing it, you're still kind of like finding this, like, I don't know, kind of a newer version of you.

23:18And I also was obsessed with music. Like music was my everything. Like I would listen to music every single morning. I would sleep with music in the gym. It was like a part of me. And I also like cut that out. I saw your post about you not training to music anymore. I was like, wow. Yeah, no, music is, it's an art. I mean, I still appreciate music if I hear it. You went from like listening to all that trap music, all that, you know, the swear words and everything. You're like, no, no more. Yeah. I think it just I always think about like the mental aspect of it as well yeah yeah well for me I I know there's there's certain things which I would listen to in the gym but the moment I step out of the gym I'm like this is not good for me like I'll just I'll change it and put something more uplifting on yeah but you're right you can I love music but then I sometimes wonder it's like am I just constantly listening to it because I refuse to just be there in silence and listen to my own thoughts am i trying to distract myself from something or my almost reliant upon this for this feeling of dopamine because it makes you feel good yeah do you have a like do you practice faith or anything or do you have a kind of i don't know journaling or something that you do besides fitness because i'm sure with all the stress that you go through i mean i can feel the mental like yeah it gets hard at times so what do you like for me that's just time alone time alone alone time just talking to myself and thinking i think that's probably the best thing for me because i'm a little bit more of an introverted person so when i have that time to myself that's when i recharge and i very much like the person inside my head that i can have a conversation with so that's kind of my go-to i do believe in a higher power probably a little bit more spiritual but I don't necessarily practice any faith.

25:09But I feel like I would not be surprised if this changes in five to 10 years or whatever. Especially now, I feel like there's a trend of more people turning towards faith. Like it's, I don't know if it's the algorithm maybe like telling me to do something. But I do feel as though like a lot of people online who I've been following or even spoke to in podcasts, they do speak very highly of religion. And they say that that is the thing that has changed them. So I'm very open-minded. So I'm open to trying things and seeing kind of what works for me. But you're right, you can go through these phases in life where you work hard and then you just get everything.

25:54All these things you've ever wanted, you now have. And it's weird because even though you feel like that is the thing that you've wanted so much and would make you happy, a lot of these things don't actually end up being as good as you thought they would be they're not all that cracked out to be and then you're you're just like oh so so now what like there has to be a you know something else to it yeah and religion probably is that thing even a higher power like just some form of spirituality like you don't meditate i've tried no it doesn't work so literally just sitting or in talking to yourself do you ever deal with like negative thoughts.

26:34I'm pretty good with that, you know. Okay, so you're pretty positive. Yeah, I think I feel them creep in. Okay. But I'm very optimistic. I think more so just because of the journey and path which I've been on, a lot of things which I had thought at the time would be a complete disaster and a huge problem, most of the time end up working out in your favor. And usually the periods of hardship or suffering that you go through, they're the key moments in your life where you you you almost become a new person it's like a rebirth and then it makes you stronger and more resilient so if there is a moment now where things really suck or there's a lot of pressure or i'm you know not feeling great i'm like okay this is i'm i'm going through a period of change and usually on the other side of that everything is is all good in the beginning did you always have that though or like was because i know a lot of it comes from also like the like the home that you've been brought up into like if you are either like super optimistic it usually comes from like parents or would you say you've always had that from the beginning i think uh i've my dad's been a very good role model he's i never see him complain and he's always very positive and he's gone through his fair share of hardships like we all have as a family and to see how he had dealt with things made me think okay like if he's gone through all of that then I can go through it as well yeah but I think particularly when I was younger I when I was experiencing I don't know I don't know if it's a stretch to say that I'd been depressed I don't think it was ever that bad but whenever I was going through moments of feeling sad uh or unhappy I think I didn't realize that this it's a sign for you that something needs to change.

28:21Like you are not currently happy with this situation, your environment, whatever it might be. So you need to change something in order to get rid of this feeling and become happier. And, um, when I was younger, I just didn't understand it. So I would almost just kind of bask in it and not change anything. And I'd be like, well, why do I still feel bad? It's like, well, cause you're still living in this environment. So definitely got better. Yeah. And I think even like myself as well, I always kind of think about living in alignment, like making sure I'm always aligned with the mission that I'm on.

28:58And I feel like that's probably similar, like always listening to that voice that something's not right and needs to change, which was kind of like when I transitioned completely listening to it. Social media is quite funny as well, because you could be like perfectly content and happy. Yeah. And you're just making your content. And then people are like, why do you look so miserable? Oh my God. Yeah. I'm actually really happy. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for that. Yeah. I always get so many comments that I'm like sad as well. I think. Yeah. It's, I don't know. I also think maybe I used to smile so much in my content and dance like all the time.

29:35And I think now that I'm not really smiling and dancing and I think people think like, what's wrong with you? But, yeah, but yeah, no, I don't. Well, this is, this is again, the weird thing with social media, because, I have days when I wake up and I'm just like, I'm not in the best mood. I'm not in the worst mood. I'm just me. And I just, it's not like I'm putting on a show. I think a lot of people on social media, they're not necessarily being fully transparent with who they are. Like they're putting on a show for the audience and it's not a true representation of who they are. Even for myself, like there's a difference between me holding the camera and vlogging with it.

30:17like I'm much more personal. It's like a one-to-one with either myself or the audience. But when my cameraman comes and it's like cameras on me, I like perform a little bit. Yeah, it's different. And it's like more of a over-exaggerated over the top version of myself because I mean, I have to be engaging because if I'm not engaging, you guys are just going to switch off and go watch something else. But like, I'm not necessarily that person all the time. Like I have like my highs and lows, but I'm just pretty chill most of the time. you don't share the lows as much do you or no no i think that's uh maybe again because of like watching how my dad would deal with stuff um and again maybe because i'm a man i think men often have troubles with uh expressing themselves or talking about feelings and emotions i i bottle it up and i just keep it in which is probably the worst thing yeah no that's not a great thing but that's what i've always done yeah and i always just think well everybody else has got their own problems and stuff to deal with nobody wants to hear about my problems like i'll just get on and do my thing i mean you never know i mean what the audience like your audience i'm sure could relate in that way but obviously it's hard showing the moments because you don't also want to fill like film those moments yeah yeah i mean it's not like you know i'm not that i cry often but it's not like i'm gonna spontaneously start crying and be like right get the camera out let's get these tears yeah no i definitely feel like times that i film myself crying i'm always like kind of like it feels weird like i shouldn't be doing this like it's not yeah have you done it before like once like once maybe twice they were genuine tears they were they were yeah yeah i like i understand it but i think for men and for women it's different but I have there's been a few times where I have maybe opened up about certain things people love that you know yeah because I think people just assume maybe it's with me or other people that life is perfect and then nobody's got their problems which they're dealing with you're supposed to be this person who has everything under control yeah um so yeah maybe now will be the start of me opening up my start a new channel yeah talking about my problems opening I mean, you're opening a fitness channel too, right?

32:31That's already started. Yeah, it's like two months now. Okay, cool. But it's interesting, obviously, the journey you've gone through, where you have rebranded and started from scratch. I've also kind of gone through this as well, where you shouldn't let your previous content and what you've always done necessarily define you. So I think a lot of people, whether it's the art of creation or just within their career, because they're in this particular career and it's the thing that they're good at and they've always done, they let that define them. And then they think, well, actually, really, I want to do this.

33:11But because this is who I am, that's what people know me for, I guess I'm going to carry on doing this now. So people shouldn't be afraid to go in a completely different direction if that's what they feel like doing. yeah I think it can be scary in the moment for sure even I mean it felt scary when I made that massive transition but also now going into podcasting it feels like is this the right choice I should be like should I be doing this is that how you felt as well like when starting a podcast or did you know you were going to still do fitness at the same time or um I just I felt like first of all it was a maturity thing I could not have done a podcast at like 25 like i would have said too many stupid things ask too many inappropriate questions and it probably would have got me in trouble so there's there's a thing where as you mature and you become wiser you will naturally become a better conversationalist um but also just because i was meeting so many amazing people here having these great conversations and it wasn't necessarily a right fit to put that out on like a vlogging channel so i was like okay i need to do something else but again i never really saw myself as being a podcast host i never saw myself or predicted that i would be like a coach teaching people yeah things just kind of happen but naturally i'm more of a curious person who likes to ask questions and listen versus the person who likes to yeah me too i yeah i feel like it's it's probably easier maybe to sit and ask questions than to speak about yours depending on who though right yeah because there is an art in shutting up letting person talk asking the right question always having the next question ready being a good enough host that your guests can relax and open up yeah but to also bring out the best in them so it's it's it's both of them are a skill i guess i mean i don't know i guess i'll learn going into it so I haven't yeah you'll find out for sure yeah so initially when you you made this transition the what was the overall uh response from like your current uh audience and followers like were people there supporting you or like what are you doing it was a mix of both because I'm half I'm half Hispanic and half Arab Palestinian and Udawayan and so and I also have a large like Mexican and Brazilian community.

35:40So, you know, women in Brazil, like, yeah, yeah. So it's, it's, it was like, what is, what was the percentage of men versus women? Oh my gosh. At the time, I think it was like 70, no, maybe 60, 40. Now it's rise to almost like 80, 20, because obviously I don't think men want to see as much. But, um, oh my gosh, it was, um, it was actually not bad, surprisingly. Like I've definitely lost followers, but I've gained so many followers. And I'm actually shocked that I was able to still maintain a community, still maintain a following, even engagement. Obviously, my engagement wasn't as high as showing my body, but now there's more.

36:22I wouldn't say there wasn't meaning before, but it's aligned with whoever is on a similar path, I guess. And yeah, I think it was this. I kind of knew that people were going to think, oh my gosh, her family has forced her into this and, or she's married a man and she has to cover for him now, which I'm not married. My parents didn't force me into it. My parents were actually like kind of scared for me because they were like, don't, like, don't, don't make this risk right now. Like you're going to lose all your success. And so, I mean, obviously now it's worked out great. And we've also like, whenever I was like speaking to my team about it, I tried to think about how it could benefit brands as well.

37:02I mean, you have to if I'm still going to continue social media I was thinking like okay I'm supposed to come out with a legging with Gymshark can we now like work on modest wear for example because I started just training in men's clothing yeah I was gonna say like what what would you even begin to think about wearing because you you want something that is comfortable yeah first of all something is going to cover up and then I guess did you at the time did you care how it looked like the clothing itself i loved i mean i love clothing i love the things that you put on make you feel so good and i would wear all the sets the colors everything gymshark drops so many things so i would always wear every single thing and going from that to literally wearing like gray sweat pants with like a baggy t-shirt and another like under top and it was just it was it was not great at the time but so you uh did Gymshark reach out to you or did you reach out to them and why Gymshark um I so when I started my fitness journey I was always wearing Gymshark like whenever I just when I was 16 I was always in Gymshark leggings everything and whenever I started content creation I knew that was the brand that I wanted to work with so I declined every single brand except for I tried like one brand at the time but I was like no this is not it I'm gonna wait for Gymshark and so I just continued creating content not earning any money I was like in credit card debt but I was like no I want the brands that I want to work with and so once Gymshark saw that I was like I took off like skyrocketed it was kind of like every single brand came to me and I had like this whole table to choose from I was like Gymshark all the way yeah yeah yeah and they've I mean they've got the experience they've got the the the contacts yeah um was when when did they first launch the the the modest line when was this so we did it in january this past january but but we've we've launched like did we launch anything in between no we did like hoodies in between like with my graphic but the actual modest line was in january and it performed really well and it was actually like shocking obviously it was the first ever thing so there's so many like changes that I want to make but we're going to be doing another collection because there's so many people that actually need it and um yeah I've like made sure to push for more representation in terms of just women that are covered and that means like within the roster as well making sure that like it's a like a mission that they're truly behind on which I it took a long time to really convince anyone that there's women that train that are covered.

39:53Because it doesn't seem like a great opportunity in terms of making money, because obviously people want to buy leggings and shorts and sports bras, and it's such a niche kind of... It was a risk for them, which was understandable. But they understand it now, which has been like it's taken a while to really like get to this point like two years I would say um but yeah now we're like there there's um many athletes there's there's three there's so many um like affiliates also modest drops within like just monthly like month to month there's so many like modest options so it's like actually now fully in the brand a little bit obviously still pushing for more but it's been yeah it's been good it's been what was the uh the store opening like the gymshark store in the dubai mall oh it was sick it was so cool yeah yeah it was full i didn't know gymshark was massive out here is it because a lot of people come from the uk or is it uh no i think is it's pretty much a worldwide brand now i actually i would love to know what the the stats are for how many units of male clothes they sell versus female clothes um i think there was definitely a phase where at one point less men were wearing it it was very much women at least who i would see wearing uh gym socks stuff but i think now they've pulled in some of the big dogs right now they've got sebum now they've got sam sulik you know they've i think phil heath as a brian terry so i think they're trying to make it like cool again for the guys so without a doubt I'm sure that more men are now interested but I mean even just in like the Middle East like the amount of Muslim women that want to work out in modest clothing yeah like that's a whole new market which they've opened themselves up to so yeah quick pause guys I need to tell you something it's that time of the year where everyone's on the winter arc hype where they're building their physique which they plan to reveal at some point in the summer of 2026, but I hate to be the guy that says it.

42:05Most of you are going to end up getting fat. You'll be overeating. You'll be following some sort of a program, which isn't actually going to be getting your results. You're going to be improvising on the spot, no doubt. You won't be tracking. There'll be no structure, just random exercises with minimal progress seen on a week to week basis. Pretty frustrating, right? Well, that's the whole reason why I built the Thirst App to help busy people like yourself find a system they can actually stick to over a long period of time. We have thousands of transformations from men and women who just plug into the app and get the exact plan they need for their goals, show up to the gym and just put in the work, all for less than an hour of their time.

42:45I've got a special offer running for you guys right now. For less than the price of a one-to-one PT session, you get access to over hundreds of programs and hundreds of different meal plans, everything which you could possibly need to get yourself in shape. So if you actually want to stick to something and see results without taking things to the absolute extremities, click the link in the bio. Let's get on with the video. Have you trained in the female-only gyms here? Yeah, I worked with, do you know Fit and Glam? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I worked with them and did like a whole event, but it was good.

43:17It was cool. It's so different because I'm used to filming, which in the only women's gyms, obviously you can't film because there's women that cover that go there to train in shorts and stuff so it's definitely different i don't think a lot of women there's a lot of like covered women don't go to the mixed gyms right or do you see no yeah they're all going to the only what i have started to notice now particularly with the women who have they train and they get themselves in great shape so obviously they're curvy now when they are wearing these sports clothes they're getting a lot of guys staring and some men actually quite a lot of men like they just need to learn to not stare like it's pretty weird yeah um so there's a lot of women who they will go to the gym they just they want to train because like the gym they don't want to be stared at they don't want to be hit on like they just want to go and they want to train so i've noticed that there are a lot of women who would be wearing the leggings and like the uh sports bra maybe underneath but they have like a baggy t-shirt okay so the baggy shirt or top basically covers everything and also covers the glutes yeah so you can't actually they're comfortable but the guys can't see what's underneath yeah but sometimes it's still if you have a shape it still shows through the shape which is like even yeah even myself i'm wearing a full-on dress to the gym sometimes and it's like it you can it doesn't like fully i don't think it will ever fully cover everything if you're performing an rdl and you're bending over it's like i still feel uncomfortable sometimes not like thinking that men are staring at me just like myself I guess yeah and um so I think that like the women only gyms is kind of like the real solution if women don't want to be stared at or if they want to feel like comfortable but what do you prefer do you prefer the women only gym or training and mixed I mean because I do content definitely I mean I would prefer an only women's gym for sure if i could film in it if you feel you feel in both okay if i can film in both yeah i don't mind mixed gyms it just depends on the environment but i would prefer an only women's gym for sure because yeah yeah because we were talking about before the uh they got the oxygen gym in dubai is that that brand itself is just men only yeah and it's a interesting atmosphere it's good to like go there to focus and there's actually a lot of the locals that like to go and train there.

45:47Yep. But I think I definitely like, I like the mix. Yeah, it's probably, I mean, because in Islam, you're not supposed to be in mixed environments unless it's like necessary because it's like a thing. It's kind of like a distraction in many ways, which I'm sure you could say that women can't be a distraction at times. Some guys will let it be a distraction for sure. other guys will let it be a motivator perhaps a few times I've extended my workout because I've enjoyed the people that have been at the gym so I guess it works two ways but for me if I go to the gym I'm focused, nobody's distracting me, I'm there to do my thing do you like to train alone or I assume it's the type of person that probably likes to train alone I like turning alone, I don't like talking during my sessions that much, do you?

46:40no, like I've Like for me, you were talking before about like meditation or whatever, but I like to, I'll go by myself. I listen to my music. I think the music for me makes the session a lot better, more enjoyable. And it gets me into this zone. Like as soon as I get into that zone, it's like this flow state where like, it doesn't matter how like difficult or horrible an exercise is. Like I'm just, I'm so there in the moment that I just love it. Would you ever try training without music? Done it a few times. Okay. You don't like it? Not intentionally. it's just i get them like don't know my earphones yeah okay did you still do the workout though oh yeah okay some people will leave yeah there's there's been a few times i'm like well i'm not gonna train legs today i'm gonna go do something but it depends on uh like gym music sometimes is the absolute worst of the worst yeah that's fair i would prefer to train in silence to listen to whatever the hell that is on the radio no that's fair yeah um but yeah i mean either way now it's i'll get i'll get it done regardless that's good what's your what's your split like at the moment like your approach to training because this is what's quite interesting so i don't know if this has been a thing for you but where beforehand you may have been training for a particular aesthetic now has that changed has your training changed because you're not necessarily that bothered about how you will look visually but more so performance and how it will make you feel or is it still the same type of training now it's more so in how i feel but it is still strength training super i love lifting super heavy it was about aesthetics and mainly like glutes which now so i'm i still want to maintain but i'm not overly focused on having like the biggest glutes or the biggest legs i kind of want to just glute yeah kickbacks yeah no i'm not doing yeah so i'm like right now i'm kind of in a mix of like the hybrid training i'm doing the running and the weight lifting but i love strength training like i don't think anything is going to compare to lifting super heavy and looks cool yeah it does it does and um like a heavy bulgarian split squat like i love that and so um yeah it hasn't really changed that much just incorporating more running and i think that I still I still care about my physique because I still see it yeah but in terms of just like needing to prove it to people I don't think yeah I'm obviously I they can't see anymore so yeah it's I had I mean it's not a similar experience but it's I guess something I could maybe relate to a little bit like when I lived in the UK and it was the winters obviously it was very cold, pretty miserable.

49:26I was always covered up. Okay. In fact, I've realized like the only time I'd actually see myself in the mirror would be when I'm having a shower or if I'm getting changed in the changing room. I'm like, oh yeah, that's what my physique looks like. The rest of the time it was just like fully covered up. And I did notice that it didn't necessarily change my style of training or how hard I trained but the motivation to be at a lower body fat percentage was not the same I wasn't there and I noticed that I would be not so strict with my diet I would tend to overeat because I would be like well does it really matter like if I'm three percent less body fat because I can't see myself and nobody else is going to see it so why do I need to like did you do you feel like did you find yourself eating a little bit more than you should have done in in the beginning most definitely not even the eating part but the love for training wasn't the same because it was purely driven off of aesthetics and people seeing my body as well I mean it was obviously for myself but like because I also had people constantly looking at me you kind of like I don't know you kind of fall out of love with it a little bit because I was always covered up even at home, like just in baggy stuff.

50:45And I had to like regain my love and regain the relationship of like looking good for myself because I would get dressed up and go out and people would see me and, you know, in nice clothes, like a crop top and tight jeans and my hair and everything. And when you're like fully covered up, you have to make that effort, I guess, and do it. I have to, sometimes I like put on a dress at home and do my hair and nobody sees me because I want to just remind myself of like, still got it. I know. Exactly. So it's like, yeah, that's, that's, and I think a lot of women and maybe men go through that still.

51:24So that's definitely very relatable. Yeah. One thing which I think is quite interesting things is the hijab is is it designed to make you less attracted to men yeah so why do some women literally cake the makeup on their face yeah it's when it's almost defeating the purpose of you wearing the hijab like i was always a bit confused about that yeah i think because so if you if you cover up your body obviously all you see is your face so maybe women just feel the need to maybe overcompensate with makeup or it's kind of like a I mean it all comes down to just like feeling confident in your natural self like I struggle with acne and I still sometimes will like put on a little bit of like concealer and try to cover it up a little bit but even that is not like that's not the proper hijab like hijab means like being your natural self in every single way and so yeah I mean, makeup is, it's defeating the purpose of relying on the like internal beauty of who you are and showing up as like your raw and real self and having people love you for you in that way.

52:38And then I guess the whole like, you're still supposed to look nice. If you, I guess it is, I mean, whenever you have a partner or you get married or you can go out with friends and girls can see you without a hijab, then you like look good for them, I guess too. Yeah. So, but I guess in terms of makeup, it's just, I don't know, probably it's, it's kind of, you're not supposed to do it. Yeah. It must be so weird now because of this transition. It's almost like you've unintentionally become this role model that these women will look up to. And nobody is perfect, yet all these women who are also very much about the modesty, lifestyle, religion, and so on, you're now the person that they look up to.

53:24And you doing this, you didn't do it because you want to be a role model for all these people. you're doing it just for yourself yeah but a side effect of that is you now becoming this role model where i imagine you have to be quite you know you'll be careful with what you say how you present yourself it must be a lot of pressure like do you feel like you can still be yourself or you have to you know it's not say certain things and most definitely it's i understand the like the position that I have and so I have to also make sure that I'm like respecting the religion also and so I've tried to continue to learn more and more about I guess the boundaries of like if I'm speaking to a man for example or if I'm following men on social media like I don't I don't even I'm still trying not to also like because I had to teach myself the religion and really dissect the book, basically, because I don't want to be too extreme.

54:29You can also go down. I think for a moment in my life, I fully was learning the religion to the point where I was cutting out everything so fast. And I was feeling not miserable, but you just cut out everything at once. And that's not really what Islam is. You're not supposed to go this extreme route. And so I think I'm like trying to find the balance but also I also believe in I believe in everything that I do but I also have a side to me that is super I love joking around I love laughing I've I was yeah I'm super I yeah I guess the camera or like being on camera now I'm trying to I think that's why I also want to get into podcasting is like I feel like I can't be myself sometimes and I'm learning how to I'm learning how to be myself again I think I can imagine you just like turning off the camera and just go like I sometimes have that when um uh I've had to have been like just really serious like I'm just doing loads of really serious things yeah and I just want to like I don't know just make a joke and I'm like this is not the time to make a joke yeah like hold it in and then when I'm with like my close friends that I can say what needs to be said yeah but it's i think i i'm quite lucky in a sense because i've never really i guess people know who i am so it's i've not really needed to change anything that i've done of course my my behavior has changed and even like for example with social media there was one point where like literally every single post was me topless like wearing pretty much nothing yeah and the reason behind that was because of obviously social media you do the thing which gets the most engagement so then you're chasing maximum engagement which obviously is me you know where people could see my body doing the exercises or whatever it might be and I remember just looking at my feed just being like god like why and even people would comment especially the women they'd be like oh yeah you don't wear clothes do you I'm like well I do but like whenever I posted pictures of me wearing clothes it wouldn't get as much engagement yeah so I fell in that trap of trying to maximize the likes and the shares and the comments and so on and i think i started to grow out of that and be like well you're very one-dimensional if you just do that and you're only known as mike guy who has a good body yeah like maybe actually start wearing some clothes and maybe show people that you've got a bit of uh fashion sense yeah and personality yes yeah i had to learn that also because once you get obsessed with likes and comments and views it's just and then you go from because I went from having like almost 100 million views on like TikTok posts like it was millions of likes every time and so covering up I had to learn that engagement doesn't actually really matter all the time no yeah it doesn't and I didn't really I think it's it's hard to learn that and I'm sure you like going through that now you kind of realize yeah I think if like if your goal is to build a strong brand and a loyal audience if you go and just constantly chase likes and trends you you almost you don't really have any proper definition as to who you are because you're always doing that next thing yeah because you just want those likes and i've seen a lot of people do some pretty cheesy stuff which is kind of off-brand just because they want to do the thing that everybody else is doing yeah no and long term yeah it does not work so i think if you just stick to your guns and whenever it comes to building a brand you list beforehand okay what is your brand about what do you want to be known for and then before you post anything or before you go and make content just see okay well is this aligning with everything which i've defined myself as and if it doesn't then don't do it it's the same thing with i'm sure you get it the amount of brands that want to work with you like well yeah you could say yes to everything you make loads of money but then there's a lot of uh companies that might not be on brand with you and if you collaborate with them it's people are like this doesn't really make any sense and then becomes quite obvious that you're doing it purely for the money yeah i don't i don't yeah i only like work with i mean i've only worked with like bloom and jim shark and now i've taken on like a skin brand but it's because i was using them before i even started working with them what's what's bloom for those who don't know so bloom is a nutrition brand it was founded by greg and maury based off of women in fitness that want just like a clean healthy brand and yeah they've started off with greens and like protein powders and now they're moving into energy drinks and they have a bloom poppy and they're like competing with yeah big big brands I mean, they're in like all retails, everything now.

59:25It's mainly in the US. I think they launched in the UK and I think they're going to come to the UAE as well. Nice. Yeah. I noticed that you've been on quite the journey with the relocation. You're from Dallas? Dallas, yeah. And then you went to New York, which actually wasn't that long ago. No, yeah. And then you decided to against New York and you've gone now to Austin. Yeah. What's been the reason behind all those moves? I think getting out of your hometown is important for some people being away from. I think everyone should do it. Yeah, I definitely think so too. For at least a short amount of time.

1:00:01Because if you just always have the influence of the people that you grew up with and nobody's changing and you're just staying in that same position, I think it's beneficial for you in many ways. So that was why I kind of went to New York. But it wasn't the right move. It wasn't the right move. I saw you do that and I was like, poof. Yeah. New York is intense. Oh my God, it's intense. It's, people are miserable out there. Like, I think, I mean, because it's very, there's only the higher class and then there's the lower class and it's also stinks and it's just very fast-paced, yeah. It's my photographer's favorite place.