Singapore #Fitspo of the Week: Tiara Alicia Azhari
Be inspired by the success stories of fitness influencers, celebrities, models and trainers in Singapore
Cheryl Tay
·Contributor
Mon, 26 June 2023 at 8:00 am SGT·11-min read
Singapore #Fitspo of the Week, Tiara Alicia Azhari, is a personal trainer and the founder of The T-Squad. (PHOTO: Cheryl Tay)
Life goes beyond the digits on the scale and your body is capable of so much more! Yahoo’s #Fitspo of the Week series is dedicated to inspirational men and women in Singapore leading healthy and active lifestyles. Have someone to recommend? Hit Cheryl up on Instagram or Facebook!
Name: Tiara Alicia Azhari (@_tiaraalicia)
Age: 22
Height: 1.61m
Weight: 63kg
Occupation: Personal trainer, founder of The T-Squad
Status: Attached
Food: Currently, I do not follow any strict diet plans. I eat intuitively and in moderation. I’m also very lucky that I enjoy eating fresh foods. It’s very weird - but how many people can say they crave a salad every once in a while? My first meal of the day usually starts with my go-to breakfast which is kaya toast and iced kopi. I’ve really been into smoked salmon salads lately so I’ve been having those a lot for lunch. My dinner is pretty free and easy - whatever’s cooking at home!
Exercise: I get three to four strength-training sessions in a week and do Muay Thai one to two times a week as a form of cardio.
Q: When you were younger, were you active in sports?
A: Yes, I started sailing as a co-curricular activity in primary school and did it all through my school years for almost 10 years in total. I also took up gymnastics outside of school for a few years too but as I progressed in my sailing performance, I was required to have three to four training days a week which didn’t give me much time for other activities outside of school.
On top of that, I also had a personal trainer myself which focused on my strength and conditioning two times a week. So, I can say I was relatively active since my school days.
Tiara is preparing for her first muay thai competition later this year. (PHOTO: Cheryl Tay)
What did you get into as you got older?
Sea sports has always been an interest of mine since a kid and I’m very glad that I still enjoy doing it till today. More recently, I allowed myself to explore other forms of fitness – not just the ones I am familiar with. It can be quite intimidating and scary to try something new for the first time.
Last year I tried out my first Muay Thai class which I honestly did not expect to enjoy, but now I’m actually considering my first amateur fight at the end of 2023. As I got older, I got more into challenging my limits and getting out of my comfort zone rather than any specific sport or activity.
Why did you decide to become a personal trainer?
Prior getting into the fitness line, I was a personal assistant for a local startup company. It was a relatively good job because of its flexibility and was related to the diploma I had. I worked four days a week and started work at 12pm – who could complain? On the sideline, I was doing personal training for some close friends for about two years.
Despite the conveniences of the job, I never got the feeling of “fulfilment”. When the COVID-19 lockdown happened, all the gyms were closed. Hence, my sister and I invested in free weights and built our own “void deck gym”. We had everything from kettlebells, dumbbells, barbells, benches, battle ropes, you name it.
We would lug all our equipment downstairs in a big industrial box on top of a huge trolley and wheel it to our void deck. We saw this as an opportunity to conduct outdoor personal training. Now with The T-Squad, I have a group of certified personal trainers to share the love and knowledge of fitness with our clients.
There’s something about seeing clients’ progress that makes me feel like a proud mom and a sense of fulfilment to why I do what I do. Apart from seeing physical progress in the weights they lift or their appearance, I find the most fulfilment in seeing progress in the way they think about fitness and how they feel about themselves.
A lot of my clients come to me with fears and mostly just want to feel confident about themselves. It takes a lot of courage to do something that scares you and to do it consistently every week. I have a lot of respect for my clients and their determination. Seeing them show up week after week and putting in the work, not just in the gym but outside too, gives me motivation to keep doing what I do.
What do you like about coaching fitness?
I think the best part about coaching fitness for me is seeing other people fall in love with it. Sometimes it’s not always about how heavy you can lift or how tiny your waist is. It could also be just feeling a lot more confident about yourself and a whole mental shift towards being stronger.
I think when it comes to fitness, most people define success with numbers when there are so many other forms and measures of it. I love seeing my clients overcome their fears and that’s why with The T-Squad, I organise bi-monthly fitness events for my clients to come together outside of the gym to try something new.
In fact, recently we had our first get-together to learn the fundamentals of Muay Thai. I remember going for the class for the first time and felt intimidated because everyone there sort of knew what they were doing except for me. So what better way to do a class where it’s almost everybody’s first time.
Tiara feels the best part about coaching fitness for me is seeing other people fall in love with it. (PHOTO: Cheryl Tay)
Any challenges?
I think the toughest part about coaching fitness is having to help my clients “unlearn” the things they thought they knew about fitness. With the current waves of social media, it is too convenient for people to craft out misinformation that could easily go viral and be seen by those who do have a clue about fitness.
What are your fitness goals now?
Currently, I am more into the holistic side of fitness. Hence, my goal would be to be able to move my body any way that I like and do it well. Strength training will always have my heart and I absolutely love how it makes me feel, but I definitely would like to incorporate more cardio and flexibility sessions into my regime.
Ultimately, I would like to do my first amateur fight and duathlon by the end of the year.
When you were younger, did you experience any incidents that made you feel insecure about yourself?
When I was 17, I actually went through a tough phase with insecurities and self-doubt. I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety disorder. I deferred from school for a year to improve my mental health and felt very beaten when I came back to school to see that all my friends had graduated.
During the break, I slumped at home and rarely went out. Luckily, I had a very supportive sister who just got into fitness and dragged me to follow her to the gym. That was when I started taking my health more seriously. I started going to the gym with no goals and expectations to look or feel better. In fact, I didn’t even know what I was doing and felt lost most of the time.
The first few weeks were tough but, as time went by, I saw myself getting physically stronger, lifting heavier weights, doing more reps. It took a lot of mental energy for me to get out of bed most days, what more go to a gym that’s crowded with the anxiety of being judged by so many.
Somehow I did it anyway – of course, with the company of my sister. That’s why I think it’s so important to surround yourself with a supportive and non-judgmental group of people who will motivate and push you towards a better version of yourself, like what I’m trying to do with The T-Squad.
When did you feel the least confident about yourself?
A more recent incident was during the Under Armour Combine held in 2022. It was my first ever fitness-related competition and it tested all aspects of fitness of an athlete. During the competition, I underperformed and didn’t do as well as I had expected.
It was probably the most demoralised I’ve ever felt. It might sound dramatic but I actually felt unworthy of being there, surrounded by so many athletes from different backgrounds.
After that, I had no motivation to complete the competition, but my friends and partner supported me. They told me it was okay and told me it was probably the nerves. They helped calm me down and guided me through the other tests.
My overall score could’ve been a lot better, but I wasn’t mad at the final result. I came out of the competition with so much experience, love and liberation for why I do what I do.
Tiara battled mental disorders earlier in her life, but is now enjoying her fitness journey. (PHOTO: Cheryl Tay)
Did you ever struggle with your body?
I think this would be a never-ending struggle. I’ve seen the fittest people still thinking they’re not good enough, or the girl with the hottest body in the gym telling me she doesn’t like her body.
We have to understand and accept that insecurities will always be present at some point in our lives because the harsh truth is, there’s always someone better than us out there.
What’s important is how we deal with those insecurities. Do we beat ourselves further? How do we accept that everyone has different definitions of what is “good enough”? Or do we do our best to create the version of ourselves that we aspire to be? Saying hurtful things to ourselves will only create a negative mindset than anything progressive or helpful.
As human as I am, I too have days that I don’t exactly love what I see in the mirror but I remind myself of how grateful I am to be able to just move my body and that there is something I can do about it.
Are you satisfied with your body now?
Absolutely. Now, I focus more on what my body is capable of doing rather than how it looks. A lot of us have this goal to get a six pack. Back in 2019, I had a goal to see my abs for the first time. I trained every single day, seven times a week; I had a strict diet plan and restricted myself of a lot of my favourite foods.
After 12 weeks, I saw the abs I was longing for, but at the same time, I lost my period for four months after that. It got me thinking, “Was it worth it?” Prior to this, I also had existing ovarian complications, so this added problem did me more harm than any good.
It took me months of getting my menstrual cycle regulated and a few hospital visits from my internal health deteriorating from over-exercising with not enough rest and dehydration. Somehow I really thought I was fine because I had abs.
Have you ever received any comments about your body?
Funnily enough, I’ve had strangers comment on my social media posts that I look better before I started working out, that I look more like a guy now because of my broad shoulders and big arms. To be very honest, my arms are my biggest insecurity, so that comment really did hit the spot for me.
At the same time, I wouldn’t change anything about it. I thought to myself that these are strangers who have no idea what I’ve been through. They have no idea what my life was like, my mental state or how I viewed myself back then.
We can’t please everyone in this world, we can only ever please ourselves because at the end of the day, no one is going to live this life for us. We are the ones who have to deal with our daily struggles, not these strangers. I think as long as you’re happy with yourself, no one else should have an opinion or say in what you should or shouldn’t do.
Singapore #Fitspo of the Week: Tiara Alicia Azhari. (PHOTO: Cheryl Tay)
