Be a Mobivator; motivate yourself and your mob!

Bernard Sabadi, a 29 year old Badu Island man from the Torres Strait is encouraging all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to embrace living a healthier lifestyle. By promoting regular exercise and healthy eating, he believes he can inspire and motivate others to do the same.

Bernard has worked in the community services sector for the past nine years and has always been passionate about helping his mob.

Born and raised in Cairns and married with 4 children, he loves being active and spending time with family and friends.

Bernard was always fit and an avid sportsman growing up, but a serious leg injury changed all that.

After rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament in his knee playing rugby league, Bernard was unable to exercise and started to gain weight.

A knee reconstruction was less than successful.

Bernard couldn't even jog and suffered constant pain when walking and sitting and stiffness in his knee.

 Suffering from depression and low self-esteem, Bernard made the decision to get back to being fit and healthy, he found two willing partners in his wife Alicia and close friend Elia. The three of them joined a gym to get regular exercise and started to make healthy choices when it came to food.

This led to the creation of Mobivators, a forum where people share healthy food and meal choices, encourage family and friends to take part in physical activity and generally support and motivate each other to live healthily.

“The benefits are endless in living a healthier lifestyle. We identified that a lot of mob want to start and change their health, so we created Mobivators, a forum to share tips and advice so we can have support and encouragement from our own mob,” Bernard said.

“We’ve all achieved something with the help and encouragement from others to help us achieve a goal. And we all know the feeling of venturing on a quest by ourselves with no support,” Bernard said.

“As Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people we have a tight family kinship network and when we get together it’s comfortable, fun and lots of laughs. We can all get stronger and healthier together, how fun would that be.”

This strong support network of family and friends encouraging each other can mean the difference between success and failure in our health journey.

Bernard has this personal message to people about being eating healthy and helping others achieve their goals.

“Don’t be overwhelmed by all the information that is around about what to eat and what not to eat. Stick to what our mob have always done, eat naturally fresh and food that will nourish our body,” Bernard said.

“Just start being active, even if you’re starting at 15mins, its 15mins more than you would have done before, progress from there.

“Make it fun and change it up so you don’t lose interest or motivation, set small goals like ‘I’ll make my walks 5 minutes longer’ or ‘I’ll walk a different scenic route’ and keep moving forward from there.”

“I am not a professional nutritionist, dietician or personal trainer, I’ve had to teach myself and always assess what works and what doesn’t.

“Stay strong and you’ll be strong, keep it simple, embrace the change, make it your way of life”.