British expat teacher in Dubai sheds over 20kg, clinches 'Strongest Woman' title four times

Gulf News

A once “seriously overweight” primary school teacher, who has now won the Strongest Woman title four times in a row, has shared her journey of transformation in the hope of inspiring others to lose weight and more important, get fit.  Originally from a small village in Buckinghamshire, UK, Harvey most recently won first place in an international competition in Dubai - Static Monsters, by deadlifting a whopping 235 kg - four times her own body weight.  Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/uae/people/watch-british-expat-teacher-in-dubai-loses-over-20kg-wins-strongest-woman-title-4-times-1.99404657  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV  #UAEnews #Dubai #fitness

Transcript

00:00Hi, my name is Scarlett Harvey and I am 34 years old. I'm an ex-primary school teacher

00:23here in the UAE. I moved here nine years ago to teach. I am now a full-time coach, a female

00:31wellness and strength coach and an international athlete. I've had quite a long story and a

00:38long journey over the past six years and I'm humbled to be able to sit here today and give

00:44you a small insight into what's been going on in my life. I hope I can inspire lots of

00:49you to get kick-started on your own fitness journey, motivate you and help you in any way

00:54possible. So six years ago I found myself very overweight, very unwell physically and mentally,

01:04but perhaps I wasn't so aware of the mental health side of this at the time. Hindsight is

01:10beautiful. Since then, in 2018, I started a journey of weight loss. My main focus to begin

01:19with was solely losing weight. Perhaps now I would rephrase that to losing fat. Little did

01:28I know that I was very unwell internally. I was suffering with polycystic ovary syndrome, PCOS,

01:34and there's lots of girls out there that suffer with this. Makes it really, really difficult to

01:39lose weight because it's all based around a hormonal imbalance. Women go through hormonal

01:44imbalances at various stages through their life, through pregnancy, motherhood, postpartum,

01:48menopause, etc. And although these journeys are very unique and different with everybody,

01:54the hormonal imbalance symptoms and outcomes are all quite similar, i.e. weight gain,

02:00mental health, anxiety, perhaps I say the word lightly, depression.

02:07So I managed to lose 30 kilos of weight over a course of 18 months. And I guess most people

02:16would have been quite satisfied with five kilos or perhaps stopped after the weight loss.

02:23But I guess during this process, as much as it was a physical transformation,

02:29it also became much more of a personal growth journey, a journey of self-discovery.

02:37And I just re-found myself. I was a gymnast when I was a child, a very competitive gymnast.

02:46And after giving up training as a teenager, moving on with life, I thought my days as an

02:53athlete were over. And through the journey of weight loss and rediscovering sports and

02:59rediscovering how great it makes me feel. And actually, I just think that's who I am and what

03:05I am supposed to be doing. So I began competing in mixed martial arts, Muay Thai, boxing,

03:14and I won an amateur Muay Thai fight in Abu Dhabi in 2019. Shortly after, I participated

03:20in a competition here in Dubai at the Dubai Muscle Show, where I won the Best Female Life

03:26Transformation in 2019. The following year, 2020, I won an award for the GCC Best Life

03:35Transformation. So being recognized across the region amongst the fitness industry for my weight

03:42loss journey and how it was a sustained weight loss journey, not just the amount of weight I lost,

03:47but how I sustained that, I guess is kind of the key message. From there, I entered into the world

03:55of bodybuilding. I did a nutrition qualification. I did my personal training qualification,

04:01still teaching full time. At this point in time, we're hitting COVID days. And I guess that was

04:08hard, really hard for me mentally, emotionally. It was hard for all teachers around the world.

04:13Anyway, it was a really rough time teaching online. And at this point, I decided to

04:19take a massive leap and leave teaching and start coaching full time. To many people, this seemed

04:26like a big risk and maybe crazy. And I guess it was probably both. But I was a gymnastics coach

04:36before I became a primary school teacher. I started coaching gymnastics when I was 14,

04:41back in the UK. And I coached until I was 25 at our family-run gymnastics club,

04:47Woburn Sands Gymnastics. I stopped coaching gymnastics when I moved to Dubai.

04:53And that was purely because I wasn't involved in a gymnastics club here. And I was just loving

04:58having my weekends free. So coaching, primary school teaching, back into coaching,

05:05it all blends. I do believe teaching is teaching regardless of the context.

05:10And following a short stint in the bodybuilding world, I moved into strongman. So the sport of

05:19strongman is quite unfamiliar to most people. We have equipment that is quite absurd. Hence,

05:28I'm sitting, I don't know what you can see, on concrete stones. We lift big logs. I'm here right

05:33now at Strong Gym HQ in Dubai. This is where I train. This is where I work, where I eat, sleep,

05:40breathe, live, and nearly die. So I entered into the world of strongman when the doors opened here

05:48in 2021, in January. I had heard of strongman sport before because I knew the likes of Eddie

05:56Hall and other famous strongmen who lift crazy things. But they're like giants and they're

06:02massive. I am 63 kilos, 5 foot 1 in height. And I am now China's strongest woman, Dubai's strongest

06:12woman, Emirates' strongest woman, Britain's strongest woman. And I just placed third in

06:17the world in a Static Monsters competition two weeks ago. So I have qualified to compete at the

06:24Arnold competition in Ohio in the USA next year. I have qualified to compete in the Static Monsters

06:31Worldwide Championships next year. And I've also qualified to compete in OSG, which is the official

06:36strongman games in West Virginia, USA in December next year. So 2024 is going to be my biggest year

06:43yet. I hope you'll all follow my journey from weight loss to bodybuilding to mixed martial arts

06:50into strongwoman, into international athlete, coach, and just a real woman doing real things

07:00and growing as a person and changing my life. Stay tuned.

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