The Skye's the limit

She’s known for helping women feel empowered. But after 10 years as one of the world’s top fitness influencers, Emily Skye finally feels like she’s “enough”. This is how the star trainer accessed her inner superhero

- Lizza Gebilagin

The photos you’re looking at right now of Emily Skye are significant. Not because they were taken 11 months after she gave birth to daughter Mia Elise, or that they were shot in London, where she was “unfazed by the ever-present threat of leakage”, according to our UK team. (“I made it through!” Emily said after expressing breast milk, post-shoot.) The reason these photos are important is because they represent the first time she felt like she “was enough”.

“[At photoshoots] I’ve thought, ‘I’m not lean enough, I could’ve eaten healthier or trained harder.’ This was the first time in my life I’d ever acknowledged that I looked good. Isn’t it sad?” Emily tells us. It might seem like a surprising admission from someone who’s made the Financial Review Young Rich List twice, features on a billboard in Times Square New York, and has a new app for her Emily Skye Fit program out in May (all while running beauty brand, James Cosmetics, and recording podcast You Can on the side). Yet, her 2.5 million Instagram followers are used to that kind of honesty from the star trainer. As she gets older, Emily says, “Silly things I was [once] concerned about are [now] insignificant. They don’t matter.”

We got the 35-year-old on the phone in her home city of the Gold Coast, to chat about things that do matter. Such as family (Mia, now two, partner Declan and their baby boy due in early July), the importance of having a purpose (“It’s something that I needed, especially years ago when I was going through depression”), and why lifting makes her feel like a superhero.

WH: Congrats on your pregnancy! What was Mia’s reaction?