You may have heard of Tess Holliday, as she's a stunningly successful model, body-positive activist, Instagram super-heroine, and all-around awesome woman. But an equally incredible woman who you probably haven't heard of yet is someone by the name of Massy Arias, aka Tess Holliay's new personal trainer. To the delight of all the body-positive warriors out there, these two ladies have teamed up to embark on a new fitness journey together, combining forces to spread the word of truth and health as Arias coaches Holliday. To say the least, it's all kinds of inspiring.
Holliday and Arias definitely share similar ideas about body image, health, and size that, IMO, need to be shouted from the rooftops for all to hear. As People reports, and as Holliday posted on her Instagram earlier this week, the 33-year-old model reached out to Arias to be her trainer after the two had been following each other on the 'Gram for a while. The two clicked almost instantly, as Holliday wrote on social media about how their "view points align that every BODY is valid, that size isn't an indicator of health & we are both feminists raising tiny lil feminists to rule the world!"
Ugh, I'm already obsessed with this duo. I'm about three seconds away from full-on stanning this friendship.
Arias returned the love on Instagram, writing in her own post,
#wcw The start of something magical @tessholliday . I am ready to start this journey with this amazing human. When I first started following Tess, I was both attracted and in love with her message about body confidence; we need more of it.
The trainer added,
Yesterday was our first workout. She killed it. Not only with her physical effort, but her mental energy.
Arias also wrote that when she asked Holliday what her main goal was in working out together, the model responded, "TO GET STRONGER." Heck yes, you two queens.
So while you're probably pretty familiar with Holliday at this point — she was, after all, on the cover of SELF's first digital issue — you may not know Arias quite as well.
Listen, it can be hard to find fitness influencers to follow on Instagram these days — or, at least, fitness influencers who actually seem like real people you can relate to, who don't survive on burpees and kale alone. And that's exactly why this Afro-Latina trainer deserves a spot on your Insta feed. Not only does she keep it real with her many workout, nutrition, and body image tips (BTW, she also has an awesome wellness program called MA Warrior that you can sign up for and follow on Instagram), but she also frequently posts videos of herself working out with her ah-dorable baby daughter, Indi. Seriously, these videos will make you melt.
To say the absolute least, it seems like Arias and Holliday can accomplish some seriously amazing things together. Honestly, Holliday deserves an incredible trainer like Arias, especially given the fact that she's had to deal with relentless social media trolls in the past who flat-out insulted the model about her workout habits and the size of her body. In an October 2017 Instagram post, Holliday wrote,
People assume I don't work out because I don't feel the need to post it all over the gram, & the reason why? Because it's no ones business what I do with my body. It's not my place to tell others to work out either. My mother is partially paralyzed & would love to move her body in the ways I did in my previous post, but unfortunately that's not a reality for her & so many other people. When you start to truly love yourself, you take care of your body the way YOU see fit. Live & let live y'all.
Mic drop.
I don't know about you, but I'm psyched to see how this fitness collaboration between Holliday and Arias develops. My guess? It'll only get more inspiring from here on out.
