For a public figure, Fiona Falkiner is pretty open about her dating life. She joined the online dating world at the start of this year as an eHarmony ambassador and has admitted she’d met someone but it was “early days”.
Now, the model has shared a less-than-happy moment from her dating past, where a guy she liked told her she was “too fat” to date.
“It was so soul shattering that it became one of the reasons I signed up to The Biggest Loser. But, when now I think about that incident and the person I was then compared to the person I am now and I’m so completely different,” Falkiner, who now hosts the show, told Body and Soul.
“I mean, that is a bloody outrageous thing to say. It’s mean and I knew that but… the old me, while angry, might have held onto that insult – which I did, I carried it with me.
“I felt ashamed about what he said but in actuality, he should have been the one who was ashamed.”
Ten years on from TBL, the 33-year-old has learned not to let negative comments affect her.
Watch: Meghan Ramsay on the effects of negative body image. (Post continues after video.)
“I’ve come to the conclusion that people who say mean things about other people’s looks are the ones who are truly ugly. And the ugliness they have inside them, while it might be directed at me in the form of an insult, actually has nothing to with me,” she said.
“They have that awful view of the world and it’s not my problem. I pity them, really.”
Falkiner has previously spoken about how, even after she lost weight, years of fat shaming continued to take their toll until she had counselling.
“The problem was that I thought that if I lost weight my life would be perfect. It was on the outside but on the inside I still had the same old insecurities. My body had changed but my mind hadn’t. I actually had some counselling to deal with it,” she told The Daily Telegraph last year.
Cutting those people out of her life has been a major step in caring for and focussing on her health. (Post continues after gallery.)
Fiona Falkiner on Instagram
“One thing that I have done in my life is let go of anyone ugly – and by ugly, I mean ugly souls. Nowadays I just don’t let people into my realm who are negative or who draw negative energy out of me,” she told B&S.
“When I came off TBL I let go of a lot of friends who actually weren’t positive influences in my life. Looking back, they were just using me and my insecurities to make themselves feel bigger and make me feel less than.”
While Falkiner regularly shares pictures during training and gym selfies, she says “thin” is never her goal.
“Still, to this day, I have to make a consistent effort to accept that this is the body I’ve been given and I have to love it and respect it,” she said.
“I don’t train now to become thinner, or skinny, I train for the way it makes me feel – it’s for my mind. I actually get very anxious when I haven’t trained because it’s a routine that brings me calmness. It relaxes my mind.”
But like all of us, she has days where she compares herself to others and puts herself down.
“I train with a group of people who are very fit. I’m a size 16 — when I jump around, things move. The likelihood of me achieving the body type that they have is pretty much slim to none,” she told Mamamia earlier this year.
“I’m not the fittest, I’m not the strongest, but I go in there every day to train and I’m just training against myself. I’m trying to beat my personal best.”
Onya, Falkiner.
Image: Instagram/@fionafalkiner
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