Natalie Dau: Undaunted and Relentless
After 25 years of high-pressure work in the corporate world, one might expect to ease into a life of idle leisure.
Not Natalie Dau. After a late career change — in her 40s — Natalie kept her momentum, deciding to make a business out of her passion for health and fitness. She has since founded her own fitness website, The Daily Escape, and recently released an app, Rockstar Fit, which features workouts tailored for busy, working people.
Combined with her social media presence, Natalie’s fitness content has reached hundreds of thousands of people. She also makes frequent media appearances across Asia and participates regularly in competitive athletics events across several disciplines.
This week, we catch up with Natalie Dau for her take on parenting, fitness inspirations and her favourite workout routines.
What’s keeping you busy these days?
2019 is already proving to be a crazy year for me. Aside from all my usual training, running my business and creating new workouts for my Rockstar Fit app, I have a lot of event appearances and retreats coming up and have been filming a series for Business Insider called “No Limits.”
What are your usual workouts? Any activities you particularly enjoy, in and out of the gym/studio?
I love running, as it’s so easy to throw on a pair of shoes and just go. But I also love to mix it up with things like CrossFit, HIIT training and more recently (thanks to ClassPass) I am trying to commit to doing yoga more often too.
Who is your fitness inspiration?
From how they approach their training, nutrition and time invested on looking after their recovery I have to say Tom Brady and LeBron James — as they are the constantly doing things people thought were impossible at that age. But, the truly most inspiring moments for me are when I just see the average person cross the finish line in their first race. You know how hard they have trained and what an accomplishment it is for them. You don't have to come in first to be a winner!
What is one quality you have that you’d like your daughter to pick up?
Self belief — just because someone tells you something can’t be done, doesn’t make it a reason not to try.
What are your fitness goals for 2019?
I am considering a 100km ultra marathon. Apart from that, more yoga!
