We were lucky to catch up with Heather Downey recently and have shared our conversation below.

Heather , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?

My parents did many things right. As they pertain to my current career, basically growing with a very health conscious childhood shaped who I am and how I live. I grew up in a small town in Oregon on a family farm. From a very young age I bottle fed calves, gathered chicken eggs and milked goats. In addition to our small farm we had an enormous vegetable & fruit garden on our property. I grew up with a mom who was the true definition of ‘Susie homemaker’ as she prepared fresh meals from the garden, baked bread, canned vegetables, made granola and preserved jam just to name a few. Myself & my siblings had next to no processed foods growing up. My father was also a hunter, so we were raised on good sources of healthy protein in the form of elk, deer, duck, pheasant, and the occasional frog legs and rattlesnake meat. Lol.
From an early age, I developed good eating habits because of the way I was raised. I absolutely believe that my innate desire for eating healthy came from the decisions. My parents made.
Having this foundation made it possible for me to be successful in my health and fitness endeavors. Everything from cooking healthy foods myself as a private chef, knowing how to eat healthy for my fitness modeling career & creating healthy meal plans for my training clients. I’m extremely grateful for my healthy upbringing.

Heather , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I began my Health and Fitness career right out of high school, becoming a personal trainer at Gold’s Gym. From there, I went on to have a very successful Fitness modeling career for well over 20 years. I had the privilege of gracing the cover of all the top fitness magazines in the world like Muscle and Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, Oxygen, Muscle Mag, etc.
I continued to both train clients and model while I was mom to my son Alekz, now 26.
Shortly after I had my daughter Kya in 2008 I decided to shift my focus to cooking for clients so I could work from home.
I continued to cook for clients and eventually, once she started school incorporated training & modeling again as well.
Approximately 5 years ago I began working as an onset Private Chef for Gabriel Iglesias on his hit Netflix show, Mr. Iglesias and from there began celebrity Private cheffing. I had the pleasure of being a private chef for Sherri Shepherd, Kym Whitley and most recently Miley Cyrus. I have to say that cooking for such strong, fierce, bad *ss women has been an incredible experience!

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

Although I’m sure my success is largely based on my expertise and years in my said profession, I personally believe my attitude has led me to where I am today. I’m a very positive & optimistic person. I’m constantly striving to better myself in all areas, I work at having good communication skills, and I really listen to my clients. I am confident that my clients feel seen and heard by me, and know that whether I’m training them or cooking for them I’m fully present & always doing it with so much LOVE.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Not so sure this story is about resilience, but it’s absolutely about determination and going after exactly what I wanted. When I first moved to LA 1996, I had previously been working as a fitness model in Oregon, Washington & Hawaii. Not having had my career really take off to the degree I wanted, I decided now that I lived in LA, I was going to fully go after everything I wanted career wise. My first huge goal was to get on the cover of a magazine. Back then, this was typically done through sports agents, but being new in town I had yet to be signed to an LA agency.
So I took matters into my own hands.
I photo copied some fitness/ bikini pictures of myself and asked the girl at the pharmacy to photocopy the inside page from several Fitness magazines that listed the art directors and mailing addresses. I then sent my photos & contact info to 5 magazines that day. Within 2 weeks I had heard back from 4 out of 5 of them and two weeks later shot my first cover…..for Muscle and Fitness magazine! As if this wasn’t exciting enough, as I stood in line to buy water at LAX on my way home to my 10 year class reunion, I looked over and saw my cover! I hadn’t seen it yet and was so proud of myself. And it was truly amazing to share with my classmates at my reunion. My local small town newspaper even did an article about it.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]