XcessFIT Founder

This is me, De Greer-Yindimincarlie – everyone calls me De – and I am the founder and head designer at XcessFIT.  I am an Aboriginal women from Wiradjuri country, in central western NSW.  I have led quite an interesting life full of different vocations, and the main reason for that is…I have a compulsion to create….Some of the hats that I have worn in this lifetime are graphic and textile designer, professional musician, singer and songwriter,  registered nurse, chef, workshop facilitator, Youth centre co-ordinator, lecturer, painter, jewellery maker, bicycle builder, entrepreneur, film editor and product designer, and I’m sure there are a few I’ve left out.

I am quiet, and I consider myself a little socially awkward, until you get to know me of course, then you’ll understand that I prefer to skip the small talk, and go straight to the big stuff.  I love seeing the world's little idiosyncrasies every day, and I believe that we are all here for a reason, and everything we do is the smaller workings for something much bigger.  I believe that anyone can do, and achieve most anything they want, you just have to believe that, and not give up.  I’m kind of a ‘just get it done’ type of person.  I remember when I was in high school, one year at presentation, I was awarded for being tenacious and resilient.  Well, I can tell you that building XcessFIT, those qualities have definitely come in handy…Patience on the other hand, is a quality I am still trying to grasp; I just wish it would hurry up.

My mum was a potter and an artist, and she inspired my love for the arts.  Watching mum in her business, I learned in order that to thrive, rather than merely survive in the arts industry, you need to be innovative and flexible enough to work across many different creative mediums, which is exactly what I have done for many years.

In 2012, as a woman in my early forties, who weighed about 165kg at my heaviest, and nearly being wiped out by a bus on the streets of Paris, I realised that something had to change.  Over the next 12 months I worked hard on myself, both internally and externally to change my life, to give me the longevity I want and need to be able to achieve everything I want to do.  It was from this very introspective time, and a coffee with a friend in a beautiful little cafe called ‘Sweethearts’ in a tiny little place in Queensland called Eudlo, that XcessFIT was born.  It has taken a very long six years to develop and launch XcessFIT on my own, with sometimes absolutely no idea what I was doing. But I just put one foot in front of the other, had faith that the universe would take me where I needed to be, and slowly and purposefully moved forward with my dream. 

I remember so well what it was like to be a plus size person, with no choice in regards to purchasing activewear, so I made a commitment to change that.  I am hopeful that XcessFIT can change that globally, and help create a world with more acceptance of people as magnificent and worthy human beings, regardless of size.  I also know what it is like to constantly be told, as a plus size person, that you have to lose weight.  I got so sick of that broken record.  So tired of the constant badgering from the world to conform, so that I could ‘fit' in.  I vowed that XcessFIT will never do that, and to acknowledge that plus size people – like everyone else – should have the ability to buy and wear great looking and feeling activewear, which is affordable, with no strings attached, and do whatever it is they do anywhere, their way. 

My journey is my journey, it’s no-one else's.  And I understand that people come in all different curves,  shapes and sizes, and who am I, or my business, to judge.