From reluctant poster boy to living the kaupapa: how a humble poutokomanawa transformed his health

Published: 29 April 2025

CJ Gilbert (Ngāi Tūhoe and Ngāti Kahungunu) is one of the faces of the Heart Foundation’s Stand Strong campaign. Two years ago, he began to notice health issues in others that were irreversible. That was the moment CJ decided to make changes to his lifestyle and prioritise his wellbeing before it was too late.

At Te Matatini national kapa haka festival in 2023, CJ had his blood pressure checked at the Heart Foundation stand and wasn’t surprised to learn that it was high. “I knew I wasn’t looking after myself, taking my health for granted.” 

In a bid to start improving his health, CJ challenged himself to 100 burpees every day for the whole of February 2023 and posted daily videos. Seeing images of himself on the Stand Strong posters and having people come up to him at events and in the community and say “cool kaupapa bro” spurred him to commit to this journey of health transformation. He repeated his burpee challenge in February 2024 to mark how far he’d come on his health journey.

“Hauora is a privilege” says CJ, and this was his catchphrase to spur himself on. Before his health turnaround, he was overeating and breathless when going about daily life. He now believes that sharing the kaupapa and his own personal experience is part of his responsibility to his whānau. “The Stand Strong campaign is promoted at the biggest kaupapa Māori events including the Waka Ama National Sprint Championships and Te Matatini. This keeps me accountable.”

Stand Strong aims to raise awareness of heart disease and the importance of understanding and reducing your heart disease risk – especially for Māori, Pasifika and South Asian people, who are more likely to be impacted by heart disease and at a younger age. A core message is that the choices you make every day can lower your risk of heart disease. Even small changes can make a difference.

The word ‘exercise’ doesn’t resonate for CJ; he prefers to focus on regular daily movement, rather than exercise or working out. His favourite form of physical activity is going for a walk outdoors which in most cases turns into a run. For him it’s a chance to connect with the environment while also nurturing his mental and spiritual wellbeing.

“I don’t really go out to exercise anymore. I go out to connect with the natural environment and be present in the elements. We carry so much stress that we don’t know about, and we think the only way to regulate it is to verbalise. But we forget the other language is the language of physical activity – it doesn’t require words.”

CJ lives in his partner’s papakāinga in Ōrākei, which is an intergenerational Māori community. Within the papakāinga are elderly who live among their mokopuna. His mother in-law is a healthy, active grandmother who is a great inspiration for the whole family. At 80 years old, she leads a healthy lifestyle through gardening and regular daily walks. CJ’s mother is also a role model for staying active, maintaining a physical job well into her 60s. She monitors her blood pressure frequently and consults with a specialist regularly. 

Having a heart health kōrero with whānau is important, as family history is one of the risk factors for heart disease that people can’t change.

While not yet 40, CJ understands that Māori communities and particularly men in his age group are among the most impacted by heart disease and heart attacks. “For a male Māori like me from South Auckland, who’s within the bracket for higher risk of heart disease, I know I have to do the mahi.” He’s aware he’s fortunate to have a window of opportunity to improve his wellbeing and incorporate heart-healthy habits. 

“It made me realise my privilege and that I've still got a pumping heart. I’m not the best right now but I’ve also an opportunity to change this. It’s like, really, it’s not too late to make decisions for my wellbeing. So I started doing it, I started making those decisions.”

Healthy eating was the hardest change for CJ and took him a while to tackle. What he eats has now completely changed. He’s gone from having bread with most meals every day to absolutely no bread at all. He also prioritised reincorporating a range of fruit and vegetables into his daily diet. CJ finds food is no longer a focus of his days – instead it’s fuel for a healthy body and mind. That whakaaro extends to his children who now have healthier lunchboxes. “Before, their lunchboxes had lots of packaged food” he says. “Now it’s a piece of fruit, healthy sandwich and a maybe a treat.” They eat more shared meals as a whānau and vegetables are now a staple in their household. “Before, if I put my daily food out on the table there were no greens at all,” he says.

Regular checkups with a doctor have seen CJ lower his blood pressure readings thanks to the impact of healthier lifestyle changes.

“That’s one thing I really want to promote among all my whānau – don’t forget to look after yourself,” says CJ. “People say they can’t afford to be sick right now, but what are you doing personally to prevent that from happening?”

Being there for his whānau is a real motivation for CJ and reflects the kaupapa of the Stand Strong campaign: Poutokomanawa. Poutokowhānau. Poutokohapori. Looking after his health and his heart enables CJ to be a fit, healthy, strong, proud family man.

CJ is a humble poutokomanawa for his whānau and community. Over the past two years he’s begun a health transformation journey and aspires to live up to kōrero that Stand Strong embodies. He truly is the ‘poster boy’.

As the Stand Strong campaign encourages: Remember that by making simple changes, we can keep our hearts healthy and strong, not just for ourselves, but for those that need us. Because strong hearts mean strong whānau and strong communities.

Notes

Stand Strong is run by the Heart Foundation with support from Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora.