Nazanin 'Naz' Khanjani has earned a place in the prestigious Arnold Classic bodybuilding competition in Melbourne later this week.
The former Bachelor contestant won silver in her first ever competition in Auckland on the weekend, before facing a nasty backlash online over her ripped new look.
Naz shared a Facebook post of Miss Universe New Zealand, which admonished the trolls for publicly criticising her based on her appearance.
"Ever since my bodybuilding photos started to come out, I've been getting a lot of criticism and hate," says Naz.
"It's quite a young crowd - like 14 and 15-year-old girls, although there are some older women as well. It's not right. My fitness journey is supposed to be empowering, inspiring and motivating for other women, so to get the opposite from these people is just... I just wish them peace, I hope they realise what they're doing is wrong."
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She says she feels better than ever and people saying she looks sick are way off.
"They don't understand the sport. Three months ago I was sitting at 46.7kg, skinny and not healthy at all. Now I'm about 49kg, I'm fit, I'm healthy, I'm muscly - I'm a lot better," says Naz.
"But they look at me and say I look like a rat or I look like mud, she's uglier than she was before... I've got really thick skin, so I just brush it off. But this stuff is not on and some people don't have thick skin. Little girls can go into depression and commit suicide from this stuff."
Naz points out that if people are basing their negative opinions on The Bachelor, they're basing their opinions on a TV show that was edited for entertainment - whereas their own hateful comments are completely unedited.
"The issue is their problem," says Naz, adding that she only gets hate online and not in real life.
"I swear to God, I have not had one person be hateful to me in person. Not even a bad look, over this whole last year. Everything has been online."
Following her debut in competition bodybuilding over the weekend at the NZ International Pro/AM Championships, Naz says it's a "dream come true" to compete in the Arnold Classic.
"It feels like I'm skipping a few levels, but I really worked my arse off for this. I couldn't have done it without my sponsors Snap Fitness and my guys there - Kurt Monkley, Andy Peat and Daniel Parsonage," she says.
Naz says she eventually wants to compete in the Ms Olympia competition, the sister event of Mr Olympia, which is the competition that originally made Arnold Schwarzenegger famous.
In the meantime, she's competing in the bikini novice short class at the Arnold Classic Australia Multi-Sport Festival on Friday.
Newshub.
