Exclusive: Candice Huffine Talks ‘Power Your Confidence’ Panel At 2019 POPSUGAR Play/Ground

Model and designer Candice Huffine joined the 2019 POPSUGAR Play/Ground festival in a panel discussion with actress Camila Mendes. 

We caught up with Candice Huffine just before the panel entitled: Power Your Confidence. 

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The Knockturnal: Can you talk about your decision to partner with POPSUGAR Play/Ground again this year?

Candice Huffine: “I was super honored to be back here in this capacity, truly. Last year I had such an amazing time being a part of the event as a vendor. I also spoke on the panel as well on the second day. And I feel like this year is even bigger than that as well speaking with Camila Mendes about something that’s so extremely relevant and important and has been very important in my career for the past 18 years, which is confidence and body positivity. So I think it really embodies what this weekend is built for, which I think is such an amazing celebration around women, empowerment, self-love and confidence. And so it’s such a beautiful celebration. Of course I would love to be working with POPSUGAR any day so I’m so excited to be back for that.”

The Knockturnal: What has been your fitness journey? 

Candice Huffine: “The funny thing is, fitness wasn’t a huge part of my life until around 2016 when I got dared to do the NYC Half Marathon. And prior to that I was kind of one foot in, one foot out and not really committed to anything. It is sort of a scary world to navigate if you don’t know where you fit in or what you may be good at. I think we also think that we’re supposed to be perfect at it before we start. We don’t ever give ourselves the space to be very green at something and build up our strength, build up our skill. We just want to go into everything nailing it. And so I think that keeps us from a lot of things. So I wasn’t really committed to anything when it came to the fitness world and then running really came into place for me. And it’s what I needed at the time. So a lot of my fitness goals were based around training for races, marathons, long distance running. I spent two years of my life just running. I used this app that calculates your mileage at the end of the year and one year I ran 780 miles. I couldn’t believe it because I thought I was the girl who could never run one, so I felt really good. I felt strong and it changed the way that I looked at my body. There’s just like this whole new level of appreciation and it really pushes you. Nailing your fitness goals in some really unexpected way pushes you in your life goals, too.”

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The Knockturnal: What’s some advice you’d give to those looking to achieve greater mental and physical health?

Candice Huffine: “There’s something about seeing your progress, feeling incredibly strong and powerful that catapults you into using that sort of confidence boost for those things that you do in life. So like, running and crushing those finish lines and crushing those marathons is exactly what pushed me to launch my brand. Otherwise I probably would have been dragging my feet in saying, I don’t know, there’s no time, I don’t know if I can, what do I know about design, should I be in this space? I would have probably talked myself out of it but I felt so unstoppable from crushing my fitness goals that I was like, this is the time. I’m not telling myself that I can’t ever again, I’m not saying no to anything, I’m not holding myself back, I don’t have time to waste. So long story short, it’s incredible to set something for yourself, something that allows you to feel strong, see the progress that you’ve made and actually be really proud of yourself. I think we wait for other people to tell us good job, I’m proud of you when you could be fully in charge of doing that to yourself everyday.”

The Knockturnal: On future goals…

Candice Huffine: “I’m actually looking for my new challenge this year. I’m not sure if it’s going to be a traditional marathon again. I don’t know what it’s going to be but I’m excited to set something that sort of scares me and do it. That’s twisted in a way but [laughter]. I need to freak myself out every time. But it’s a really good push for me and it’s been effective before so I really would like to see what I can do because I used to sort of doubt what I can do. I want to push and explore it and see where that leads us.”

The Knockturnal: What do you think gets in the way of people achieving their goals?

Candice Huffine: “There’s so many barriers. You just think that you can’t or you shouldn’t and also from the outside in, people are looking at you like, how come you’re not changing? Oh I see you doing all of this stuff, how come you’re not changing? That’s not why I’m doing this necessarily. I’m changing on the inside. This is actually something that you can’t measure. So I feel like there’s so many misconceptions and fears built around fitness and fitness goals and setting challenges for yourself based on what we think about our own capabilities and what other people sort of dump onto us. All things that keep us from the proverbial starting lines, so I just say go for it. Do what makes you feel incredible because it’s a feeling. It’s not a look. It’s not perfection, it’s not a perfect body or nailing all the dance moves, it’s about how you leave with that experience.”

The Knockturnal: What makes you beautiful?

Candice Huffine: “Oh, I love that question. I’m so not great at talking about myself like that. But I think one of the things that I am proud of and that I find beautiful about myself is the way that I give. I’m not a me, me, me kind of girl and I want everything that I do, although it is me living my one true dream everyday, in this industry, being a model, being in the limelight…It’s a singular dream, but really I do it as a greater goal. This isn’t for me. This isn’t a day to day so that I can lay my head down at night feeling like I’m amazing. I think that we all are benefitting from what’s being done and what I’m doing, which feels so special and is a part of the job I never thought was actually possible. So I think what makes me beautiful is the community that I am trying to build together so that we all feel beautiful and appreciate what makes us unique.”