About Me

I'm friendly and supportive, and genuinely understand the struggle to find the time or motivation to exercise.

Exercise has been an enormously important part of my life in the last few years and has really helped to improve both my physical and mental health but it wasn't always that way. I hated PE at school and have never been any good at team sports like hockey, netball and football.

My identity in my late teens and throughout my 20s was as a ‘party girl’. Staying up all night drinking and smoking, eating loads of rubbish food and struggling with panic attacks when I was hungover. I was also crippled by health anxiety and would panic thinking that I was going to be diagnosed with a serious condition despite there being no evidence to back up these thoughts. Ironically the way I was living my life was making the possibility of this happening more likely. I felt stuck in a spiral of panic attacks and self loathing and like my life was completely out of control. I was holding down a job and friendships and on the surface everything looked ok but inside I felt like I was constantly on the verge of a breakdown.

I felt stuck in a spiral of panic attacks and self loathing and like my life was completely out of control.

When I was about 25 I started going to classes at a local gym and discovered that actually I did enjoy exercise and got a massive buzz from certain classes. I was astonished that after a stressful morning at work I could go and hammer the pads in a boxercise class and would return to my desk feeling completely zen and able to deal with any challenge (although typing could be tricky with my shaky hands after all of the punching!).

After a couple of failed attempts and an inability to ‘just have one’ I stopped drinking a month after I turned 30. It wasn’t a cure to all of my problems and hasn’t given me perfect health but it has made a massive difference to my life and to the amount I like myself.

Unfortunately I saw not drinking any more as an excuse to eat whatever I wanted and I piled the pounds on. It was definitely the lesser of two evils but I felt that I’d shifted from alcohol controlling my life to food doing it. Instead of the secret late night drinking I was now feeling embarrassed about the amount of chocolate, cake, biscuits and sweets I was buying from local shops.

I really wanted to educate myself about nutrition and find out about why we make unhealthy choices.

The shame, frustration and health concerns my drinking had caused now continued but in a different form. Now my health concerns were about self induced diabetes. I really wanted to educate myself about nutrition and find out about why we make unhealthy choices and how I could develop a more positive relationship with food. This became more formal with the nutrition education I undertook through my Level 3 qualification and is something that I am constantly learning more about. I still don’t make the best choices all of the time but at least now I have more of an understanding of why this is, what the consequences could be and how to put things right. I also no longer beat myself up about eating things I think I shouldn’t and have more self compassion.

I’ve also struggled with depression since giving up drinking. I thought that by removing alcohol from my life all my problems would disappear but unfortunately it’s not that straight forward! I’ve realised that my mental health (much like my physical health) has to be nurtured and looked after. I need to get enough sleep, enough down time, healthy food and time in nature to keep myself sane. But the biggest factor for me in terms of keeping balanced mentally is exercise.

Throughout the last 20 years the one fairly constant positive factor in my life (outside of friends and family) has been exercise. Lots of different forms of it – boxing, weight lifting, running, spin, aerobics, toning classes, swimming, climbing, cycling, yoga, hill walking. I’ve seen the difference exercise has made to other people as well, when I worked in prisons exercise was a lifeline for a lot of the people I worked with. The routine and structure that a regular exercise routine can give you and the sense of achievement as you get stronger, fitter and more toned can all be hugely important ports in a storm, whatever the rest of your life is throwing at you. It also helps to make the rest of your life easier, walking home with heavy shopping suddenly feels like less of a hassle when you have strong arm muscles. Dancing all night to your favourite songs because you have the energy and the cardio fitness to do it feels amazing. Saving money on massages and physio because your strengthened back and abdominal muscles have helped reduce your back pain. These are all benefits of exercise which I have experienced and seen in others.

That’s why I decided to become a Personal Trainer. I want to help others to make regular exercise a part of their lives and to reap the mental and physical rewards.