My Story
A healthy lifestyle that was balanced and beneficial for me took some time to find, and in a lot of ways, I am still learning. However, I am at the stage now where I am happier and healthier due to many changes I made in relation to my physical activity and nutrition, and I want to help people get to the same point too!
Below is an explanation of my journey and how fitness and nutrition came to mean so much to me. It's important to me to be open and honest about how I got to the point I am at now. I went into a career with nutrition and fitness because these topics mean a lot to me and I want to be able to help others find balance, and not have to go through some of the stages I went through just to be happy and healthy.
The below information mentions eating disorders.
My childhood
As a child, I was a really fussy eater, due to an illness I had for most of my childhood. This illness meant that I would experience multiple migraines a week and would be very sick alongside these. Eating when I was ill felt impossible, and the foods I managed to eat when I felt better would be quick and easy choices most of the time as I didn't crave anything substantial after a migraine. This affected me even when I was not ill and could eat larger meals - I still didn't go for foods that held a lot of nutritional value. No matter how many different foods people encouraged me to eat as I grew up, I stuck with the same unhealthy choices. As I got older, this affected me physically and mentally in my early teenage years.
Secondary School & Sixth Form
My unhealthy eating continued into secondary school. I went through phases of trying to eat less, do a bit of exercising, or make healthier choices, but these habits never stuck. From the time I started secondary school, I no longer suffered from my illness. However, this was the time where I started to suffer with my mental health, mainly in the form of anxiety.
Despite suffering with this anxiety and going through a few difficult times in my secondary school life, I finished those years with grades I was more than happy with, and continued on to sixth form.
However, my mental health started to get worse. I was suffering more and more with anxiety and I started to lose my passion for studying and learning new things. It was at this point that I started to suffer from migraines again, and wasn't making it through a full week of school. Eventually, I moved my A-Levels online.
Finding Balance
Moving to online learning made me realise how important it was going to be to look after my mental and physical health. I started going for daily walks in between my studying, and I was reading about and researching how I could make my diet a bit better. At first, this was going really well and I was feeling a lot better. I found more ways of exercising that I enjoyed, bought some equipment to work out with at home, and was trying lots of new different foods.
However, it got to a point where I started obsessing too much about the weight I was losing and the calories I was eating. I started focusing on the weight loss more, eating the least amount possible, and exercising way too much. Eventually, I became underweight and lost my period. I was afraid of putting weight back on and I forgot how to enjoy things without thinking about the food I was eating or how I could fit exercise into that day.
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After I finished my A-Levels, I joined the Future Fit courses to train to be a Nutrition Coach and Pilates Instructor. Whilst I was still suffering from my eating disorder, I knew I didn't want to have to live like that forever, and that I didn't want other people to feel they had to go to extremes to be healthy and happy either. As I progressed through these courses, I learned more about how to fuel the body in a healthier way and developed an even stronger interest and passion for Pilates too.
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It was these courses, and a lot of mental challenges on my part, that helped me see how the habits I was continuing with were damaging my body and my health. Even though it took some time, and there were stages where I fell back into old habits, I got to the point where I was giving my body the energy it deserved, but also the rest it deserved. I started eating more, got back into a healthy weight range, cut down on the excessive exercising, and got my period back after losing it for about a year and a half.
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I also got diagnosed with ADHD along this journey. This was so helpful in me finally understanding so many aspects related to the struggles I had been facing for the last few years, and also helped me in terms of working with my own brain when it came to building positive habits alongside exercise and nutrition.​
My passion for
helping others
Like I mentioned above, I am still learning, but I know I will be for so many more years to come. I am so much happier and healthier now though and have such a strong passion for helping other people reach their health and fitness goals in a safe, effective, and enjoyable way. We don't have to feel tired or miserable as we pursue our goals, whether they be related to healthier diets or our physical activity. We can and should enjoy the journey just as much as the results, and be proud of our body for everything it does for us.
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Whether you relate to some of my story or not, it would be an absolute pleasure to work with you and help you achieve your health and fitness goals. I am currently trained as a Nutrition Coach, but my aim is to expand this training further so that I can help even more people with their nutritional health and goals, which is why I am currently studying Nutritional Therapy with the University of West London.