No. 1 - How did I start my fitness journey?

Are you thinking about starting a fitness journey? Are you tired, feeling over weight, going through perimenopause or looking to improve your health and lifestyle? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, here’s how I made it happen for me:

My fitness journey has had such a positive impact on my life for good and it could do the same for you. I recognised I wasn’t happy with the way I looked and felt so I committed to myself that I wanted to make changes.

I thought about what I wanted to improve and for me the priorities were:
- feeling more confident in my own skin.
- losing some weight, something I had found extremely difficult to do since perimenopause kicked in.
- feeling more energised to juggle kids, their sporting commitments, full-time work and a busy mum life
- better uninterrupted sleep, this would be the dream 😴
- something to work towards for me, not just the daily work, school run, after school activities, what to make for dinner and repeat. Prioritising me, something which I hadn’t done for many years.

Ask for help!

Finding a Personal Trainer or Body Transformation Coach can be a real game changer. They have the expert knowledge and understanding to help you achieve your goals in a safe, progressive and supportive way. This was a definite positive first step for me.

If you don’t have access to a personal trainer, there are lots of other options available:

a) see if an instructor at your local gym would write you a program to follow

b) there are online Personal Trainers and Coaches who may be able to support and assist you remotely and provide encouragement

c) exercise classes that you can attend on a weekly basis are generally quite reasonably priced. These are great if you prefer to exercise with others and they are usually on every week and provide a good structure to regular exercise

d) if you are looking to keep cost to a minimum but would like to explore working with a Coach or Personal Trainer, see if there are any group sessions available or if maybe you could share a session with a like-minded friend who is also looking to get fit and transform their body shape.

Talk to your family and make sure they are onboard and are going to encourage and help you to achieve your goals and not put temptation in the way. Ask them to help more around the house or with daily chores to free up more of your time to focus on your fitness journey.

Next, let’s make it happen

I recognised if I was going to invest time and money into this I had to really organise my week. I needed to plan my training sessions and also my food for the week ahead.

I found a day in my week (in my case Sunday), where I had a little more time to plan my workout days and buy and prepare food around family life and other commitments.

On a blank piece of paper, draw a grid eight rows down by 6 columns across. In the column headings from column 2 to column 6 write breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and workout. In the rows from row two downwards, insert days of the week. Hey Presto, your weekly planner is created.

Fill it in and attach to the front of the fridge so that all the family can see it and this adds to your level of accountability. Also if dinner isn’t ready when they all get home from work or school because you have been at the gym or doing a run after work, they know why and can make it for themselves for a change! :-)

Let’s do this! If I can, I know with a little encouragement and support you can too!