Nicola Church, 45, from Hertfordshire, shares how she went from loathing to loving exercise and even changing her career because of it!
IF YOU HAD TOLD ME 10 YEARS AGO that I’d one day become a personal trainer I would have laughed! At school, I hated PE and was always picked last for teams due to my lack of both enthusiasm and sporting ability. I was always the kid in the back, arms crossed, feeling self-conscious.
Fast forward to my 20s, and my dislike of all exercise and sports was no different; I would join gyms, attend a few sessions and then stop. I tried running once but gave up as soon as I got slightly out of puff.
Although I had never been very overweight (I was around 10 stone), by the time I reached age 30 I had been on every diet going from Atkins to Weight Watchers, but I was still not happy with my body.
But things changed after the birth of my youngest daughter, Lucia, in January 2013. I’d put on three stones during pregnancy and had been diagnosed with postnatal depression. To make things worse, I was dealing with the death of my step-mum, Sally, who passed away from cancer a week before Lucia was born. Not only that but Dad had also been diagnosed with terminal cancer around the same time. I felt as if my world was slipping away.
I was unhappy in my body, exhausted from looking after two young daughters and grieving for my step-mum. Then, the unthinkable happened when my dad died ninemonths later.
Seeing them both slowly fade away from cancer made me realise life isn’t a dress rehearsal and I knew I had to make changes as my health was suffering badly.
FROM CARDIO TO WEIGHTS
At first, I wasn’t sure where to begin so I spent a lot of time doing just cardio and eating processed foods I thought were healthy, as that’s what the labels leadme to believe. The exercise and diet change did help, but I wasn’t getting the desired results and I was always hungry and obsessing about my weight. The real change occurred when I started working with a personal trainer who helped me have some lightbulbmoments.
He advisedme to take stock of my diet, read labels more carefully and eat more natural foods withminimal processing. Once my focus switched to nutrition, rather than just fitness, my body benefited hugely.
Next, he advised me to swap cardio workouts for resistance training. Suddenly I was using barbells and dumbbells as well as going for regular runs. This helped me become fitter and stronger than I had been in my 20s! I felt so much better and a
