About

So, what’s my story?

Let’s get deep and meaningful…

I’ve had a difficult relationship with exercise and body image myself. About 9 years ago, I was very underweight (for me). Pressures from society to look a certain way and university workload stress eventually took its toll and I found myself overexercising and under eating. The scariest thing was that the shift in mindset happened unconsciously, but it quickly became all consuming.

At the time I had no desire to change my harmful habits. However, when my family saw me a few months later (they lived in Australia at the time), they were extremely concerned for my wellbeing. I didn’t want to listen to them but eventually agreed to get help. This lead to being told by health professionals that if I kept going the way I was that I would become anorexic. This scared me. I wasn’t anorexic – I just liked having a strict routine around my eating and exercise habits?! Except, I was in far deeper than I had realised.

After a lot of work on myself and help from others (there is no way I could have done this alone), I finally committed to making a change. It was 100% the most difficult time in my life. It came with frequent set backs, countless tears and a lot of frustration but I persisted. I persisted until I found a healthy relationship with exercise and food.

What I realised along the way of re-discovering myself (I felt so lost and ashamed of my behaviour) was that by focusing on aesthetics, I would never be happy with the way I looked. There would always be something that I wanted to change or fixate on. By shifting my mindset to moving in a way that felt good for my body and through lifting weights where I would want the numbers to go up (rather than down on a scale), it literally changed (and saved) my life. Fitness (and life) became fun again!

So, when I became a personal trainer, I never felt comfortable training clients for aesthetic purposes only. Not once have I asked for a ‘before’ and ‘after’ photo. I have always wanted my personal training experience to be about so much more than the way you look. Promoting fitness against the grain with a more holistic approach is the way I roll. It doesn’t mean that you can’t have any aesthetic goals, it just isn’t your primary reason to move your body.

I regularly get frustrated with what I see in the fitness industry and am so driven to create an environment where people can let go of any fear, shame or aesthetic expectations. I never want anyone to feel the way I did 9 years ago. You deserve to find fitness fun and I understand that everyone is unique, therefore my approach to your personal training sessions are too.

So… are you ready to join me in going against the grain?