Fitter and happier at 50 than 20!

This is definitely me – no airbrushing I promise. This is me in my 20s and now in my 50s

I always keep smiling and I am generally very happy. I have a naturally happy disposition which is helped by exercise and good food, but boy oh boy did it take me some time to get where I am now.

I’ve talked about my story before how as a young lady (who am I kidding ‘lady’ more like ‘ladette’ before it was trendy) at university my friends went the aerobics class and I stayed at home and binge watched Neighbours on the telly and smoked fags! Whilst my flatmate’s legs were looking great and they were receiving favourable getting from the chaps at uni, I was more interested in my intellectual property and my fags! I have outed the fact that blokes at colleges stopped and shouted at me about the size of my boobs. Humiliating me but not stopping me, or change my eating habits. My mam is a Glaswegian I am not going to suffer from nasty comments. Oh! but I did on the inside.

After the birth of my first son, I joined a reputable diet programme and lost a lot of weight but I also stopped breastfeeding because I hated the way I looked. Frustrated with the diet programme and not really understanding why I was eating the prescribed foods and packaged own brand products. It felt wrong.

Continue to Yo-yo diet and weight gain even when I changed career. with the birth of my first son, I couldn’t do the hours required in the industry I was in. I changed my lifestyle and became a fitness instructor. But even then I didn’t get it right, my diet was still rubbish. Eating a family pack of Dairy Milk and a giant pack of crisps after I had completed a day of exercising.  I might have been slightly stronger in my muscles but I was no healthier than before. I was exhausted and I was dumpy. A dumpy fitness instructor. I watched the personal trainers around me tucking into ‘buckets’ of pasta. As instructors, we were all taught that pasta gave you energy.   Eat carbs, lots of them was our mantra and then teach 20 classes a week.

As fitness instructors we were exhausted and tubby!

How did I turn it around?

This is from a photo shoot from just after Christmas for The Daily Mail.  Bikini shots? What was I thinking? After Christmas, after mince pies and after chocolate? What on earth possessed me to do that? To be honest I didn’t have any choice because the date was set.  Also, my body is consistent now even after a few holiday blips. I have strong exercise nd nutritional habits that carry me through Christmas, holidays, and life’s general highs and lows.

YES I gained 4-6lbs over Christmas but I still did the shoot
NO, I am not particularly worried, I have a long term healthy eating strategy that will get me back on course
NO, I didn’t starve myself before the shoot, I had a full English breakfast
YES I have to admit I did agonise over which shot (if any) I should use
YES I did pull in and push out the best and worst parts of my body
NO there is no retouching
YES I am a mummy of 3 gorgeous, scrummy lovely kids
YES I am just like you there is nothing special about me
YES I have scars – emotional, caesarean and stretch marks, normal stuff

PLUS I had to ‘girl up’ and follow through with my personal convictions about health, fitness and vitality. My conviction to get my message across about healthy eating, exercise and strength of character to be strong in the next part of life’s great adventure.

My conviction is to use my bounce, fun, vitality, love and laughter to motivate and encourage other 40+ women to:

1. Absolutely love your body – what it does and what it can do
2. Eat healthily
3. Feel fit and free
4. Be grateful that you can move, jump, bounce and laugh.

So I am shouting out loud and proud (and rather nervously):

“I’m 50 (well nearly) and I wear a bikini, do you?”

The big question is how?

Trust the gorgeous process.

Short term solutions to these emotional triggers work but they work better when you have your long term habits embedded.

If you like the idea of working with me you can find out more without having to commit here:

FIND OUT MORE!

The wonderful thing is that getting healthy is easy. OH YES, IT IS – when you apply small habitual steps and with encouragement from me and the other gorgeous girls in our community you stick to your gorgeous habits because they are habits and not a strict set of instructions, rules or something nutty you wouldn’t do naturally.

My mental health has always been focused on my exercise and what I eat so that I can exercise and feel good and have bags of energy to drive everyone else crazy 🙂

Speak soon much love