There’s no feeling like being able to fit into your favourite dress again after two years.
It’s that same feeling you get when someone asks, “Have you lost weight?” and you can say, “yes!”
Or when, having suffered from depression, you stop and realise you haven’t felt depressed in months.
That’s a big deal. There really is no medicine better than exercise.
As 2013 rolled in I was the fattest I’d ever been, hardly any of my clothes were fitting properly and I had gone up another jean size. I hated what I saw in the mirror and refused to have my picture taken unless you couldn’t see my arms (or I was pulling off a successful ‘skinny arm’ pose), legs or double chin. I felt fat, looked chubby, and was tired all the time.
Enough was enough and I decided to invest in a personal trainer.
Having a PT isn’t cheap but the effects can last a lifetime. Training lifted me out of the rut I’d gotten myself into. It fills me with energy, makes me feel on top of the world, AND I’m getting healthier as a result. You actually couldn’t make this shit up.
Most importantly, though, exercising regularly and setting myself targets has changed my mental outlook and attitude. And I’m confident these changes will stay with me for life.
The first time I realised something was different was at the end of January. I had been given money for Christmas to buy myself a nice new handbag but having been training five days a week for almost a month I decided I wanted to buy myself a gym bag instead. It was a small decision but it signalled the start of a new lifestyle. Now, almost two months on, I am in desperate need of a new wardrobe and a new pair of heels for dancing in. But I’m saving up for a £110 pair of Nike running shoes.
Want! Want! Want!
I had never been a morning person and if I could get up ten minutes before having to leave the house, I would. Now, I spring (ok, I don’t ALWAYS spring, sometimes I roll) out of bed at 5am for my 6.30am midweek gym sessions and love that I have to get up at 7.30am on a Sunday for my weekly PT session (keeps me off the drink too). When I went away for my aunt’s hen weekend and got up at 9.30am to go a run, I knew it was getting serious.
Looks like I’m a morning person now.
My view when on my morning run in Millport
Suffering from depression, long lies had a huge detrimental effect on me. Yet at weekends I’d always stay in bed for as long as I possibly could, be that till 2, 3, 4 or sometimes 5pm. I’d then get up, having frittered away a huge part of my weekend, and I’d feel groggy, sludgy and really sad.
Now I get out of bed at 7.30am on a Sunday and as I leave the gym at 10am I think, “God, I love my life!”.
This weekend I was photographed for the first time in weeks and I couldn’t take my eyes off how thin my arms look in the pictures (admittedly, I was doing the skinny arm pose). They’re by no means completely toned or really thin, but they don’t look chubby anymore and the dimples are away. My face looks half the size and I have a waist again.
I can’t possibly put down in words how amazing this makes me feel. What I can write is POEIHFLJSDKFHLSJKDFHPOAIUSJDALKFDJPOLK!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 .
I realise I’ve been like a broken record lately, with gym this and gym that (soz guys), and often people will say to me: “Aw I don’t like the gym.” I didn’t like the gym either. I’d go and I wouldn’t know where to start then I’d get into a wee routine of a wee bit on the treadmill, followed by some cross trainer and maybe a bike. I was always too self-conscious to stand on a mat and do free-weights.
Now I have programmes that are difficult and varied I know exactly what I’m going to be doing before I arrive. With a mix of cardio, intervals and weights, it’s never boring and always sore. But in a good way.
I stand on a mat and groan as I do my freeweights sporting a pair of weightlifting gloves. I used to think people just wore those to look hard but turns out they’re actually useful…
Bye bye blisters!
I am the happiest I’ve been in years and I can now workout for an hour without being sick. But most importantly, my bum looks better.
Come join me. It’s great over here 🙂
______
I’m currently training to run a half marathon in October to raise money for the Scottish Association for Mental Health. If I manage to raise £200 by then I will also run a full marathon in April, 2014.
Fall for pretty strangers 
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