Easyfit Personal Training - Nicola's Story

Before

Now

 

Over the past 10 years I have been slowly putting on weight and have been yo-yo dieting for much of that time. With each one I lost a small amount of weight but as soon as I stopped the diet, it would all go back on plus more. I felt my life was on hold because of the extra weight I was carrying and I had no confidence to go anywhere. I also realised I was wasting my twenties and there was so much I wanted to do but couldn’t because of my weight. I didn’t do any exercise because I didn’t know where to start and as walking around the house made me breathless, I didn’t dare to think I could do anything more strenuous. Eating wise, when I wasn’t on some faddy diet, I would be binge eating.

 

I made the decision to contact Graham at easyfit after a family member got upset and told me they were worried I was going to die. The extreme words hit home and I realised how unhappy I was. When I contacted Easyfit, I was extremely apprehensive as I thought personal trainers were for people who were already fit or just wanted to lose a few pounds. Graham was excellent with my fears and explained we would only do what I was capable of and build on that.

 

So initially, all I could do was walk to the paper shop and back (about 10 minutes away), and even that made me completely out of breathe! Whilst my body was getting used to the fact it was moving, Graham addressed my eating issues. The first thing he looked at was the reasons I binge ate and he taught me how to listen to my body and eat when I was hungry rather than through boredom or emotion. He told me no food is seen as bad or forbidden, and if I wanted something I could have it, as long as I knew the reasons for it and stopped when I’m no longer enjoying it. I found I was eating more times a day than before and didn’t ever feel like I missed out on anything.

During this time, we also looked at how my life was at the time and what I wanted to achieve. We did a 1 year goal sheet with attainable smaller goals so I could see progress along the way. At the time, these goals seemed so far away, not only physically being able to do them, but with my lack of confidence I wasn’t sure I’d mentally be able to cope.

 

Once we had addressed the eating side of things, it was time to look at my confidence and how I saw myself. Using lots of visualisation techniques, I started to believe I could be my goal size and that although it was a long way off, it was very achievable.

As I had so much weight to lose, and just walking to the local shop was getting me out of breath, I thought that when the real exercise began it would be torture. However, Graham took my feelings into account at every session. We talked about what type of exercise I would like to be able to do in the future. I explained that I loved football and used to play when I was young and so that would be an ideal goal for me to try to achieve. Having a goal that meant so much to me, made me even more determined to start to get fit. Although Graham pushed me in both my way of thinking and exercise, he knew my limits and would never ask me to do anything I couldn’t possibly do, so this allowed me to start on the long road.

 

6 weeks after starting with Graham, I had lost enough weight to have dropped a dress size and to take part in a sponsored 5km fun run (well I walked it). My next goal was to take part in the Easyfit tennis tournament. This was extremely hard as it meant I had to not only play against people that were a lot fitter than me, but turn up to a place on my own with people I didn’t know. Before I started with Graham, I never would have even contemplated doing this, but all the people were lovely and no-one treated me any differently just because of my size. I came fourth that day, not bad for someone who struggled to run on the court!

 

At this point, my exercise was upped and we started to jog with the intention of taking part in the Manchester 10km. I had also started to play football in some of my training sessions. Unfortunately during one of those, I got quite a bad injury which would mean I couldn’t do any impact sports for the next 4 months (this was February). At the time, I was devastated and felt like giving up, but Graham was there to support me through this hard time and made me realise that 4 months in the grand scheme of things was nothing and I could still lose weight even if I wasn’t doing as much exercise. Between us, we decided I would try cycling and I told him I was going to do the Manchester to Blackpool bike ride (61 miles) in July. On the 16th July in 30 degree heat, I crossed the finish line in Blackpool. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but I was so proud of myself, as were all my family and friends. In just under one year I had come so far, from sitting around all day, not being able to walk to the shops to cycling for 5 ½ hours in extreme weather conditions.

 

It is now a year on from when I began and I have lost 5 stone and dropped five dress sizes. I am so much happier in my life and I have had the confidence to go and join a women’s football team. I also do kick-boxing lessons and have signed up for tennis lessons. My experience has been summed up after seeing a friend that I hadn’t seen for 9 months who sent me a text message after spending time together saying, “It makes me so happy to see you so glowing and healthy and happy”. Graham has allowed me to be the person I knew I was but couldn’t be in the past. Being so much more than the stereotype of a personal trainer, he has taught me to love and accept myself and be happy now.