About Me
This is where I get to tell you a little bit about myself and the things that I incorporate into my life to make it the healthiest that I can.
Exercise has always been something that I have enjoyed. I come from an active family – both parents ran (father still does) and being a child in the 70′s meant that in the absence of anything resembling a computer let alone computer games, dvds and cds, entertainment needed to be provided from your own imagination!! The result was that most of my spare time was spent outside trying to keep up with my brother on my bike – when he wasn’t using it for spares that is!!
So, from an outdoorsy kinda of girl grew an interest and later a love of keeping fit. By the time the 80′s rolled around and Jane Fonda had immortalised the ‘leotard and leg warmer look’ I had pretty much tried every sort of aerobic class going with varying success. Some of the classes I loved, I have fond memories of ‘boxercise’ classes and circuit training was always fun in a macabre kind of way. Step classes were not so good though as I used to fall off the step more times than I got on it – a certain amount of co-ordination was required for that one and unfortunately I am missing that in spades.
Then the gym entered my life and I discovered a love of weights, running machines and bikes and all in air conditioned comfort whilst listening to my own music, which when I first started was played on a walkman the size of a brick – yes really!! Later years would find me taking to running on the road and I finally discovered that running is actually quite good fun – once you have gotten over the initial 10 minutes or so of absolute agony and gasping for breath. Thankfully I improved quickly and went on to run marathons of which there are hopefully a few more in my future.
Around this time I decided that maybe my love of fitness could be put to better use if I made a career out of it and so I trained to be a Personal Fitness Trainer. It was something that I am so grateful that I did as there is nothing better than being able to spend each day doing a job that you truly enjoy. I have met some fantastic people and have made some good friends along the way and the great thing is that is continues to develop.
At the moment most of my own personal exercise time is centred on yoga and I hope to complete a teacher training course in 2010. I used to think yoga was just for super bendy people and it all looked far to complicated for me but once I tried it for myself I realised my perceptions couldn’t have been further from the truth. I think out of all the different exercise types I have tried I am receiving the most from yoga. Once I get on my mat I have to slow down, to focus and centre on myself and take the time that I need to just be quiet. For me that is powerful stuff for sure.
Along with all this exercise I have always tried to eat a healthy diet. As a child meals were always homemade and meat based and my mum was and still is a great cook. Dinner always included a pudding and although there were cakes and biscuits around they were normally only for special occasions. When I left home, however, I became a vegetarian. I did this initially for animal welfare reasons but I quickly fell in love with the simplicity of eating a plant based diet even though in the early days my approach wasn’t altogether a healthy one. I discovered junk vegetarian food and consummed way too much cheese but for a while my priorities were more on going out and enjoying myself rather than staying in the kitchen and preparing meals from scratch. Alcohol also figured more heavily as well at this point in my life and pints of ‘bitter’ were my tipple of choice for a few years – very feminine!!
Eventually though after meeting my future husband and setting up home together did I discover a love of cooking and so our meals became home cooked from scratch. At this stage my love of beer turned into a love of wine and for many years it was normal to share a bottle on most nights. We spent some time living in France and it was whilst there that our love affair with ‘du vin’ reached its peak. We discovered local ‘Caves’ the french equivalent of an off licence where you could take your own containers – in our case 5 litre empty water bottles and fill them with wine from big vats for pennies and we happily indulged in the French pastime of drinking from lunchtime onwards. Thankfully once we returned to England (a lot heavier than when I left!) we cut back and nowadays it has to be both a special occasion or a good bottle of wine to entice me.
After about 20 years of being vegetarian I started to toy with the idea of becomming a vegan and it was during this period that I learned about ‘raw food’. At first I was only mildly interested but over the course of about one month I kept seeing it everywhere. In magazines, on the internet, in the paper……….. I am a strong believer that things come at you for a reason and when you are ready for them so I sat up and took notice. I did some research, discovered a girl called Shazzie here in the UK who had blogged for 7 years about her transition to a raw lifestyle and pretty much decided overnight that I would become a ‘Raw Foodie’. I did well and lasted about a month, felt fantastic but then hit Christmas at the in-laws and by the time I came home I was back on the cooked food wagon – ha ha .
For the next three years I transitioned to eating a 100% raw diet. Sometimes I was with it and sometimes I wasn’t but the thing was I always knew that eventually I would be 100%. It would just take time. Human nature sees us wanting to run with the pack and not to stand out alone amongst the crowd. It was one of my biggest problems to overcome when I was transitioning, being among my peers and seeing them enjoying all the foods that I once would eat only to readily. It was a struggle and one that I often caved into. However, bit by bit my body started to react more strongly to cooked food when I did eat it until finally I realised that there was only one way forward for me and that was on a completely raw diet.
If all this sounds like I have always been a goodie two shoes eating well and exercising everyday then don’t believe it. There have been plenty of times in my life where I have hit the snooze button instead of getting up and going to the gym and my ability to eat copious amounts of chocolate is legendary within my family and amongst close friends!! It’s just that if I have learned one thing it is that I work better, feel better and just plain am better when I am eating well and exercising regularly.
So for me the next year (2010) will be all about maintaining a completely raw diet and about cleansing my body and rebuilding it on stronger foundations. I am excited about the prospect and what it will do to my health and I am excited about sharing it with others and taking it to another level. Life is a journey, precious and rich in experiences. There is so much for me to still learn about this lifestyle and how it will affect other areas of my life. One of my most favourite sayings is the following:-
‘Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming WOW WHAT A RIDE!!!………’
I fully intend to be that person, hanging on to the bitter end, whopping and enjoying every last second as it is given to me. Old age doesn’t have to be about illness, disease and a general deterioration of mind and body. I want to be a young 120 year old still doing yoga, still gardening and growing my own veggies and still revelling in nothing less than a perfect life………