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19th April 2012

Long time no speak Fitties! Apologies for going AWOL for a while! Life has been so busy over the past 4 months. Teaching a lot of spin, training new and wonderful clients, and keeping my dream’s path moving forward. My plan to start my own PT business is still firmly in my mind’s eye, and it won’t be long before I start carving that road in reality.

With Summer (supposedly) fast approaching, I am finding a lot of my clients asking about Nutrition advice. We are bombarded daily by so many ridiculous diet fads (parading as facts), told one day what to eat, told the next that we in fact shouldn’t be eating that! One day chocolate is good for your heart, the next it causes heart disease! What do we believe when our brains are exploding with confusing facts or are those fiction?

To me, the formula is simple. Stick to whole foods. Stay away from anything processed. Learn your fats- as eating the correct fats makes you lose fat – FACT. And learn quickly that man-made (TRANS) fats are the root of all evil. Learn to listen to your body more. Make small adjustments in your eating plans – a small change, will make a BIG difference.

My father recently decided that my nutritional “preaching” might be justified, when he stumbled across an e-book by Dr. Price & The Weston A. Price Foundation, that mirrored my soap box preaching! He sent the module, and I thought I would share the most relevant points with you below – I have aptly called these the “15 Food Commandments to live by”.

As mentioned to my clients when sharing this with them, I am not expecting people to uproot their entire life to maintain all 15 points below. However, make as many changes as you possibly can to suit your own lifestyle. As above, small changes make a big difference! So give it a go… what do you have to lose? Other than inches ;o)

15 Food Commandments to live by

Eat whole, unprocessed foods
Eat beef, lamb, game, organ meats, poultry and eggs from pasture-fed animals.
Eat wild fish (not farm-raised) and shellfish from unpolluted waters.
Eat full-fat milk products from pasture-fed cows, preferably raw and/or fermented, such as raw milk, whole yogurt, kefir, cultured butter, whole raw cheeses and fresh and sour cream. (Imported cheeses that say “milk” or “fresh milk” on the label are raw.)
Use animal fats, especially butter, liberally.
Use traditional vegetable oils only–extra virgin olive oil, expeller-expressed sesame oil, small amounts of expeller-expressed flax oil, and the tropical oils–coconut oil, palm oil and palm kernel oil.
Take cod liver oil regularly to provide at least 10,000 IU vitamin A and 1,000 IU vitamin D per day.
Eat fresh fruits and vegetables–preferably organic–in salads and soups, or lightly steamed with butter.
Use whole grains, legumes and nuts that have been prepared by soaking, sprouting or sour leavening to neutralize phytic acid, enzyme inhibitors and other anti-nutrients.
Include enzyme-enhanced lacto-fermented vegetables, fruits, beverages and condiments in your diet on a regular basis.
Prepare homemade meat stocks from the bones of chicken, beef, lamb and fish and use liberally in soups, stews, gravies and sauces.
Use filtered water for cooking and drinking.
Use unrefined salt and a variety of herbs and spices for appetite stimulation.
Make your own salad dressing using raw vinegar, extra virgin olive oil and a small amount of expeller-expressed flax oil.
Use natural sweeteners in moderation, such as raw honey, maple syrup, maple sugar, date sugar, dehydrated cane sugar juice

Till my next soap box moment my friends - Live, Laugh, Love Fitness!

Ange x

7^th Jan 2012

Hello and Happy New Year Fitties!

Firstly – I hope you all had the most wonderful, safe, warm Christmas and New Years! So with a new year, comes new resolutions and many people rushing to the gym to sign up for new contracts to undo the gluttony from the Silly season! Many resolutions involve plans to stop smoking, drinking, eat less take-outs, eat more veg, and for many coffee addicts, cut down on the caffeine.

I spent my Christmas on the slopes of the Alpes snowboarding! It was magical - and I met some amazing new friends along the way. One of the many evenings we spent debating about life, whilst necking down a number of jaegerbombs – the subject of caffeine came up – and me being the outspoken PT that I am, stood my ground as to why I believed caffeine to be really nasty long-term. This became quite a hot topic at the dinner table, so I decided to blog about the effects caffeine has on the body short-term and of course long-term!

Caffeine and the Effects on the Body

What better way to start the day & clearing cobwebs from our brains, than grabbing a quick coffee from your nearest coffee shop on route to work – most people cannot do without it – the craving/desperate need for coffee as we awake, means only one thing - caffeine addiction . According to research, In the U.S, The National Coffee Association found in 2000 that 54% of the U.S. adult population drinks coffee daily.

But what are the effects relating to fitness?

The Physiological Effects of Caffeine

The main ingredient in coffee that gives us that kick is caffeine, a central nervous system stimulant. Caffeine is found naturally in coffee beans, tea leaves, and chocolate, and is a popular added ingredient in carbonated beverages and some over-the-counter medications such as cold remedies, aspirin, and weight control aids.

Caffeine stimulates the central nervous system by blocking adenosine, a neurotransmitter that normally causes a calming effect in the body. The resulting neural stimulation due to this blockage causes the adrenal glands to release adrenaline (the “fight or flight” hormone). Your heart rate increases, your pupils dilate, your muscles tighten up, and glucose is released into your blood stream for extra energy. Boom – just like that, you now have the caffeine buzz!

But that is not all…Caffeine also increases Dopamine. Dopamine activates pleasure in parts of the brain. Enter, Caffeine addiction. Physiologically, caffeine makes us feel alert, pumps adrenaline to give us energy and changes dopamine production to make us feel good.

The Physical Effects of Caffeine on Athletic Performance

In addition to various psychological and physiological benefits, numerous studies have documented caffeine’s ergogenic (increasing the capacity for strenuous exercise by eliminating fatigue symptoms) effect on athletic performance, particularly in regard to endurance. Studies show that caffeine ingestion prior to exercising extended endurance in moderately strenuous aerobic activity. Other studies researching caffeine consumption on elite distance runners and distance swimmers show increased performance times following caffeine consumption.

Caffeine’s positive performance-enhancing effects have been well documented. So much so that the International Olympic Committee placed a ban leading to disqualification for an athlete with urinary limits exceeding 12 mg/mL. Roughly 600 to 800mg of caffeine, or 4 to 7 cups of coffee, consumed over a 30-minute period would be enough to exceed this level and cause disqualification. The National Collegiate Athletic Association has a similar limit, set at 15 mg/mL.

Coffee: A Pre-Workout Drink?

Before you make a cup of large coffee part of your pre-workout warm-up , in order to harness the effects of caffeine, be aware that simply downing a grande may or may not give you similar benefits found in these studies. A recent Canadian study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology compared the effect of coffee and caffeine on run time to exhaustion. A group of nine men took part in five trials.

Sixty minutes before each run, the men took one of the following:

A placebo

Caffeine capsules

De-caffeinated coffee with caffeine added

Regular coffee

Performance times were up to 10 times longer in subjects using the caffeine capsules, with no differences in times among the other trials. Since the level of caffeine absorption was similar during the caffeine trials, researchers concluded something in the coffee itself that interferes with caffeine’s performance-enhancing effects. This makes sense considering that there are literally hundreds of compounds dissolved when coffee beans are roasted, ground and extracted.

Results of this research suggest that if benefits of caffeine on endurance times are desired, caffeine capsules work better than coffee.

Caffeine and Creatine Supplementation

Although caffeine has been shown to increase endurance time, further research shows it may actually blunt the effect of Creatine (Creatine is a nitrogenous organic acid that occurs naturally in vertebrates and helps to supply energy to all cells in the body, primarily muscle). In a study evaluating the effect of pre-exercise caffeine ingestion on both creatine stores and high-intensity exercise performance, caffeine totally counteracted any effects of creatine supplementation. It was suggested that individuals who creatine load should refrain from caffeine-containing foods and beverages if positive effects are desired.

The Downside of Caffeine

Despite coffee/caffeine’s positive effects on psychological states and performance, there are numerous documented risks that must considered when consuming caffeine, whether for performance-enhancing effects or simply as a part of daily dietary need.

Caffeine stimulates the central nervous system and can produce restlessness, headaches, and irritability. Caffeine also elevates your heart rate and blood pressure. Over the long-term as your body gets used to caffeine, it requires higher amounts to get the same effects. Certainly, having your body in a state of hormonal emergency all day long isn’t very healthy.

Caffeine is also a diuretic and causes a loss of fluid, which then leads to a dehydrating effect. This is obviously not conducive to fitness activities such as resistance training, as fluid is needed for the transfer of nutrients to facilitate muscular growth. It is also important when considering the further loss of fluid while exercising in hot environments.

Perhaps the most important long-term problem is the effect of caffeine on sleep. The half-life of caffeine in the body is about 6 hours. If you drink a big cup of coffee with 200 mg of caffeine at 4PM, at 10PM you still have about 100mg in your body. By 4AM, you still have 50mg floating in your system. Even though you may be able to sleep, you may not be able to obtain the restful benefits of deep sleep. What’s worse, the cycle continues as you may use more and more caffeine in hopes of counteracting this deficit.

Caffeinated Conclusions

Though caffeine has some benefits in relation to exercise performance, risks have been documented. Most problems seem evident with very high consumption. The American Heart Association says that moderate coffee drinking (one or two cups per day) does not seem to be harmful for most people. As with everything else, moderation is the key to healthy caffeine consumption.

So, although one cup of day is more than adequate to give you the caffeine buzz to sort your head out for the day, I would not recommend using caffeine prior to exercise, as your body will adapt and eventually require the caffeine instead of your body using its own energy sources. And I urge anyone please to stay away from Stimulants such as Red Bull! Red Bull contains Taurine, a large amount of caffeine and loads of sugar. To this day, researchers still don’t know the long –term effect Taurine has on the body, so avoid drinking Red Bull whilst exercising. In fact, avoid it full stop.

Keep things natural – stick to water whilst exercising – it’s pure. And Free!

Happy 2012!

Live, Laugh, Love Fitness!

Ange xx

(Source: Over Caffeinated Research)

29th Nov 2011

How this year has flown by! And already, I find myself trying to find Christmas party frocks, and stressing about how many hangovers we are all going to be experiencing over the month of Dec!

So with the Festive season now looming, we are going to be tempted from all sides to tuck into various naughty treats! Including indulging in a lot more alcoholic treats than we would normally be used to! Some simple tips to ensure you don’t overdo it are below:

Make sure you eat WELL before you go out to the work Christmas party! Although you will probably cave into picking at a few hors d-oeuvre trays that will waft past you at the event, you will be less likely to completely stuff your face with EVERYTHING on offer.
Make sure you drink PLENTY of water throughout the night – try and drink at least one glass of water between each drink you have.
Stick to white spirits (ie Vodka) based drink, that you can sip on slowly all night. White spirits are a lot less calorie laden than any other alcohol (although still has calories!!!). Drinking Wine all night not only piles on the calories, but also gets you TOO merry TOO quickly, and can be a very Unforgiving forgetful night, in the worst possible way. Stick to Soda Water with Vodka – with a big splash of Lemon Juice (Or a few Limes squeezed in) – not lime cordial – its so refreshing and virtually no calories other than the vodka! That is my favourite drink!
Once home, safe and sound, drink a pint or two of water before you go to bed – this will assist in rehydrating your body whilst sleeping. The earth shattering headache you feel in the morning after a BIG night before is called severe dehydration!!! Your poor brain has lost all fluid and is literally like a little dry prune inside your head. So DRINK WATER!
Make sure too that you have a BIG hearty breakfast the next day – poached/boiled eggs (organic), grilled bacon (organic), grilled tomatoes, avocado, nice whole-meal / Rye slice of Toast with butter and cheese (both organic). A PERFECT breakfast to set you up for the day! Add a nice cup of filter coffee to that and you will be fired up ready to go!
And again… I cannot stress… keep hydrated! Although Winter is here we forget it is just as important to continue drinking loads of water!!
Other than that, Exercise is KEY!! Keep your fitness regime going through the cold dreary months of Winter! It not only keeps unnecessary fat cells from sinking into our pores, but also keeps depression at bay! Our bodies naturally store more fat in the Winter months to keep us warm! And of course it is easy to fall into a depressive state because we lack Vitamin D from the sun! So keep smiling, keep positive, keep coming to the gym! I promise you, IT WILL BE WORTH IT!

Till next time, keep safe, keep warm, keep Merry!

Live, Laugh, Love Fitness!

Ange x

18th Nov 2011

With the weather starting to turn, and Winter beginning to rear its ugly (but beautiful) head, Vitamin D intake starts to deplete. People in the UK generally lack from Vitamin D anyway due to lack of sunshine, but as the colder seasons hit us, we need to replenish this essential Vitamin even more. In fact this is probably the best time to invest in a good Multi-Vitamin overall!

Deficiency in Vitamin D is hugely dangerous – symptoms include:
Rickets
Osteoporosis
Depression/Fatigue
Obesity
Chronic backache
Cancers
Heart disease

So it is VITAL to ensure you are stocked up on Vitamin D now! Here are top foods packed with Vitamin D (also see diagram below). Also make sure you get yourself a good Multi Vitamin to get those “happy hormones” doing flik-flaks in your bodies again! I recommend Solgar vitamins (http://www.solgar.co.uk/).

Vit D enriched foods:
Shikate & Button Mushrooms
Mackerel
Salmon
Herring
Cat Fish
Tuna
Cod Liver Oil
Eggs
and of course although only food for the soul – SUNSHINE!

3^rd Oct 2011

Hello Fitties,

Hope you have all been enjoying our rather unusual Indian Summer here in the UK! With temperatures soaring well into the 30’s over the weekend, the main focus (other than topping up our tans) is keeping hydrated and away from sun stroke! Hope you have managed to do both!

I spent the weekend moving (Oh joy to the world – NOT) – a consolation of this exhausting task was that hauling big boxes and unpacking ensured I was active without even really realising it – my body feels the ache today however, so this week I need to get some good stretches in.

Most injuries are caused by people not stretching for long enough and in worst case scenarios, people not stretching after exercise at all! And PT’s/Class instructors are NO exception. In fact we are probably the worst candidates! This is why, it is vital that you take 5-10mins of your time each day to stretch your weary muscles (even if you haven’t exercised that day). Stretching can be very meditative too, so use that time as quiet “ME” time – either while you are running a bath, or as you get home before you start preparing dinner, or just before bed. Whatever time of day suits you best – stretch!

If finding the time to stretch seems impossible to do every day, try incorporate at least one yoga session a week into your training regime. There are endless benefits to Yoga – it not only influences the physical side, but taps into the spiritual side of your mind and body too – leaving you feeling revitalised, stress free and with an innate sense of well being.

Here are some excellent reasons to give yoga a go:

Stress relief – Yoga encourages you to relax, with deep breathing exercises throughout a class, your body and mind naturally moves into a calming state.
Pain relief –a perfect reason to practise yoga alongside your current training regime as it alleviates the body of every day aches and pains and in some sadly severe cases, pain associated with diseases.
Improved breathing techniques – people generally tend to breathe from the chest rather than from the diaphragm – this is habitual and particularly bad when doing intense exercise, as shallow chest breathing doesn’t allow air into the lungs properly! Yoga teaches you to breathe deeply and effectively – it is one of the most powerful benefits of yoga.
Flexibility – the more we exercise, and because most of us spend a lot of time sitting in front of a PC every day – our muscles shorten – we therefore need to spend time lengthening the muscles, tendons and ligaments which will help to increase your range of motion, and ensure your flexibility increases.
Circulation improvement – Yoga improves your blood circulation – lowering blood pressure and pulse rates.
Inner Peace – This is so vitally important in our stressful lives – we often never have time to meditate or focus on nurturing our inner being. Doing just one hour of yoga a week will allow you to completely let go of the outside world and will ensure you re-energise yourselves regularly which is so hugely important for feeling inner and outer peace.
Other benefits include – Weight management, increased strength, increased energy levels, improved coordination, memory skills, concentration levels amongst other things.

So take time out, book a yoga course, or get into your local gym to find out when the next yoga class is – most of the classes in gyms these days are free – so take advantage where you can! If you can’t afford to book Yoga courses – there are wonderful DVD’s available so that you can do it in the privacy of your own home!

Namaste

Live, Laugh, Love Fitness!

Ange xxx

19^th Sept 2011,

Hello FItties!
Sorry for the radio silence – no excuses really but I have been frantically busy with life in general and with Summer fading fast, and Autumn rearing its crisp & fresh head, exhaustion too has kicked into gear. I often wonder if sub-consciously as soon as the mornings become darker, the sun settles differently in the skies, and mornings/evenings require a few more layers, our brains kick into S.A.D (Seasonal Adjustment Disorder) mode sooner that it really should.

I first heard about people suffering from S.A.D a couple of years back and I must admit I laughed out loud at the idea that people actually admit to being diagnosed with such a preposterous “illness”. But having lived in the UK for as long as I have, it dawned on me soon afterwards, that it is more than likely that 90% of us probably do get a bout of S.A.D when seasons change! In fact, I am more than positive we all get full blown depression!

So, how do we combat the wintery blues? First idea is usually the most obvious – breaking the bank by jetting off to sunsets and beaches far, far away! The second and most common, is to comfort eat… and of course, the colder it gets, the more fat we need to store to keep warm. So this option, although the cheaper of the above two blues beaters, is the most expensive long term in terms of our health & fitness. This leads straight onto what I would consider the most successful way to ensure you keep any Wintery blues at bay….. EXERCISE closely followed by Winter NUTRITION!

So here are some tips (fitness and otherwise) that will get us feeling fired up and ready to fight off Wintery Blues!!!

Invest in a Sunrise clock. This little device retails at about £50 and imitates a sunrise effect that gently wakes you up the way nature intended.
Invest in a good juicer! There is nothing better than making your own delicious vitamin enriched drinks/smoothies throughout the year – especially in Winter! With no preservatives, and ensuring you can get all if not most of your 5 a day in one glass will also ensure that you fight off colds and sniffles! What is so fabulous about making your own juices is that you can get creative with all sorts of Organic seasonal fruits/vegetables!
Get yourself dosed up on Vitamin D for Winter – we lack this vitamin already as we hardly see the sun in the UK, however, in Winter, we have a huge depletion of Vitamin D due to dark mornings and evenings. Solgar Vitamins are by far the best out there, so visit www.solgar.com and get yourself a good multi-vitamin as well as vitamin D.
EXERCISE, EXERCISE, EXERCISE! I know that when the alarm goes off early in the morning and there is nothing but darkness looming outside, the only thing we want to do is hit that snooze button and snuggle up in our warm beds, but you and I both know, although it’s the most difficult chore in Winter to peel ourselves out of warmth into coldness , there is no better way to ensure our happy hormones are pumped through our bodies, quite like a good hard workout at the gym! Not only does exercise increase our sluggish Wintery metabolisms, it beats the Winter Blues immediately!
Finally, my favourite subject – FOOD! Although we definitely tend to comfort eat throughout Winter, you don’t need to put on weight if you eat correctly! Get yourselves a good casserole dish and or slow cooker and get creative with Organic beef/lamb to make delicious stews! We have such a huge variety of the most amazing organic winter vegetables available to us, so throw in whatever you enjoy eating along with your meats! Make sure though that you stick to Organic only when it comes to Meat! My philosophy with food is that if you eat only happy foods (I always say I love eating Happy Cows or Happy Sheep) and if you ensure that your food is ALWAYS made with love, your body will love you back!! That is my promise to you! An absolutely fantastic book to buy is “The Abel & Cole Cookbook – Easy, Seasonal, Organic” you can buy it on Amazon for £9! Not only are the recipes mouth-wateringly delicious, but they also cook according to what is seasonal! So check out the Winter dishes and get COOKING good looking!

Till next time, Live, Laugh, Love FITNESS!

Ange

xxx

Sunday 31^st July 2011

Hello Fitties!!!

8 sessions at the gym this week, included me teaching 3 spin classes – loved every one of them! Especially the ones I taught! It is so rewarding watching people give their all in a class! I have already acquired a few regulars, and this puts a big cheesy grin on my face!!

It’s not difficult being enthusiastic and passionate each time I step into a class because knowing I have created a spin session that is fun, energetic, hard and equally rewarding, gives me a buzz that gets me hyped up and rearing to go for the rest of the week! It’s been a good teaching week and it re-ignites my passion for fitness every time! Clients I teach inspire me every day, and I hope I return that favour in my classes.

So earlier this week, I was reading Ultra Fit Mag (Aug edition), and came across a very interesting article regarding cravings. It has stuck in my mind, so decided to share my thoughts about the article with you. It debates whether caving into our cravings would be less of a calorie attack than attempting to avoid the chocolate bar, by digging into nuts, hummus, oatcakes, dried fruit instead. The issue it highlights, is, once we indulge in our “good” snacks, 9 times out of 10, we land up at the vending machine anyway chucking coins in for that twix bar! And by doing this, we inadvertently land up tripling our calorie intake trying to deny ourselves of our initial craving!

My outlook is simple. Everything in moderation! I do not believe in depriving the body, mind or soul of anything. I believe too that the minute you say “no” or “I shouldn’t”, your body/mind immediately associates that with deprivation, and so the craving increases, almost like an addictive impulse, and this is lethal only because this is usually when binging/over-eating occurs.

So where do we draw line, and how many times in a week should we give in to a sugar rush craving? Why do we even get sudden urges to indulge in something sweet anyway?

Besides the obvious fact that chocolate is well, delicious, it is addictive because the minute it touches our tongues and melts in our mouths, It sends signals to the brain of indulgent euphoric happiness. And right at that moment, we will never lose the association between happiness and chocolate… until, it reaches our guilty conscience and of course, our hips.

So here are some ideas to ensure that you still have the best of both worlds, because life is too short to deprive ourselves of happiness through indulgent naughtiness occasionally!

Always opt for dark chocolate – Organic 70% cocoa chocolate is delicious, and most times, you will only need one piece to get rid of your craving.
If you find yourself on chocolate no. 7 in a week, try swapping chocolate for a banana when the craving hits. Also ensure you always have a pack of dried fruit at the office, for those craving moments!
A delicious alternative to chocolate is a home-made fruit salad topped with a dollop of organic plain yoghurt (or any of your favourite flavours),

Food, although a vital fuel for our body to function, should always be a pleasure in our lives. In our Society today, we are being taught to be scared of food, as it is directly associated to weight gain, but that is an ignorant point of view, in my eyes. Food should always be enjoyed, and made with love.

(Important note: Fast food saturated with trans fat however, should ALWAYS be avoided at ALL costs!)

There is of course another way to ensure that our brain and body is filled with indulgent euphoric happiness, and will always ensure that our happy hormones are doing flik flaks through our bloodstream….a good hard session at the gym! It never fails )

Live, Laugh, Love Fitness!

Ange

xoxoxo

Hello fitties -

Hope your week has been filled with fitness, love and smiles (not necessarily in that order)! My training week has been great! Been at the gym most days whilst teaching two spin sessions, and a bootcamp! So as the week draws to an end, the body & mind start to lose a couple of sparks… BUT, the smile is still on my face!

Regularly on my blog, I intend on adding recipes I find randomly or that my loving friends/family throw my way. And of course I will chuck a few of my own favourites that I have conjured up in my kitchen of love! This week, I have to pay homage to a juice my beautiful friend Leigh Ferris once made for us after a rather indulgent night out filled with too much wine and naughtiness! My body (and head) were unforgiving when I woke up that Sunday morning, but as I drank this wonderful brew - I was back to myself in minutes!!

They say you are what you eat…. well if that is true, get ready to bounce here, there and everywhere after you whip up this tangtastic/nutritious/delicious GUMMY BERRY JUICE::
(You will need a juicer)

Gummy Berry Juice:
2x organic carrots (Vitamin C)
2cm fresh ginger (Circulation)
1x Fresh organic beetroot (Cleanses your blood)
1x happy (organic) apple (keeps the doctor away)
Teaspoon of flax seed oil

Variation (for the day after the night before)
add Fresh Fennel (Liver tonic)

Live, Laugh and Love Fitness!
Ange xxx

Hello Fitties,

Welcome to my first blog entry (whoohoo!)… and of course to my site! I cannot begin to express how excited I am having finally launched this! I am like a proud mother hen, watching her brood hatch in front of her loving eyes!

Getting to this point has been a year-long journey of passion, excitement, sometimes dread, and a hell of a lot of blood, sweat and tears! The journey started in Dec 2009 whilst driving along the magical coastal roads of Cape Town. It was while I parked my car at the top of Chapman’s Peak, staring out into the vast ocean that I had that life-changing epiphany where everything became suddenly clear! Fitness was my passion already, and not much else was at that point – so it was obvious to me that it was what I wanted to study/to teach/ to be! And so, my new journey began….

Changing my career, quite literally halfway through my current “career-life” seemed at times preposterously stupid. In fact, most of my year studying saw me see-sawing through emotions of immense self doubt, constant disbelief in my own capabilities, but mostly saw me terrified of this new path that had begun to forge in front of me… and knowing there was no way I could turn back!

Through “blood, sweat and tears” is the only way I can describe how I fought hard to follow my heart even when my head didn’t believe the dream – how I forced my head forward in order to keep my eye on the goal, and throughout my daily inward battles, I had to keep pushing myself to succeed regardless of the outcome! I stumbled a number of times along the way, and my ego has been bruised more often than not- BUT – I succeed every time I am knocked down, because I will ALWAYS get up off the floor, brush myself off, and keep on going! An amazing friend said to me, when I was shattered, faced with failure yet again, feeling like someone had punched me in the stomach one too many times : “You should NEVER look at failure as a stumbling block, but as a stepping stone.” It was then that I made peace with my own failures, as I knew that not far behind any setback, would be my success! And although, the entirety of this journey hasn’t even really begun, each baby step is a success in its own right, and so I walk forward eager to see what is around the next corner! And I look forward to sharing all these moments with you along the way….

Till next time, I leave you with one of my favourite quotes:

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordon

Live, Laugh, Love Fitness!
Ange

xxx