Addicted to fitness

From a young age, I have always played sport and exercised. I started ballet when I was 5 and danced until I was 16, I played hockey all through High school and did a lot of running.

When I was 16 I first joined a gym, my goal like many others was to lose weight and get strong. I remember signing up to my first 12-week challenge at. For me, this is where the fire was lit. I fell in love with fitness and loved the challenge that I could place on my mind and body, that feeling of pushing yourself to the point of failure fuelled me and got me wanting more. At the time, I didn’t know any better, my mindset was that more was better. I struggled to have just one day off the gym, I would go for weeks on end of training every day, smashing myself in the gym before I would be forced to have a day off. It got to the point where if I didn’t train at least twice a day then it wasn’t enough and I would beat myself up about it, even on my so-called rest days, I would still need to go for a “fat burning” walk or run just to feel good.

People would always ask me why I was always in the gym or exercising and the truth is I was scared that if I stopped or missed one day then it was all over and I would get fat. I was scared that if I missed one day off my routine then I would lose my gains and be back at square one.

Starting my 12-week challenge at the gym taught me a lot of the fundamentals of fitness and how to fuel my body the right way. However, me having an addictive personality I would always take things that little bit extra. I started counting my calories and would never let myself go over that number. I took clean eating to the extreme. I would never eat anything that had sugar in it, and if it was packaged or wasn’t classed as a health food then I couldn’t eat it. This then lead me into developing what’s known as Orthorexia, this is a condition that includes symptoms of obsessive behaviour in pursuit of a healthy diet, basically clean eating taken to the extreme.

I would miss out on social events with friends and never go out to party’s as I couldn’t drink or eat anything bad. I would have to be in bed at a certain time as there was training the next morning. These are just some of the rules that I put in place for myself to follow.

I don’t know when I became aware of being addicted, even to this day I still have that same mindset but through the years of training and the knowledge I have learnt that rest is where the growth happens and no one ever says on their death bed “I wish I had been skinnier, or more shredded”.

I recently decided that I wanted to compete in the NZ fitness model comp but then I decided to pull out as the restricted diet I was on had me slipping back into my obsessive behaviours.

In saying that I have learnt a lot about myself and if it wasn’t for my fitness journey then I don’t think I would have found my passion for fitness and my love for helping others reach their goals.

I am deciding to share my journey with you as I hope no one will go through the mental battle that I went through and if you are suffering from any mental illness you are not alone. Remember to find that balance. The fitness images you see on Instagram or all the happy post you read, remember that no one posts the bad photos, or the hard times. It is only a snap shot into their life. Take everything with a grain of salt and remember to be grateful that you can move your body, don’t take it for gratitude. Eat to fuel, and nourish to flourish.