wellman fitness
Liverpool
This was me 12 years ago, aged 16 and weighing 15 stone and 8 pounds. I battled
with my weight for much of my childhood, averaging a weight gain of a stone a
year. This had a significant and negative impact on my emotional wellbeing and I
became very creative in my attempts to cover the embarrassment I felt about my
physical presentation. Not only was my self- esteem on the floor, so was my
confidence. I remember Fridays at school very well, it was the day we had
swimming which meant having to expose my physical form in front of my peers
which I found humiliating and difficult to deal with. This ended with me trying
every trick in the book to avoid swimming including skiving and feigning
illness. My weight issues impacted on my passion for golf too, during the summer
months I continued to wear a jumper in an effort to hide my body. I tried to
lose weight through yo-yo dieting, self-education and slimming pills but nothing
seemed to work and I was left feeling de-motivated and with my self-confidence
at an all-time low. By the time I reached young adulthood, I had become very
frustrated with the way I looked and knew that it was preventing me from
reaching my full potential in life and I accepted that I had to make changes. I
plucked up the courage to join my local gym and have never looked back. It was
hard initially, I felt I was being judged by my size and initially the
embarrassment did not leave me. All summer I would be training in the gym doing
a mixture of cardio, weights and circuit training, this was in addition to
playing several rounds of golf each week. My aim was to stay active all summer
and this strategy achieved results; pounds were dropping off each week and my
confidence grew as a result, I was more confident with the girls and was able to
go swimming without being self- conscious.
