Hey!

Hey guys!

Welcome to my blog, this is where I will share my thoughts, feelings and ideas with you. Let’s start with a quick introduction; This blog is a way of sharing my story with you all and creating a business.  My name is Stacey, I am 25 years old and I have just started training to become a personal trainer, I live in Gloucestershire with my new husband Adam and my wonderful dog, Theon. I love to exercise; I participate in dance fitness classes, Pilates, running and any other exercise that may look interesting. I also enjoy reading, colouring (I love adult colouring books, so soothing!), writing and playing video games. Three years ago I was unhappy, overweight and unhealthy so I decided to do something about it. I began following a YouTuber who creates Pilates routines and you can follow along without having to leave the house. She also created a meal plan which I followed for 6 months, helping me to lose 3 stone. Doing this helped me to get my confidence back and I was starting to feel fit and healthy again so I decided to go back to the gym, once I started going to the gym I couldn’t stop. I knew that my obsession with exercise was only just beginning.

During this time I was working as a support working for adults with learning disabilities, an extremely stressful and time consuming job. I loved my job. I really enjoyed the people that I worked with and the staff but it reached a point at the beginning of 2016 where I had to stop working. I would find that I couldn’t talk to people; I was becoming very anxious when I had to leave the house and I was just downright sad all the time. I went to the doctors as soon as I realised that this was going to be a problem and I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression disorder. This knocked me a back a lot. I had to quit my job after a long time off sick, I didn’t leave the house for days on end and I would have to ring my boyfriend at work at least once a day because I didn’t feel safe. The doctors put me on medication to help with my anxiety but I also needed more mental help so they put me in contact with Let’s Talk, an NHS run system that helps people just like me. I started going to classes which taught me how to self-manage the anxiety and depression.

I started to fall back in my training, I had to quit the gym since I couldn’t afford it anymore, and I couldn’t exercise at home (I had began running in order to run the race for life 2016) because 1. I didn’t want to leave the house and 2. I just couldn’t find the energy a lot of the time. This furthered my depression. I knew that I needed to get back into exercise. So, slowly, after going to my NHS classes for a few weeks I began to go out to run again using the techniques they had taught me...with the dog. This was amazing for me, to be able to go out to the park and run with the dog beside me was a huge step in feeling better. I kept this up for a few weeks then transitioned to running with headphones on without the dog. Eventually I got so confident I would be able to go out running without the headphones on.  This progressed to where I am today. It took time, determination, an engagement, a wedding, a terrible diet, a lot of upset and some bad choices to get here but I did it!!

Here we are today! Me, newly married, happier than I have been in a long time, typing on my new laptop with my wonderful doggy by my side getting excited about the weeks to come and this journey I hope you will take with me.