Hey! Welcome to my blog, my names Charlotte. I have a passion for all things, fitness, food and sustainability so I wanted to create a place I can share this passion with others. I will be doing three posts a week, one fitness, one food, and one on sustainability.
Today I decided to start by sharing my fitness journey. I feel like sharing this is a really easy way to learn about my relationship with food and exercise over my life and help you understand a bit more about me (the day of posting this also marks a year since I made the decision to lead a healthier and happier life so seems fitting).
So, I want to start this with discussing my relationship with exercise as a child and pre-teen. As a child I was very active. I did horse riding, I used to run around and I enjoyed sports. When I went to secondary school I found a real passion for athletics so I decided to join my local athletics club as a middle distance runner. I loved it. I was training three times a week with a variety of sessions. This went on for about a year and a half. And then I got injured.
What basically happened was I stretched the ligament in my left ankle, meaning anytime I ran I was either in extreme pain and at very very high risk of tearing my ligament. This meant I couldn't do any form of exercise (other than walking) for nine months. At this point I wasn't doing PE or anything.
It was also during this time I started to become a lot more conscious of my weight. I've alway been on the curvier side but this was when I was really comparing myself to other girls that were a lot smaller than me.
My family then moved across the country which meant I never went back to athletics. I instead developed a bit of a weird relationship with exercise. I didn't know or understand anything to do with sports science or how to train. I would literally just do squats and sit ups multiple times a day but continued to eat as normal.
When I was about 15 I became a bit obsessed with losing weight. I spent my nights googling "How to lose 10lbs in a week" and other unhealthy and unrealistic goals. I became obsessed with cardio and the various "Look like a Victoria's Secret Angel" workouts that flooded instagram. I though the only way to exercise was bodyweight or cardio. In terms of my relationship with food at this time I would drink bottles of water before eating so I didn't eat as much but again when I was eating I would still eat "bad" foods. This then lead to me having a very restrictive diet, I would only eat "clean", a typical day of eating would be fruit for breakfast, salad for lunch and then whatever my parents cooked for dinner.
It was during this time that I also began binging. Because I was restricting myself so so much I would just go a bit crazy in the evenings or when I was home alone. I would go into the kitchen and literally eat every baked good we had, tubs of Ben & Jerry's, crisps etc. and then literally cry and hate myself, which led to me self harming on multiple occasions.
I can't remember how or why I stopped restricting but I did and for a long time I stopped caring about weight, appearance and what I was eating. I avoided exercise because I told myself my obsession with exercise is what led to a bad relationship with food and this carried on from the age of 16 to 20.
In my first year at university I stumbled across Grace Beverely's Instagram and YouTube and became completely inspired by her. I purchased the Grace Fit Guide and some rubber resistance bands and joined my University gym. During first year I went to the gym on and off but discovered a passion for lifting weights. I discovered that you didn't only have to do hours of cardio to exercise.
However, while I was being inconsistent with the gym I was eating awfully. I would eat masses of frozen pizza, potato smiley faces, turkey dinosaurs and chicken nuggets. Basically, if it was processed and frozen I would eat it.
By the end of first year I had become more conscious of how much weight I had put on and I wanted to make a change. This was around the time that Grace launched B_ND. I purchased the Get Shreddy Home Guide a year ago today and took these progress pictures:
I did the Shreddy guide throughout that summer, as well as instagram workouts but I never joined the gym. Until I went back to Uni in September.
During that summer I had lost 20lbs. Which is still something that amazes me whenever I reflect. I managed to exercise five to six times a week and keep a well balanced diet and I didn't become obsessed.
It was at this time when I found out I was dairy and pork/ red meat intolerant. At the time I decided to be fully plant based and that worked for a bit but then it became unsustainable for me financially at uni.
During second year at uni, I became a bit more inconsistent with the gym and nutrition. I gained 10lbs in the first two months of second semester. At the start of March my work closed and I started going to the gym more consistently again. But then lockdown happened and the gyms closed.
Since the start of lockdown I have been way more consistent with my training and I feel like this is my new lifestyle. I've started doing a personal training course and I am way more invested in improving my nutrition.
Here are my most recent progress pictures to show where I am right now...
Thank you for reading!!! I hope this has helped in some way or another, or just let you get to know me more. I'm so excited to continue using this blog and sharing stories and recipes with you all.