Some of you may know that my early childhood, adolescence and young adult life was less than a health and fitness ideal 🙂 Without wanting sympathy or to bore you – i’ll fill you in – it is kind of the reason behind this post so bear with me!
Cue melancholy music:
I was a little overweight as a kid – not massively but enough at the time to be teased and on occasion bullied because of it. I ended up shying away from sport and ‘Physical Education’ (a term i find laughable to be honest but more on that later!) and slowly distanced myself from it whenever i could. Looking back i can see how this had a very negative impact not only on my health (i went down the anti fitness path – smoking / drinking / crap food etc) but also on my self-esteem and self-confidence, this further encouraged bullying and teasing – which further discouraged me – bit of a vicious circle and made my school life less than fun it has to be said.
The problem for me i think now i can look back at it started with me being… how can i put this? Not great at sport, any sport i tried anyway! My PE teachers were the old school rugby / football types – you know, bit fat themselves – often past it players that liked to big themselves up about how great they once were – pretty sure you would know the types. These people far from instilling me with the drive to do something positive actually squashed any chance of improving my situation. Now i work in health and fitness i can see how little these people actually knew about physical education – they knew about sports granted but actually how to get someone fitter? How to improve their physical confidence, strength and aerobic fitness – no – nope not a jot – at least if they did that they had no interest in showing it – instead focusing all their attention on the people that did do well. I can’t lay the blame 100% at any one persons door though i can’t stand excuses from people so would not pretend that was the only thing – there were a number of reasons but that part in particular has stayed with me for over 30 years which is sad and a little… ‘disappointing’ i think is the word i’m searching for.
Why disappointing?
I think because if i’d had someone that had helped me to see that there was much, much more to do with fitness than being ‘good’ at a sport my early life would have been very different. That someone could have taught me how to gradually improve my aerobic fitness and strength, then shown me how to take that further allowing me to try new things which may have sparked a passion for something – that is what i feel disappointed about.
I am now very different to my old self – i love being fit – i enjoy pushing myself and i like the way that my body feels (yes, ok, also how it looks) and how it responds to exercise – i like that i can now try new physical activities and not feel i won’t be any good – at least not because i’m not fit enough 🙂 I also like the fact that i can go swimming with my boy and not be as hung up on what i look like – it still does cross my mind but nothing like it did when i was younger and less fit.
Because of the above i feel very strongly about people being bullied or suffering from low self-confidence / anxiety etc because of their weight – more so children as they often feel like they have nobody to ask or turn to and are very likely to slip down the same path i and others in my situation did. I feel lucky that i did find fitness and in turn found a way to become a healthier and more confident person. Something that started out as a niggling thought – coming and going through various parts of my work in this area has now become something i think about daily. I wondered, is there a way i and a few others that have had the same sort of life story could help people that are in the situations we were in – overweight / underweight / unfit / bullied / rubbish at sports etc – can we help?
At this stage I just want to see if there is anyone out there that might benefit from some guidance, mentor-ship and support from people that have lived what they are going through – can I and others like me help to teach these people that there is a way of becoming fitter – show them where to start and guide them through it a little? We could also offer advice on eating better as this is something that is, at best muddled in most peoples minds.
I want to do this free of charge, not a penny – after all, the people that may best benefit from this probably have little or no means to pay for it but that should not stop them from getting it.
This is something that is very personal to me and i want to make use of what i’ve learned with people that perhaps need it the most. The actual ‘how will it work’ part is something that will be different for each individual involved so we’ll have to talk about that once we get going i guess 🙂 What i hope to achieve is to set a person on a clear path
The biggest problem i foresee with something like this is going to be getting this out to people that are in that situation – in my memory i certainly did not make it clear that i was struggling – the last thing a child wants to do is draw attention to something like this – particularly to parents / teachers etc so perhaps the best way might be to try and share this post with younger people – see if they can then share it again between their friends – hopefully it can then reach the people that can get in touch – they just need to fill out the comments section below and i will get back in touch.
As to meeting / taking this to the next stage – i would have to insist that an adult was also involved for that – does not need to be a parent but just for peoples peace of mind – sad to have to say that but it is what it is i guess so please keep that in mind – I’m also fully DBS checked and have worked with juniors in a gym setting for many years.
NPC Performance 