The road I’ve taken to get where I am today in regards to my health and level of fitness has been long, winding, bumpy, and at some points a little hard to follow.
I wouldn’t say I’ve even been “unfit” – I don’t have some crazy weight-loss story to share with you, or major turning point on when I realized I needed to get in shape – it genuinely all sort of just happened really naturally.
As a kid we were always kept active. We’d be out on our street playing with our friends for hours on end, my parents would take us for walks and bike rides regularly, we typically always had some sort of after school program to do whether that be ballett, cross country, swimming, I think I even did trampolining at one point in secondary school. Then we moved to Canada and moved into a house with a pool which we’d stay in all summer.
Once I got into Grade 9 I decided I was going to try-out for a couple of teams. First was cheerleading – didn’t make that team (shocker… I’m hardly the peppiest most flexible person anyone’s ever seen, nor was I popular enough), then gymnastics (again… not flexible enough), then wrestling. Now wrestling, that stuck.
My parents had wanted me to get into some kind of martial arts sport for a while – and while I wouldn’t really consider wrestling a form of martial arts, the skills I learnt while “playing” that sport will definitely help me out should I ever need to defend myself.
Wrestling requires discipline, commitment, patience, and an unbelievable amount of resilience. I participated in the sport for 5 years. I won many medals, one being a National Bronze medal during my last year of highschool. I loved it. It kept me strong, active, motivated, but it also came with a few downsides too. Wrestling requires you to fit into a particular weight class and as a mid-teenage girl, weighing yourself daily and having to be extra conscious of your weight can reaaallly take a toll on your mental wellbeing. That, and moving up into University wrestling with a coach that I didn’t gel well with, was what essentially ended my wrestling carrier.
Towards the end of my stint in wrestling, I had also taken up long distance running with my dad. We participated in 2 half marathons. I had the option to train for a full marathon with my dad but I just couldn’t hack it – I was so sick of running at that point I just couldn’t bare having to put all those miles in again to run another race.
Tell you what though, the feeling you get after crossing the finish line after a long distance race is incredible. The feeling of relief that washes over you knowing that you did it and it’s all over is amazing. I stopped running for quite some time after that.
After I stopped wrestling, that’s when I really started to attempt to get into the more weight lifting side of things. We weight trained as a team while I wrestled but it was more functional to the sport – lots of Olympic and powerlifting type movements. I started to dabble I guess more into the bodybuilding side of things for a little bit. I had a very specific split that I followed: legs, back, chest, rest, then I started all over again. My workouts were pretty much the exact same every session and I worked out in my family’s little home gym because at that point I was still too nervous to venture into the gym at university – mostly because I’d never ventured into a commercial gym like that by myself (that, and at the time you had to pay to use our school gym).
I eventually plucked up the courage to dive into the school gym, and from there I also got a membership at an actual gym as well and started going with friends. It’s around this time I got super into powerlifting and training to be the strongest I could be. My mindset at this point was still a little unhealthy but it wasn’t restrictive by any means and I allowed myself to eat pretty much whatever I wanted.
The peak of my stint in powerlifting was a 250lb squat and a 265lb deadlift. After that, I seemed to take more of a “powerbuilder” approach. I still wanted to be strong, but I also wanted to look good, and be able to perform well. I got back into running, my workouts were a mixed style of weight lifting, body building, functional movements, and overall just exercising to feel good. This is the style of training that I still use to this day which is perfect due to the career path I’m pursuing. Firefighting requires strength, stamina, and the ability to adapt your body depending on the situation.
My weight throughout this journey has been all over the place. My starting point I would say is Grade 9 – I weighed into my first tournament at 49.5kg (109lbs)… I now weigh around 67kg (148lbs). 10 years, 40lbs. Weight gain isn’t always a bad thing, nor is weight loss… and nor is merely staying at the same weight for an extended period of time. I’ve been sitting at my current weight for at least 4 years now. It’s dipped/peaked a little here and there but the overall average weight for me is anywhere between 147-152lbs – and I’m totally happy with it!
I think what people really get stuck on when they start their fitness journey is feeling like they have to do a certain type of exercise in order to “do fitness” or be fit. Do what you enjoy… and if you don’t enjoy it anymore – switch it up! As you can see by my long winded journey, I didn’t stick to the same thing, and I probably won’t continue how I train currently for the rest of time either, and that’s ok. Do what works for you and the rest will follow.
Until next time
xx