In my early twenties, I absolutely loved working for Carphone Warehouse.
It was a brilliant company to work for. Mobile phones were still relatively new, business was booming and I was earning more money than I’d ever earned in my life. I even managed to make it onto television!
Yes, believe it or not, I appeared in a Carphone Warehouse TV advert. For a brief moment, I could add television star to my list of achievements. 
(Please see below)
I’ve still got the advert, and watching it back now makes me laugh. It’s a little glimpse into a completely different chapter of my life, long before I ever imagined becoming a personal trainer.
I even bought myself my first sports car. A shiny new silver MG with red leather seats.
I thought I’d arrived!
Life was good.
But there’s only so long you can spend selling the same thing every day before the novelty starts to wear off.
And eventually, I got bored.
Now, there’s something you need to know about me.
When I get bored, I eat.
And I don’t mean the occasional biscuit.
I’ve never been particularly good at making a packed lunch. In fact, on the rare occasion I did make one, it would usually be gone before I’d even arrived at work.
Then I’d have a soup at eleven, perhaps a burger or takeaway for lunch, followed by crisps, chocolate and whatever else I could get my hands on throughout the afternoon.
To put it politely, my nutrition was a disgrace.
Or, as I’ve been known to tell my clients, “I ate like an arsehole.”
I never really thought much about that expression until one of my clients said to me, “I love that line you say!”
Twenty-five years in the fitness industry, and apparently that’s the wisdom people remember.
Anyway, at the time I was dating an Italian guy whose mother was an incredible cook.
Every time we walked through the door, she’d put an enormous bowl of pasta in front of us.
And when I say enormous, I mean the sort of portion that could comfortably feed a family of four.
Naturally, I ate the lot.
It would have been rude not to.
So between the boredom eating at work, the takeaways, the chocolate and what appeared to be an unlimited supply of pasta, I gradually gained weight.
Quite a lot of it, actually.
Within a year, I was 20 pounds heavier.
Now, I’d always been sporty.
I’d been a district cross-country champion at school, I’d ridden horses all my life and being active had always been part of who I was.
But somewhere along the way, I’d stopped looking after my fitness.
I didn’t really notice how much things had changed until I moved to Great Missenden.
I remember walking up a hill one day and finding myself struggling to breathe.
And I thought, Hang on a minute. What’s happened to me?
I’d been a district cross-country champion, for goodness’ sake!
And now I was being defeated by a hill.
This is a bloody disgrace!
It was one of those moments when you suddenly realise something needs to change.
So I dusted off my trainers and started running again.
Nothing particularly complicated. No revolutionary fitness programme, no magic diet, no expensive supplements.
Just me, a pair of trainers and a determination not to be humiliated by a hill ever again.
And slowly but surely, my fitness came back.
I lost the weight, started feeling like myself again and remembered just how much I loved exercising.
But then another thought crossed my mind.
I’ve always had a bit of an all-or-nothing personality.
When I’m interested in something, I throw myself into it completely. But when I’m bored, I can lose interest just as quickly.
And I knew myself well enough to realise that if I wasn’t careful, I could quite easily end up back where I’d started.
So I asked myself a question.
How can I make sure I never let myself get that unfit again?
And then I had what seemed like a brilliant idea.
I know. I’ll become a personal trainer!
Because obviously, the most sensible solution to putting on 20 pounds was to change my entire career.
Perfectly logical.
And that, believe it or not, is how my career began.
Not because I’d spent my childhood dreaming of becoming a personal trainer.
Not because I had some grand business plan.
And certainly not because I was one of those people who’d always eaten chicken, broccoli and brown rice out of little plastic containers.
Quite the opposite.
I became a personal trainer because I’d eaten my way through Carphone Warehouse, gained 20 pounds and got out of breath walking up a hill.
Not exactly the inspirational career story you’d expect, is it?
And yet, here I am, 25 years later.
What started as a way of keeping myself fit became a career that I’ve absolutely loved.
Over those years, I’ve helped people lose weight, transform their bodies and mindsets to achieve things they never believed they could.
And perhaps one of the reasons I understand my clients so well is because I’ve been there myself.
I know what it’s like to let your fitness slip, to gain weight without really noticing and to suddenly realise you’re not feeling particularly good about yourself.
I know how easy it is to develop habits without even thinking about them.
And I know that telling someone to simply eat less and move more is a lot easier than actually changing the habits they’ve developed.
But I also know how incredible it feels to turn things around.
And more importantly, I know that you don’t have to stay where you are.
I’ve never believed that fitness needs to be complicated, miserable or something that takes over your entire life.
It’s about finding something you enjoy, building habits you can maintain and understanding that consistency matters far more than perfection.
Sometimes the biggest changes in our lives start with the smallest moments.
For me, it was walking up a hill in Great Missenden, completely out of breath, wondering what on earth had happened to the girl who used to win cross-country races.
Twenty-five years later, I’m still very glad I decided to dust off those trainers.
Although, looking back, I do think becoming a personal trainer was a rather dramatic response to eating too much pasta.
But here we are. 
