My Story I Haven't Shared...

This has taken a lot to share. I don’t feel comfortable by any means but I know that magic steps outside comfort zones. If I can help one person take a step in the right direction, I’m happy. Before I delve into this caption however, this is my own personal health & fitness journey I’m referring to. This is personal which means my progress is different to anyone else’s. This includes starting points, “transformations” and my end point which is still yet to come. I will try keep this as brief as possible.

Photo on the left: straight out of high school, 8 years ago now. Yes, 8 years. I was your normal teenage girl who had a dream. I trained hard for an 18 year old and made many sacrifices. Not to say I didn’t get into the party scene because I certainly did have my fun but majority of my teenage years were spent working towards my dreams. I ate “well” but was uneducated around nutrition. Eating and nutrition are two different pillars.

Photo on the right: currently where I am today. Close to a good 15-20kg gone. However, I’m now in a building phase. This is where the story starts.

Between the two photos, within the two years is a series of ups and downs. I think this is where my desire to become a health and fitness coach came about. The first part of my real health journey commenced with your standard meal plan. The old egg whites, white fish and asparagus. Day in. Day out. If you know me, you know I’m all in or all out. In this case, I was all in. I stuck to my meal plan religiously. However, “cheat meals” were introduced. Structured eating with the odd cheat meal = heavy restriction. Very quickly, my relationship with food became pretty unhealthy. I saw foods as good and bad. My calories also became very low for the amount of output I was doing. Keep in mind, I lost weight however, my body then started to store fat as it was not being fuelled correctly. My poor body was starving so it was grasping at any nutrient if could retain (I’m sure some people know EXACTLY what I’m talking about).

I soon met Kane. At this point, I was still training heavily and to be honest, not really fuelling my body how I should. Kane began to coach me and I started to become educated on how I should be treating my body for its athletic endeavours. From that point, I started to see results.

Fast forward to 2022 post Covid. The world opened up and FINALLY I could race. The fire was in my belly and I felt ready. My energy levels were sky high, training was coming together and I was beginning to see results. In fact, I raced weeks before my first world tour event and hit a PB like I’d never seen before. I felt good. Two days later, Covid hit me like a tonne of bricks. I was flawed to say the least.

I “got through” Covid but something still wasn’t right. I returned to training and tried to put the last “finishing touches” in before I headed to london. I felt flogged. I then raced in london and korea and again, my body felt flogged. I ended up being on the brinks of pneumonia.

The remaining of the school holidays were spent in bed, resting and eating. At rest, I was eating crazy amounts of food (won’t share exact numbers) but my body was just “eating itself”, fighting off this virus. Something I wasn’t really all that good at. I saw my GP and was told long Covid is where I was at. Essentially, my body was just burning through anything I fed it. I then really started to rev up my study as I not only wanted to help others, but I wanted to “fix” myself. I refused to feel depleated, unenergised, flat and drained. I had gone from this “every ready bunny” energy to just zilch in a matter of months. Not to mention, my hormones were goooone.

So now, where am I at? Now I’m feeling the most balanced I’ve ever been. I’m still working in a surplus and aiming to build more muscle and body fat to be at a healthy point for my body. For the first time since September, I’m starting to feel like myself again. I feel happy, I have drive and ticker, I have energy and I have balance in my life. I may not be racing like I once did but moving my body, being in the ocean, running and just fueling and treating my body how it deserves to be treated just feels good.

So when I say “I’ve been through it all”, I really have and I “get it”. I’m not done yet but I promise I’m sticking to the course and I will fight till I am just like the rest of you.

- Chlo