My Journey To Sustainable Health
This has been a hard topic to write about. Why? Because I went the wrong way about it. I pushed when I should have pulled. I trained when I should have slept. I sabotaged my body rather than nurtured it. Basically, I made all the mistakes.
“I want to be empowered to do what is best for my own health, and I want you to be empowered to do what is best for your own health.”
It all started in 2008. I was working in a burn and churn gym. The gyms that work their personal trainers into the ground and value quantity over quality. The gyms that pump through personal training sessions focused on the number of sessions over the quality of sessions without actually teaching their personal trainers anything valuable? Yes, one of those.
I’d work 40 hours a week teaching classes, doing 1-2-1 personal training sessions, assisting with the gym management and then spending time at home writing new training programs for my clients.
At the end of the day, I would fall into an exhausted heap only to be met by an unsettled sleep. Night after night. My health started to suffer. Along with depleting energy levels, anxiety and insomnia, I also had a leaky gut.
What followed was 10 years of ongoing health concerns and no room for healing. I was fooled by the mainstream health and fitness advice that results come from pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone and feeling fatigued was a sign of perseverance and dedication.
2008-2009 Health
Unbeknown to me at the time, my health was starting to spiral out of control. I was working too many hours, training too hard and not fueling my body with the quality and quantity of food it needed. My stress levels were incredibly high. I thought this was the way it had to be if I wanted to be successful in my career and in my training.
It didn’t take long before this combination of stressors started to affect my digestive system and my health.
My bodyweight dropped to 68kg. An incredibly unhealthy “skinny-fat.” I was sustaining myself with coffee, cookies, pasta, cereal and running gel.
“The fear of being perceived as weak forces many of us into pretending they are never afraid, lonely, confused, vulnerable, or wrong.”
I started suffering from insomnia, mood swings and even depression.
2010-2013 Health
My health improved slightly during this period. The decrease in training volume and a conscious improvement in my nutrition saw my energy levels increase. I switched to a Paleo diet with a focus on whole food.
My sleep improved slightly, but my digestive issues didn’t go away. As I started to switch training styles, I was misguided by the fitness industry low-carb diet hype. I incorrectly made the assumption that my training volume was a lot less in comparison to my endurance training days and my intake of carbohydrates should be less. My body type doesn’t respond well to low-cab and neither does our gut microbiome. Another lightbulb moment!
I started investigating functional blood markers, thanks to Charles Poliquin’s BioSignature course and worked with blood labs in London to discover I had a leaky gut. The most likely caused was high levels of stress and overtraining for many years. This explained many of the symptoms I had. I cut all dairy, eggs, whey, fermented foods from my diet.
“Trust your gut in life and health.”
After one year of training with Derek Woodske, I gained 10kg of muscle mass and my health improved significantly. My training volume dropped down to around 5-6hours a week, my body composition changed dramatically, and my sleep continued to improve. My gut health was the best it had been in years although there was room for improvement.
After attending the BioSignature course, my colleague and I would often take each other skinfold readings and experiment with certain diets and supplements to improve body composition.
While training for endurance events my umbilical skin fold (just under the belly button) was always greater than 10mm. No matter what I tried, I could not lose belly fat! According to the BioSignature, the umbilical skin fold is a reflection of cortisol levels (stress hormone), and a high score was often due to high levels of stress. In 2013 when I stopped doing endurance training my umbilical skin fold dropped to 8mm. Coincidence? I think not.
Endurance training was no longer the peak of fitness in my eyes. As much as I’d loved it, my body was screaming for something else.
“Training for sport and training for health and longevity are two very different things, you can not have both.”
2013-2018 Health
In the early days of opening the Momentum Training business, my health was again pushed down the list of priorities.
I would be at the gym 7-days a week teaching back to back classes and personal training sessions. I was also guiding our members through nutrition, re-hab, supplements, making myself available almost 24/7 and writing most of the gym training programs.
I was burning the candle at both ends (again), failing to set boundaries and protect my health.
I let this become my reality. I had a degree in computer science so naturally, all the technical stuff became my responsibility. I should have asked for help but I didn’t.
My sleep suffered, my hormones suffered, my digestive health went backwards, and I was feeling stressed, anxious, tired and burnt out. I would put on a brave face at work and then fall in a heap when I was home. My self-defeating habits had detrimental impacts on my relationships, health, happiness, and performance.
Again. I look back now and wish I had the sustainable stress management tools that I currently have.
“Stress and anxiety is the elephant in the room, you can not out-train it or out eat it, you must learn to manage it.”
2018 - Current: Health
I spent most of 2018 and 2019 studying the ADAPT framework and becoming a certified health coach. I wanted to learn more about stress management, sleep, social connection, technology addictions, diet, exercise, positive psychology, motivational interviewing, the transtheoretical model of change, meditation, mindfulness, habit and behavioural change, time management and productivity, and take a much more holistic view on sustainable health.
During this time I discovered the answers to many of my health problems. I invested in a functional health doctor for gut and blood tests and I started meditating. I cut back on my training and monitored my recovery with an Oura ring, I prioritised sleep, and I invested more time into my relationships.
“If you don’t prioritise your health, nobody else will.”
After working with a functional health doctor I’ve discovered that I have hemochromatosis (a genetic disorder that increases iron storage) and high histamine levels. I’ve also discovered I have the MTHFR genes. MTHFR stands for methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase—and a reduction in methylation contributes to poor detoxification. This lead to high levels of mercury which I talk more about on the Protect The Asset about page.
I now donate blood on a regular basis to help lower my ferritin levels and I’ve modified my diet to cut out high histamine foods. None of this would have been possible without blood, stool and urine testing. I plan to continue to monitor my blood markers to make sure I stay on top of my nutrition, supplementation and health.
“We take our car to the mechanic to get serviced, why do we fail to do the same for our body? ”
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Are you a recreational athlete who wants to stay active, strong and healthy for as long as possible?
Recreational athletes often struggle to sustain optimal health and wellbeing by following mainstream health & fitness advice. These guys and gals work hard to stay fit and healthy, and yet, they succumb to health-related problems just like everybody else. They can be carrying unwanted body fat, experiencing fatigue, having trouble sleeping, noticing anxiety, struggling with digestive complaints, and not performing or recovering like they know they can.
I empower recreational athletes to take ownership of their recovery, nutrition and stress management with sustainable lifestyle practices. We work together to build the habits and routines you need to manage stress, improve sleep, balance hormones, resolve digestive issues, promote a healthy body composition, and fuel your energy demand.
