CLIENT FEATURE - Alison's 12 Week Journey begins now! Blog

Hi Everyone, we've been lucky enough to have Alison sharing her 12 Week Journey with us. Any comments along the way would be greatly appreciated as Alison is prepared to be totally honest and hopefully some of you can relate to her story!

ALISON'S STORY
My name is Alison, I am 33 years old and have two kids 6 and 2. I have been a fit and active person all my life. I love the gym and typically go at 5.30am for a bit over an hour, 5 mornings a week. At the gym I do a mixture of weights and cardio (aerobics and Spinn). Living in Newcastle, I also take advantage of our beautiful coast line and like to do a power walk and stairs once a week with a girlfriend.

In December 2010 I was diagnosed as having the mood disorder Bipolar 2. In the months leading up to this diagnosis and since, I have suffered several bouts of depression that have lasted between one week and 8 weeks. I am on medication that makes me very drowsy at night and that makes getting up for the gym near impossible. As a result of this struggle with my mood and adjusting to the medication my training and nutrition have slipped dramatically. I started relying on alcohol to deal with the frustration of feeling so down and found myself drinking everyday. I was making very poor food choices and filled myself up on biscuits, high sugar cereals, chips and fast food. I gained about 9kg. I am only 155cm tall so this weight gain has dramtically affected my appearance and how I feel about myself.

I have worked with Hilde before and found her approach to training, nutrition and support to be just what I need. So, having been at rock bottom and feeling sorry for myself for quite long enough, I have decided to take on a 12 week challenge.

My goals for the 12 weeks are;

1. to weigh 52kg by the end. Taking into consideration that more important for me than my scale weight is my body composition. If I weigh a bit more than this at the end but have lost a lot of body fat and gained (or maintained) muscle, then I will look the way I want to look.

2. to complete all assigned training sessions (3 weight sessions and 4 (5 from week 4) cardio sessions), each week.

3. to eat clean, each meal of each day.

My biggest motivation for this challenge is to come clean with my nutrition and alcohol consumption BUT a very close second to that is summer. It's not that far away but far away enough for me to have the body that doesn't have to wear boardshorts and a t shirt while at the beach to cover up all the cellulite!

I know how to train hard and eat well and hope that by being accountable to Hilde and you, her readers (and myself of course) that this time I can prove to myself that I can be the best version of me. I hope you enjoy following along with my challenge and please, if you have any questions I am more than happy to chat along the way.

GO ALISON!!!