I have been involved with athletics and fitness since I was in high school. I began my training career at Fitness World in 1992 as a fitness instructor when I was a senior at Queen Elizabeth Senior Secondary. In the early days, I sought comfort, joy, security, and strength by engaging in the many physical activities I performed: I loved running, I loved aerobic classes, I loved biking, I loved sweating it out and pounding out the weights for hours and hours in the gym – each and every day. I loved pushing my body and exhausting it to a point where I thought to myself look how strong and healthy I am! It wasn’t until many, many years later that I recognized how inaccurate this picture was; I may have been ‘fit’ but I was far from being ‘healthy’.
It took years for me to realize and accept that my body was like any other body – it needed days off. It needed recovery time. It needed more nutrition. It needed more kindness, care, and healing than what I was giving it. My ‘love of exercise’ is highly complex. Paradoxically, what I recognized over the many years of over-exercising is that my over-training actually had nothing to do with loving to sweat and push my body to the limit but is deeply rooted at a more cellular, biochemical and psychological level.
Throughout my journey I have always been interested in psychology as well as fitness. I have always been a seeker of knowledge, a lover of learning, a proponent of education and growing intellectually as a person - always wanting to understand the "Whys". I was, and am, fascinated by social and human behavior and all things encompassing what makes us who we are. How are our thoughts connected to the choices we make? Why do we make the choices we do? How does our early socialization and child rearing influence how we develop as an adult? What motivates some to aspire to be better versions of ourselves while others are complacent and happy just to be where they are? Why do we engage in habits that we, at a rational and intellectual level, know are destructive to us yet we continue to engage in them anyway?
Over the decades, I have acquired my own injuries and health ailments ranging from cervical and lumbar Osteoarthritis, Spinal Stenosis, Ankylosing Spondylosis, three herniated lumbar discs, and a diagnosis in 2019 of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (aka Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). I had learned to modify my fitness activities and active lifestyle to accommodate these mechanical and biochemical changes in my body. Physiologically, I did not have the ability to exert myself or sustain the level of exercise I once engaged in, nor did I have the physical apparatus to absorb the countless hours I had subjected my system to. It wasn't until 2022 that I was privy to the knowledge of having what is a 'Pars Fracture', a congenital deformity of my spine from birth. Through MRIs I realized the pain that I was suffering from as a teenager, and increasing as the years and decades past, was not only from my own abuse and ignorance, but was actually something that I had no control of. My Lumbar 4 vertebrae was detached at the laminae and spinous and transverse levels compressing the nerve root into my spinal cord. This led to a 3-part back surgery in January 2023: Lumbar Laminectomy / Discectomy / Fusion.
Ironically, as much as I am limited in my ability to move and exercise and cannot perform as I once did, in actuality I am healthier and happier. My road to self awareness and self acceptance has been a long and winding, but it's lead me to this wonderful place where I am today. While it's taken me a long time. A long time. I've come to acknowledge and gratefully accept that true ‘Total Fitness’ is subjective and comes from addressing all aspects of the wellness wheel; it is purely not physical in nature. I believe when we start to understand more about who we are by peeling back the layers and asking ourselves the hard questions: what motivates us, what drives us to do better, what do we value in life, what makes us happy, why am I pursuing the goals I am, where do I see myself in 10, 15, 20 years? And, what will my 'health' and 'happiness' look like at those stages?; we begin to see ourselves differently. We begin to appreciate how truly amazing our bodies are and not take our bodies for granted. We understand that we are in a continual flux of change, and it is through our own conscious intervention that we paradoxically slow the process of change by learning to take better care of ourselves in all dimensions of life: physically, emotionally, inter-personally and intellectually, while also building and growing our psychological hardiness and spiritual muscle.
And that is where I am today, at 51. Understanding that my body is the hardware that while I need to respect, treat with kindness, take care of with exercise, activity and movement, it is essentially just a vehicle that helps give meaning to my life by serving other dimensions which bring me joy and happiness. Our machinery gets rusty, the parts eventually wear out, no matter what we do or how well we take care of ourselves. Upon reflection over the past three years since my surgery, I've asked 'What else fills my cup? How else can I have a positive impact in this world? How else can I contribute and make a difference? How do I leave as small of an imprint on this planet when I leave? When I become one with the earth how do I want to be remembered?' Thirty-plus years after entering this industry I am a very different trainer and instructor. And I'm so grateful I am. The adverse experiences I've been faced with, the physical challenges I've endured, the lessons I've learned, the people I've met along my journey have all led me to this new and wonderful chapter; sometimes we have to go through very difficult things to become better versions of ourselves. I'm so happy to be where I am: accepting my 'limitations' and seeing them as opportunities for new beginnings, and embracing the changes that unfold before me which help guide me to see my potential and endless possibilities for my future.
