The Real Story Behind Real Body
They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, and I have to say that I tend to agree. By looking at me, most people would automatically assume that I am naturally slim and healthy and that I probably wouldn’t know what it’s like to struggle with dieting or with different types of health issues. Up until my late teens that statement would have been true, but as most people know, life has a funny way of throwing you a curve ball. So here is my story…
I had always been interested in sports and fitness. In school I competed in cross-country running and often took part in 10km fun runs. When I was 15 I started training in karate and kick-boxing, and by age 18 I held the Australasian titles in the women’s green belt kata (pattern work), and kumite (fighting). I represented Australia at the 5th Kubota World Cup Championships in Los Angeles, which placed me 4th in my division; furthermore, I reached the level of Shodan Ho (black belt).
Around the same time, I wanted to try my luck at modelling. After shooting my portfolio and successfully being listed with a modelling agency, I thought I was indeed very lucky. Although I wasn’t what they classified as ‘supermodel’ material, I was certainly able to get work in the modelling industry and life was looking good.
Up until that point in my life, I had never really thought about dieting. Suddenly I found myself thrust into a world where I was surrounded by excessively thin girls talking about diets, laxatives and tricks for staying thin. Before I knew it, I too got caught up in trying to portray a certain image and became obsessive about my weight. I was going to the gym every single day to do strength training and cardio and I started the vicious circle of never-ending diets. I had entered the realm of fitness fads, diet dilemmas and misinformation about health and fitness, and there I remained for the next 10 years.
At the age of 21 I started experiencing excruciating pain in my lower back. I couldn’t seem to sit down or stand up for more than 10 minutes – there just seemed to be no relief. After a visit to my doctor, some x-rays and a trip to an osteopath, I was diagnosed with lumbar scoliosis (which is a side-ways curvature of the lower spine). The osteopath told me that I would never be able to run again, and that the pain I was experiencing would likely remain with me for the rest of my life. Life was no longer looking good and the thought of never running again and facing excruciating pain every day had left me feeling hopeless and heart-broken.
Despite this, a little voice in my head told me to continue with my strength training and that somehow this would be important. So I took it slow and steady and became extremely aware of my posture, ensuring I always used the correct technique. I started to read book after book about strength training and posture, and began to see a chiropractor. My theory was that if the chiropractor kept adjusting my back and my muscles got stronger, eventually the muscles would be able to hold my spine in the right place; this gave me hope and kept me focused. I must say that it was a long and slow journey, and although I still have scoliosis, the muscles around my spine are strong, and within five years of having been told I would never run again, I was in fact pain free and running again!
There was one more surprise in my life, which I was definitely not prepared for. In January 2003 I had a rather bad cycling accident. After losing control of my bike going down an extremely steep grassy embankment, I hit the curb at full speed and did a great impersonation of superman flying over the top of my handle bars, and landed on my head. At the time, all I thought I had were a few bruises and a bruised ego as I sheepishly walked away with my buckled bike wondering how on earth I didn’t break anything! What came to light a couple of months later was that I had actually crushed a vertebrae in my spine.
Now, although my accident was considered to be a rather hard fall, it was still unusual in someone my age (then 32) to have what the doctors referred to as ‘a crush fracture’. So my doctor sent me off for a multitude of tests and I was later diagnosed with severe osteopenia; it was so severe that I was classified as having borderline osteoporosis.
If you are not clear on what osteoporosis is – osteo means bone and porosis means porous –it means having porous or brittle bones. Osteoporosis is what they call the silent disease because most women, and to a lesser extent men, don’t know they have it. Furthermore, it is usually associated with little old ladies who have hunched backs. In one way I was very lucky that I had fallen off my bike otherwise I may not have found out about my severe osteopenia until it was too late to do anything about it.
However, I must admit that when I was told I had borderline osteoporosis, my first reaction to the doctor was, ‘this can’t be, I am only 32. I have been fit and active all of my life and I have strength trained since I was 18. Strength training is supposed to prevent osteoporosis’. My doctor turned around to me with a look I will never forget and said, ‘imagine if you hadn’t’. It really hit home then because he basically said that although my bones were weak, had I not been as physically strong as I was with the help of muscle to support my bones, my bike accident could very well have broken my neck and landed me in a wheel chair – or worse.
There are two reasons I wanted to share my personal ‘health’ journey with you. Firstly, so you can understand the importance of exercise and of keeping your body fit and strong. If you are fit and strong your body will be able to cope with disease and illness much better than if you are unfit, overweight or weak.
Secondly, the reason I had borderline osteoporosis (I am now almost back to normal bone density through good nutrition and strength training) is due to my 10 years of dieting. What most diets do is restrict your calorie or food intake, which usually means robbing your body of essential nutrients. If you are not getting enough nutrients from your food, especially calcium, your blood will leach it from your bones and other parts of your body. Dieting is definitely not the answer to feeling fit, fantastic and fabulous, and what is the point of being thin if you are too sick or weak to enjoy your life anyway?
So, like many others, my earlier years were entangled with confusion and misinformation about fitness and diet fads, and a myriad of health issues. But I am a strong believer in fate and I am certain that I had to experience all of these things for a reason. They have given me an unbelievable passion and drive not only to keep myself fit and healthy, but also to help others do the same. It gave me the focus and dedication to become an Executive Master Trainer in 2003, and continues to drive me to find the best methods for real, everyday people to achieve amazing health, fitness and weight-loss results to this day.
Over the course of my fitness career, which includes owning and running my own personal training studio, What Women Want Personal Training (Brisbane, Australia), and working for the world’s largest health club chain, Fitness First, as a National Fitness Manager (UK), I have had the opportunity to research and trial many different programs and methods of training, nutrition and weight-loss. From these I have combined the most effective methods and put them together to form The Real Body Plan.
So many exercise and diet recommendations today are about extremes, but The Real Body Plan is about balance. My mission with this book, and The Real Body Plan, is to help you understand what you need to do in order to achieve long-term success and not just short-term weight loss. With The Real Body Plan, you can quickly and easily plan well-balanced and interesting meals to help you shed unwanted fat, and still eat six meals a day! You will be able to plan exercise routines that are effective and yet take up less than three hours per week.
All I ask from you is this: if after reading this book you have any doubts that you can achieve the same amazing results as the people in this book, just try it for one month. Give it your total commitment. Really go for it! I absolutely guarantee you that your life will change. I have done it. Every single person connected with this company has done it. This is more than a diet – much more. This is more than a workout. This is a life-enhancing, life-uplifting journey. Start out on your journey for a month and you will succeed for life. You will never want to go back.
I had always been interested in sports and fitness. In school I competed in cross-country running and often took part in 10km fun runs. When I was 15 I started training in karate and kick-boxing, and by age 18 I held the Australasian titles in the women’s green belt kata (pattern work), and kumite (fighting). I represented Australia at the 5th Kubota World Cup Championships in Los Angeles, which placed me 4th in my division; furthermore, I reached the level of Shodan Ho (black belt).
Around the same time, I wanted to try my luck at modelling. After shooting my portfolio and successfully being listed with a modelling agency, I thought I was indeed very lucky. Although I wasn’t what they classified as ‘supermodel’ material, I was certainly able to get work in the modelling industry and life was looking good.
Up until that point in my life, I had never really thought about dieting. Suddenly I found myself thrust into a world where I was surrounded by excessively thin girls talking about diets, laxatives and tricks for staying thin. Before I knew it, I too got caught up in trying to portray a certain image and became obsessive about my weight. I was going to the gym every single day to do strength training and cardio and I started the vicious circle of never-ending diets. I had entered the realm of fitness fads, diet dilemmas and misinformation about health and fitness, and there I remained for the next 10 years.
At the age of 21 I started experiencing excruciating pain in my lower back. I couldn’t seem to sit down or stand up for more than 10 minutes – there just seemed to be no relief. After a visit to my doctor, some x-rays and a trip to an osteopath, I was diagnosed with lumbar scoliosis (which is a side-ways curvature of the lower spine). The osteopath told me that I would never be able to run again, and that the pain I was experiencing would likely remain with me for the rest of my life. Life was no longer looking good and the thought of never running again and facing excruciating pain every day had left me feeling hopeless and heart-broken.
Despite this, a little voice in my head told me to continue with my strength training and that somehow this would be important. So I took it slow and steady and became extremely aware of my posture, ensuring I always used the correct technique. I started to read book after book about strength training and posture, and began to see a chiropractor. My theory was that if the chiropractor kept adjusting my back and my muscles got stronger, eventually the muscles would be able to hold my spine in the right place; this gave me hope and kept me focused. I must say that it was a long and slow journey, and although I still have scoliosis, the muscles around my spine are strong, and within five years of having been told I would never run again, I was in fact pain free and running again!
There was one more surprise in my life, which I was definitely not prepared for. In January 2003 I had a rather bad cycling accident. After losing control of my bike going down an extremely steep grassy embankment, I hit the curb at full speed and did a great impersonation of superman flying over the top of my handle bars, and landed on my head. At the time, all I thought I had were a few bruises and a bruised ego as I sheepishly walked away with my buckled bike wondering how on earth I didn’t break anything! What came to light a couple of months later was that I had actually crushed a vertebrae in my spine.
Now, although my accident was considered to be a rather hard fall, it was still unusual in someone my age (then 32) to have what the doctors referred to as ‘a crush fracture’. So my doctor sent me off for a multitude of tests and I was later diagnosed with severe osteopenia; it was so severe that I was classified as having borderline osteoporosis.
If you are not clear on what osteoporosis is – osteo means bone and porosis means porous –it means having porous or brittle bones. Osteoporosis is what they call the silent disease because most women, and to a lesser extent men, don’t know they have it. Furthermore, it is usually associated with little old ladies who have hunched backs. In one way I was very lucky that I had fallen off my bike otherwise I may not have found out about my severe osteopenia until it was too late to do anything about it.
However, I must admit that when I was told I had borderline osteoporosis, my first reaction to the doctor was, ‘this can’t be, I am only 32. I have been fit and active all of my life and I have strength trained since I was 18. Strength training is supposed to prevent osteoporosis’. My doctor turned around to me with a look I will never forget and said, ‘imagine if you hadn’t’. It really hit home then because he basically said that although my bones were weak, had I not been as physically strong as I was with the help of muscle to support my bones, my bike accident could very well have broken my neck and landed me in a wheel chair – or worse.
There are two reasons I wanted to share my personal ‘health’ journey with you. Firstly, so you can understand the importance of exercise and of keeping your body fit and strong. If you are fit and strong your body will be able to cope with disease and illness much better than if you are unfit, overweight or weak.
Secondly, the reason I had borderline osteoporosis (I am now almost back to normal bone density through good nutrition and strength training) is due to my 10 years of dieting. What most diets do is restrict your calorie or food intake, which usually means robbing your body of essential nutrients. If you are not getting enough nutrients from your food, especially calcium, your blood will leach it from your bones and other parts of your body. Dieting is definitely not the answer to feeling fit, fantastic and fabulous, and what is the point of being thin if you are too sick or weak to enjoy your life anyway?
So, like many others, my earlier years were entangled with confusion and misinformation about fitness and diet fads, and a myriad of health issues. But I am a strong believer in fate and I am certain that I had to experience all of these things for a reason. They have given me an unbelievable passion and drive not only to keep myself fit and healthy, but also to help others do the same. It gave me the focus and dedication to become an Executive Master Trainer in 2003, and continues to drive me to find the best methods for real, everyday people to achieve amazing health, fitness and weight-loss results to this day.
Over the course of my fitness career, which includes owning and running my own personal training studio, What Women Want Personal Training (Brisbane, Australia), and working for the world’s largest health club chain, Fitness First, as a National Fitness Manager (UK), I have had the opportunity to research and trial many different programs and methods of training, nutrition and weight-loss. From these I have combined the most effective methods and put them together to form The Real Body Plan.
So many exercise and diet recommendations today are about extremes, but The Real Body Plan is about balance. My mission with this book, and The Real Body Plan, is to help you understand what you need to do in order to achieve long-term success and not just short-term weight loss. With The Real Body Plan, you can quickly and easily plan well-balanced and interesting meals to help you shed unwanted fat, and still eat six meals a day! You will be able to plan exercise routines that are effective and yet take up less than three hours per week.
All I ask from you is this: if after reading this book you have any doubts that you can achieve the same amazing results as the people in this book, just try it for one month. Give it your total commitment. Really go for it! I absolutely guarantee you that your life will change. I have done it. Every single person connected with this company has done it. This is more than a diet – much more. This is more than a workout. This is a life-enhancing, life-uplifting journey. Start out on your journey for a month and you will succeed for life. You will never want to go back.
