"Springday helped me smash my Personal Best."

Sophie, Member Since 2011

As a teenager I was really active, and I played national representative hockey so exercise was always part of my life. When I went to University, exercise and healthy eating took a backseat.  I got to a pretty bad point with my fitness and general health. When I finally decided to do something about it, I felt I was working out really hard but I wasn’t getting any results. It was only when I joined a women’s group fitness just over a year ago that I started to see real results.
 
When I started boot camp I turned my diet on its head too and I was on track to reach my fitness goals. Then the seasons started to change! Like most people, I find it really hard to keep up my motivation throughout the colder months. I stopped exercising and started eating comfort foods, and by the time spring rolled around I would always find myself back at square one. I was determined to avoid that this year, so I tried to be really proactive about it.

I ran the City 2 Surf last year, just to see if I could. This year I decided I’d take it a bit more seriously and my goal (to keep me going throughout winter) was to reduce my time.  I prefer to train in the mornings before work, but when it cooled down outside I started to find myself hitting snooze when my alarm went off at 5:30am rather than getting up in the cold and heading out. To combat this, I started going to sleep in my exercise clothes! That way, when my alarm went off, all I had to do was jump up, pull on my shoes and go. I was halfway out the door before I was even properly awake. Once I started the warm up at boot camp, I was always glad I’d gone.

My other big hurdle for the winter months (and every other month!) was my diet. I started to keep a food diary using the online Springday "My Day" tool where I also logged all of my exercise. It helped keep me honest! On Springday I also found heaps of great recipes so I made lots of healthy, hearty veggie soups and stir fries rather than heavy pastas and curries. It’s so easy to mindlessly snack, or to fall into a rut where you start eating out and ordering in rather than cooking. The Springday "My Day" tool with the food diary feature really held a mirror up to my diet and made me more accountable for what I was eating.
 
By the time the City 2 Surf came around in August I was able to run the whole thing without stopping and cut 15 minutes off my time from last year! All of my results improved at the boot camp fitness tests (the opposite for most people who slacked off through winter) and I was back to my high school beep test score, which I’m determined to smash at the next round of fitness tests!

If you've had a success like Sophie why not send us an email about it!