Emily Snowdon - Team Carnage

WHY RT FITNESS? *A MUST READ FROM OUR CLIENT*

“To answer this question, I will have to give you some background: I was 44 years old when I joined 9 months ago and I was wearing every single one of those 44 years like a millstone around my neck.

I felt horrible.

I was in a near permanent state of exhaustion that was both physical and mental.

I had taken 4 months off work with anxiety and I was spent. Physically and emotionally spent.

I have a highly stressful and horribly responsible day job (which I love btw, but it is hard), my husband works stupidly weird hours and my daughters were both studying for big exams (GCSEs and A’ Levels), oh and the bad dogs, 2 very naughty (but completely gorgeous) bad dogs (bad by association, not nature).

Everything hurt, all the time.

My back was aching even while I was asleep which wasn’t that often owing to the anxiety.

I was a mess.

Completely and totally without form or function!

Are you getting this picture yet?

I was not good.

I was not me.

And then my Dad died.

He’d been really ill with a form of dementia that was induced entirely by his lifestyle and badly affected his personality (but not his memories) and the source of the anxiety was gone. For the first time in about 10 years I took stock of my life.

I decided that I didn’t like it.

I thought about joining the local gym again but it’s just so blooming tedious doing that on your own and I hated how everyone took too long on the flippin’ cross trainer and the posey body-building fellers never put the dumb bells back, and listening to the Zumba class in the hall below did my head in.

All in all that was only ever going to be a short term thing and I want a lifestyle change.

That’s takes something different.

Karma, being the all-seeing and insufferable know-it-all that she is, chucked one of RT Fitness’ 90 day Programme adverts at me while I was on facebook.

Well that’s something different, I thought. 90 days, I thought; not the end of the world, I thought.

I can butch this out for 90 days and then we will see if it is really for me…

1st visit the Saturday before class starting on Monday – (immediate thought – “there are no mirrors in here – good I don’t wish to see the faces I’m going to be pulling as I exert myself and at least I won’t know if my butt is still jiggling when my feet have stopped”)

We set up the most useful app I have on my phone, Ross explained how it worked and why it was important, I was sceptical but I have learned since that he was absolutely correct.

It really helps.

I weighed in and had measurements taken by Sarah.

I was shocked that I had let things slip so much because I don’t actually own a set of bathroom scales.

No wonder I felt so rubbish!! I was 41.4% body fat!

Yep almost half of my whole body was lard.

I weighed 12 stones and I’m only 5’2”.

I was more boobs than anything else but do you know what? She didn’t bat an eyelid.

She has seen worse.

They have fixed worse and I was determined that this state of affairs was not going to continue.

Day 1 – First Carnage class – 13 stations – I had watched the video and thought ‘looks easy enough’. Ha ha what a fool!! It was very tough, I just about managed to hold on to my stomach and had to stop frequently but do you know what? I wasn’t the only one. There were 2 other new fish in the class and we helped each other through the things we found really hard and because everyone there had been where I was and had felt the pain I was feeling, we all looked after each other. There were a couple of things I just couldn’t do at the time but because these guys understand human physiology properly, they gave me another way to work that same muscle without straining the joint. 13 stations is now one of my favourite class rotations.

Day 2 – STAIRS – JUST DON’T DO IT. Also, if you’re planning on sitting on the toilet – find something to hang on to so that you can lower yourself gently…

Day 3 – Forgotten. That’s how short the pain is.

Fast forward 9 months…..

I’m now 45 (shhhhhhh – I’m not owing up to that in public because I don’t look it any more).

I feel bloody great!!

My back injury is well and truly under control and I haven’t needed to see my chiropractor for 5 of those months so far.

My sport mix addiction has left the building and my calorie intake is under control.

I don’t watch everything I eat all the time, I still have the odd chocolate brownie and I will still insist on butter on my chip butty but because I’m more mindful of how many calories are in things and how much exercise is needed to pay for it, I balance these choices better with the exercise I do. And that’s the key to my feeling like a new woman (I really do).

I got off my backside and I moved.

I attend at least 3 of RT’s Carnage sessions a week (you can do as many as you feel able btw, I’ve often done 2 a day while I’ve been on days off…), I walk to work and back (that’s about 3 extra miles day and at least half of that is uphill).

I have made some great friends.

Interestingly, many of the patrons here join on their own, they don’t often come with friends they already know and there’s definitely something positive in that.

We are here to do the work. We support each other.

We help each other.

Have you ever found that in any other gym? Nope, me neither.

Results: 1 stone down. 1 to go.

I am fitter and healthier than I have ever been.

I can run – I still don’t do this from choice but frequently have to rescue hedgehogs from the dog which requires speed, but that’s not really the point.

I can run. I. CAN. RUN. I have abs (yeah real ones, real I am, properly firm abdominal muscles that can clearly be seen when I lift my shirt up. I have my waist back. I AM A SIZE 10 AGAIN. (I was a size 14/16) and my lardage? Low 30%s. Yeah!

That’s why RT Fitness.

Emily”