My fitness “ah-ha” moment started when I was in high school. I was NEVER an athletic child; I had asthma as a child and a lack of confidence which, looking back, I think contributed more than I realized to my inability to do well in sports. In my teens I was diagnosed with scoliosis and referred to a chiro and biokinticist. I was given exercises to do by the biokineticist and from the moment I started, I enjoyed having a routine in place with my daily exercises.
Then someone suggested that I try yoga. After the first class i just knew I could never stop going. Having never been a “team player” i think i enjoyed the solitude and being able to do well at something without competing with someone else. I soaked up everything I could learn from my bio, and I attribute my success in fitness to her and to a very strict yoga instructor. Suddenly I became aware of my own movement, I could feel if I was doing an exercise incorrectly and I would correct myself; I could feel if my posture was poor and I would correct it.
After about a year or so of exercises and trips to the chiro, my scoliosis was reversed, but I didn’t want to stop exercising, and up until this point I’d only been doing back strengthening exercises. So my bio, who somewhat took me under her wing, gave me a workout program that I could use to maintain my back strength and also improve my general fitness. And the rest is history as they say!
Since then I’ve completed a diploma in Exercise Science, 3 certificates in Sport Nutrition, and am currently furthering my educational career by doing a BSc in Nutrition Science. I spent two years doing fitness bikini competitions professionally and this year I took up anti-gravity yoga which has utterly consumed me. Just as bikini fitness competitions were an “ah-ha” moment of sorts, so was my love for anti gravity yoga, so in that way my fitness “ah-ha” moment is ongoing and always evolving.
After my two years of competing, and being far too hard on myself, I am dedicating this year to loving myself and doing types of exercise I enjoy again, as opposed to exercising with a specific goal in mind.
~ Nicole ~