Category Archives: Exercise


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Almost back


Behind the scenes of snatch practice. This photo is just so funny haha.

Hello my dears! It’s Saturday and I can’t believe almost the entire day has gone by. I feel completely zoned out after the yoga class Faye and I went to this morning at lululemon led by Robyn who’s back in Glasgow after having lived in London for a while. I feel like it’s the first time in a while I’ve let my body truly relax in and it’s bad that I don’t do it more. I really need to start getting back into yoga again. I know I’ve been saying this for ages but it’s so difficult to juggle life as it is and I do prioritise the gym before yoga because it’s what I love.

I really like yoga and find it very important for a balanced and fit life but I’m not quite as passionate about it as the gym, if I had to choose, but I know I need yoga in my life and it makes me feel incredible. It’s one of those things, when you fall out of doing something you sort of forget how it makes you feel until you do it and again and get reminded. After class Faye and I went for a tea at Riverhill before she started work and I headed home for some lunch. The rest of the day I’ve been cleaning. That’s about it really.

Jamie’s back very soon as well so it’ll be nice to see him. That’s why I just wanted to pop in here and say hi so I’m blog free for the rest of the evening so I can spend time with my man 🙂

Hope you’re having a beautiful day,

M xxx


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Expect the unexpected


Ninja Maddie

Stolen from Stella’s Instagram story haha.

Happy Friday! I feel like a shell of a person right now. I’m knackered. Almost two weeks of working straight has finally gotten to me and I think as soon as my brain registered it’s almost the weekend it thought it was time to shut down and go into sleep mode. I had a massive headache this afternoon and was just feeling like a zombie. I haven’t felt as tired as I feel today in a long time.

Last night Faye and I were going to do a wall ball challenge. It was quite funny when we we got to the gym, we were outside for about ten minutes wondering where Stella was and why the gym wasn’t open because we didn’t see a car. Then eventually I asked Faye if she had tried the door, she hadn’t and neither had I. Of course the gym was already open and I had been standing out there bursting for the toilet haha.

When we got in Stella said she had three WODs she wanted to do and asked if the rest of us there wanted to join in. Not knowing what they really were we decided to take part. Oh god, it was tough. I’m not going to name all the crazy stuff we had to do but Faye and I had to go on the assault bike for 40 calories between two of us and then alternate between cleans and box jumps for eight rounds and then go back on the assault bike again. I was really happy I managed all rounds with the 30 inch side of the box! I’ve been a bit lazy and comfortable and jumped on the 24 inch side for a while when I know I can jump on the 30. So yesterday I did it for the first time in ages and I didn’t fall which was a win for me as well. It’s so painful to fall on that wooden box. I’ve got scars on my shins from it…

We also had a wall ball, burpee and pull up WOD and as a “little” finisher as Stella put it we had to do 3km on the rower in a pair. I felt so nauseous at some points of this workout and it was a mental struggle. You can see what I looked like after the assault bike WOD in the image above from Stella’s Instagram story. It was a good challenge and something I need to do more of leading up to Rainhill in February.

I’m not quite sure when I get my workouts I need to do to see in which category I’ll compete in, they’re called seeding workouts. If I’m not mistaken it should be rather soon because Faye had quite a while to do them. I’m really wondering what they will be!

In other news I’ve booked my flights to go home for Christmas. I’ll be home for almost two weeks. I can’t even remember the last time I was in Stockholm for that long. An even more exciting thing is that Jamie, his mum Lea and brother Luke are all coming over as well to celebrate with my family. It’s a dream come true to have everyone in one place. It feels very grown up of Jamie and I to have families celebrating Christmas together. They won’t be staying for us long as I will but I’m so excited to share how we celebrate Christmas back home and just show them around Stockholm as well as meeting all my relatives!

I really need to look up a gym which I can go to whilst I’m there though because once I’m back it’s not very long until I would like to be in my best shape yet. Just to give myself the best possible chance to do my best. I know I’m not going to win but I do feel now when I’ve got time I should put in the extra work to make sure I’m at a good fitness level 🙂 Gives me a reason to push a bit harder.

Now I’m meeting up with Faye and maybe even Ross for a bit before I’m going to crash for the evening. My body needs rest big time. Tomorrow Jamie’s back in the evening. He seems to be having a great time over in the US so it’ll be fun to hear how his trip was.

Need to go now! Speak soon,

M xxx

 


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Better together


My colleague Nicola joined me at G5 yesterday morning

Zara Larsson at O2 Academy

What a queen!

Hello lovelies! I’m still buzzing after Zara Larsson’s concert last night. What an absolute queen she is! She made O2 Academy feel like the Hydro with her awesome performance and wow the crowd just loved her. You couldn’t help feel proud when you watched her do her thing being Swedish and all haha. Emma and I were saying that it’s crazy to think she’s the same little girl who was on Sweden’s Got Talent all those years ago singing Whitney Houston songs. I love watching people fulfil their dreams, dreams that perhaps feel so big they seem near impossible to reach but they do it anyway. It makes me hopeful seeing it’s possible if you put in the work. It must’ve been an amazing feeling for her standing in front a crowd in a city she’s never been to before with the crowd going wild for her songs.

It was a long day yesterday, I’m not going lie! It started early in the morning with the 6.45am class at Stella’s. Nicola from work joined me which was so much fun. I’ve been wanting her to come down and try out G5 for ages so I was really excited when she said she would join me. Not only that, Faye surprised me by being there too! It was Weightlifting Wednesdays on the schedule. We warmed with a Metcon, lots of burpees over bar, shoulder to over head (where you can use any form of push to get the barbell over your head depending on your strength) and then toes to bar with a 10 minute time cap. It was tough but good. Then we had snatch practice and Nicola nailed her overhead squat in the drills we did for the first time and I could see the happiness on her face. It was amazing to see! Stella helped her out and sometimes you just need someone there who believes you can do it.

I was standing and watching Faye and Nicola doing there thing whilst waiting for my turn and thought, how amazing is this? Years ago I was in a gym alone and didn’t have any friends who was interested in going with me really and now I’m surrounded by all these amazing people all working towards our fitness goals. We’re all at different levels but we’re just doing out best. What a way to start the day!

This evening I’m going to open gym with Faye and Lauren. If you’ve seen my Instagram post yesterday Faye’s got a wall ball challenge planned apparently. It sounds so tough but we’ll get through it somehow with each other’s support… I hope! Wish us luck, we’ll need it.

It’s actually Jamie’s and my five year anniversary today. I’ll write more about that in another post later today. Yes you heard me right, two blog posts in one day! I feel like our anniversary needs it’s own post.

So I’ll speak you guys later! x


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SFN EXPO day 2


Shona Vertue’s class


Talk about women and weightlifting

A really fun Q&A with the guys from Lean Machines, John and Leon

I was over the moon that I had to the chance to listen to and talk to inspiring guys like them

These beauties Linsey and Gwen came to say hi and try out the hang challenge. Was so lovely to see them!

Faye challenged me to a hang off, team Faddie style 😛


At this point I was so exhausted and my hands were sweaty so couldn’t hold on. Plus Faye is ridiculously strong! One day I’ll beat you Faye! Haha


Had an acai bowl at Acai & Co

Then SFN was all of a sudden over and it was time to pack up and leave. Faye and I headed to Jamie’s work for a tea and to give them some of the leftover doughnuts we were giving out at the expo.

Hi guys! It was a bit quiet here yesterday. I was going to post this but it got late and it was Jamie’s last evening before he left for Kentucky so I thought it was way more important to spend time with him than stressing over a post. Also because the days he’s away it’s our five year anniversary. I’m sure you understand. I’d rather do both things properly, spend time with Jamie and then writing a quality post. I think I’ve made up for it with this ridiculously long post… Sorry it’s so long! There’s just so much to be said.

Yesterday was a bit of a back to reality day. It’s almost as if I’ve been on holiday and had such a great time and now I’ve got that feeling of going back to normal life. SFN EXPO was amazing and I really felt like I was in my element, surrounded by incredibly inspiring people doing amazing stuff in the health and fitness industry. It made me feel so happy and Jamie said when he has seen me this past weekend he could see a real spark in my eyes. I felt so much joy I couldn’t contain it in any way. I wish I could go to more expos like these but it would require me going down to London which I unfortunately can’t really afford to do very often.

The second day of SFN was just as fun! My amazing colleagues knew that I was dying to take part in some classes and talks and were so nice and understanding and said I should just go for it. So in the morning I arrived quite early for Shona Vertue’s class. I hadn’t booked in and the class was booked out but I was hoping I would fit in somewhere, which I did luckily. The lovely Leanne who was hosting the Sisterhood area where Shona was teaching who I’ve met before a couple of times said it shouldn’t be a problem and yes I fit in. Wohoo! Shona’s class was fantastic and she said the reason why she has shaped her form of training to combine include both yoga and HIIT style training into one is because you tend to neglect the things you like doing less and by including it all in the same class you can’t avoid it, which I thought was a very interesting and great take on it all. It’s very much in line with my beliefs that you need both strength exercises in form of weightlifting and cardio in combination with yoga, mobility and stretching. Both aspects compliment one another and will benefit your training the most in the long run. The class was great and very sweaty. My triceps could feel it yesterday after all the narrow push ups we did. Her chat was amazing and made me crack up several times throughout.

After the class I stayed for her talk together with Niko Aligieri who is the owner of a gym down in London called Equilibrium. The talk was about why women shouldn’t fear strength training, something I’m very passionate about. The audience brought up some super interesting questions, which both Shona and Niko had some great insights into. There were some PE teachers there who asked about how they could help their kids realise that being strong is important and I thought it was incredible for them to be there and ask for advice to help influence these young children to have a healthier relationship to their bodies and to fitness. Go you PE teachers! People like you are going to change lives for these kids and in turn change the world.

I was then technically meant to go back to the voomfit stand but the guys that I really wanted to listen to were going to have a talk, Lean Machines. I love John and Leon’s Youtube channel. They train Crossfit down in England and their videos are so inspiring, insightful, positive and upbeat. Their approach to fitness feels so fresh, healthy, fun and easy. I thought I’d stay for a bit of the talk and have my lunch and then sneak off. Before the talk I was sort of on the fence whether I should go up to them and tell them how much I appreciate their presence online and in the end I decided to get over the fear and just do it. I went up to them and said I watch their channel and love their video content.

They were so nice but as the talk was about to start I went and sat down with my lunch box. It must’ve looked good because they asked if they could have some haha. I felt so bad when I had to sneak away and silly of me, I sat at the front and couldn’t smoothly sneak off without being noticed and made a scene haha. I felt bad but I think they understood. Back at the voomfit stand I was saying to the team I was so sad I couldn’t finish listening to the guys talk. So they told me to go back as nice as they are so I did. I tried to be smooth again but I’m not smooth so sort of interrupted the talk again when I came back and the guys got thrown off entirely and forgot what they were saying. Oh dear haha, at least it made everyone laugh.

I even managed to ask a question, something I don’t always dare to do and I got some really great tips. It was in regards to staying inspired with content with social media channels and providing quality content consistently. They said taking a break sometimes really helps to get you inspired again, and don’t fear taking a break, which I do because I hate letting you guys down as I know you guys want new stuff everyday and I do like writing everyday even though I’m busy. This is what I love to do. It felt reassuring that they also face this dilemma and that it’s okay to take a break and leave your social media blank for a while to ensure it’s quality things you’re posting. It’s a fine balancing act between posting consistently on social media and providing quality content because quality usually takes longer time, time that I don’t always have unfortunately when I only do this on the side of my full time job. Afterwards I got a photo of them, which made my day. They are such lovely guys and I was so happy to have met them. Thanks Leon and John for being so inspiring and amazing! I couldn’t believe it when they started following my page on Instagram as well, so crazy. Meant a lot to me!

The rest of the afternoon I was at the voomfit stand cheering people on for the hang challenge! Faye was there and Ross helped us out for a bit on Sunday as well. It was so much fun having them both there! Some of the G5 crew came along as well as Faye’s mum Carole. We went and watched the Throwdown again for a bit and it looked so intense but I felt extremely inspired by the teams who showed such great effort! It’s good to see and get into the competition spirit again seeing as I’ll be doing Rainhill before I know it.

I finished off my day at the expo with buying some goodies which I will share with you in another post because I really feel like I’ve been rambling on for forever, which I have. Sorry about that but I just had to share how amazing this weekend was and I wish it didn’t have to come to an end. I need something new to look forward to now! What I loved the most was how there was something there for pretty much anyone and it definitely felt welcoming to all types of training and perhaps even people who are not very into their fitness but are looking to get inspired.

Okay okay, I’m going to stop typing now because this post is becoming an essay. Sorry guys! Don’t even know if anyone is still reading this haha.

I hope you all have a beautiful day,

M xxx