I was asked by Microsoft Mobile to share with you a photo that would give some kind of fitness inspiration as part of a competition to win a tech bundle. Now this photo has a tale to it and even though it may not look like a particularly inspirational snap, believe me it really, really is.
Before selecting my photos I debated whether to go down the 'I lost weight' route, but to be honest I've never been massive, I've been big but nothing to really make you say wow. This then got me thinking of how we all go by what something looks like to inspire us, why does everything need to be visual? So with that in mind I'm inviting you to look a little deeper past the outer image, to something I deal with that really isn't visual at all. How I look at it, I'm focused on my health generally and if I'm healthy and big - so be it.
Let's chat about the picture above. Let me take you back a few years I was having these weird episodes that I couldn't explain. All I'd remember is feeling extremely frightened, disorientated, anxious and left with a migraine afterwards. To anyone watching you'd never know it was happening, and this was happening up to 4 times a day for many years. Cutting a long drawn out 5 year journey out the way, I was finally diagnosed with epilepsy in the form of complex partial seizures. I really struggled coming to terms with it because I lost my driving licence, I felt trapped and I actually felt very alone despite people being around me. Nobody I knew had this and so I had to battle it alone.
As I was no longer able to drive I would walk or catch the bus but I didn't do loads of exercise. I lost a lot of weight due to being what we now know as depression from the diagnosis, but obviously this wasn't healthy at all.
I actually had a fear or exercise, (can you believe it!) because I didn't know at the time, but I had two partial seizures during half marathons I'd done before. Obviously I hadn't got a clue what was going on until I was diagnosed, but once I did fear hungover me and so I stopped running.
So, back to this picture at the start of the post. This was in the car park of mine and my husbands flat. I came home from work to see him grinning at me, firstly I thought he'd wrecked something valuable or bought something outrageous... he hadn't, he had built me a bike. My first mode of transport since losing my license. We spent a good 40 minutes playing around in the car park with this bike! I have some video footage of this, along with a dozen or more photos and each one I am grinning like a Cheshire cat. I'll go as far as saying, seeing these pictures honestly make me smile just looking at them now.
I know it won't look much but believe it or not since this picture, I started cycling everywhere, I then began swimming, I slowly introduced running and then finally booked and completed my first triathlon. Me and my little bike called Roo-Roo are a team, who cared if I had a seizure? I'm a tough cookie and most of the time I was fine.
Since then I've actually got back into running after years of fear, I just ran my first marathon in Berlin... I had a seizure, but so what?! I still completed it. I've done a heck of a lot more than other people and I now have a medal to prove it.
A lot has happened since I was diagnosed with epilepsy, so you'll know I don't just cycle, I run, I swim, I throw myself at everything! I have epilepsy but epilepsy doesn't have me. So even though this photo may not represent a massive amount on the first glance, it actually is the start of an amazing story which has led me to being that bubbly, happy, active girl I once was... the best part is that there is so much more to come now.