I do the hard thing.

There is so much going on I'm not sure where to start!

I've been sore. Not just a little bit. I ACHED.  I touched my coach's wheel on Sunday and threw myself down the road. Riding a wheel is scary. Touching a wheel is bad. I know that for a fact now! It's mostly road rash, apart from a black pinky finger - which has now returned to its normal colour. I elevated and iced, then after teaching Monday morning I sat in the steam room for a bit before using some hot/cold therapy in the shower. My neck was out and my abs hurt pretty bad, too. Battered, bruised and SO EMOTIONAL. The whingy tearfulness and inability to concentrate with all the post-trauma toxins in my body was YUCKY. Luckily, the worst of it had passed by Tuesday and Wednesday I was feeling like a scraped up and scabby version of my old self again.

Last week was EPIC! While you were all enjoying your public holiday, I was at the first EVER Youth Speaker Inc, hosted by the INCREDIBLE Sam Cawthorn. I was surrounded by 9 other amazing thought leaders and youth speakers for 8 hours in a room that absolutely BUZZED with energy. It was INSANE and just tremendously valuable.

The rest of the week? It looked like this: Train clients, train me, teach spin, early starts, focus on eating right, try to get enough sleep, be organised, forget nothing, be on time, ADD MAXIMUM VALUE, ALWAYS.

Last Thursday was a stand-out. Just one of the most incredible days I've had in, well, AGES. I went out to cover a spin class at FF North Ryde and it was amazing. The connection I shared with every single person I came into contact with that morning was pure magic. Fantastic conversations with incredible people and an incredible workout to boot. What more could you want? It doesn't end there, though. After a quick chai tea pit stop, I was off to The Northcott Centre in Parramatta to meet with David Rothwell from the Amputee Association about our pet project, his idea, but I'm taking it, growing it and running with it just as far as these little legs will carry me. It might take 2 years, but it is coming: Accessible Wellness Centres Australia will be the first "gyms" designed specifically to service the mobility impaired, building functionality, body confidence and self esteem to improve their quality of life. The focus is on integration and inclusion: the end goal is to have confident, balanced people in active lifestyles and good mental AND physical health. Whilst in it's infancy, this is SO EXCITING for me and I am extremely passionate about seeing this through. Whatever it takes.

Saturday morning I had a great metabolic strength training session with Hilly before teaching spin over at Five Dock: the SSS and a great way to power into the weekend chores and endless to do lists! I then had the pleasure of having a follow up meeting with Sam over yummy chai tea in Balmain. We discussed some great topics and I'm looking forward to sharing some of that with you in my first video blog. There's a lot for me to do before I transition full time into my company and away from PT in Fitness First, and I'm feeling quite overwhelmed trying to juggle everything.

All I can do is breathe as I ride these tumultuous waves: I know it's OK to feel overwhelmed sometimes. I know it's OK to struggle. I choose to do the hard thing. It has the greatest rewards.

Week 3: Success!

So weigh-in day landed and I lost 700g! Yeeha! It's not a huge loss, but if I can maintain and sustain that rate - which I surely can - I'll have lost over 5 kgs in just 8 weeks time. That WILL be AMAZING! Just the sheer thought of how great it will feel is enough to get me going.

I'm really proud of this loss because of the sheer bloody mindedness and determination that has gone into it. There's so much planning and preparation going in to ensuring a result. I had 2 food events this week, with wine, and I made sure I pushed through some gruelling 2 hour sessions on the day and the day after these to earn the right AND to stay on track.

The first was the Fitness First New You Awards dinner on Friday. I was invited this year as, when I was a finalist last year, I was unable to attend. Trekking in Nepal is a pretty good excuse I reckon! It was such a great night, incredible stories, amazing and inspiring people all around the room - with a cast of fitness professionals I was just so proud to be counted among.

It has been a great week. Last Tuesday I gave a talk called "A Being of Balance" for LuluLemon. It was a new experience for me, to speak in this environment, seated on a yoga mat, sharing so intimately with a small room of people, amongst whom I recognised the faces of friends. I'll be presenting a similarly titled but much more detailed workshop version of the talk to Mission Australia tomorrow, part of my role in Fit For Good. My ambassador profile is live now! How special is that?!

I've had another couple of great successes in the past week - I now ride successfully in cleats outdoors. Had my first long session in them yesterday and felt really good. Had to celebrate last night with 2 good friends and a delicious meal :)

There are some amazing things coming up in my calendar... Youth Speaker Inc with Sam Cawthorn on Monday, the St Greg's Annual Sporting Gala on the 14th - a black tie event, and I'll likely be dressed by Paddington designer Sylvia Chan... and lots of training and hard work to put in, in the meantime!

The best bit is, I have Eddie by my side, sharing it all with me, and I'm loving every second :)

Mission to Motivate

I started this post on Thursday afternoon AS IT HAPPENED PEOPLE.

But as it happened, blogger failed and I wasn't able to repost it until NOW. Right before masterchef... How convenient?

Anyway, allow me to recap:
"This is awesome. I'm feeling headachy and chesty and run down, all of which is a bit crap, BUT I have come home, put my pjs on and jumped into bed with a cup of lemongrass and ginger tea. Its 230pm and I have laptop, tea and doona. I've never done this before. I can see this becoming my new bad habit.

I've just come home from my first talk at Mission Australia Surry Hills on behalf of Fit for Good. I feel really good about being able to share some stories and time with people seeking motivation and inspiration. They were lovely!

The talk was the 1st in a 4 part series, called Daring to Dream and it discusses what you need to build inside yourself to allow yourself to Dream, so self awareness and self worth, then moves on to cover goal setting techniques to start a successful journey"

Aaaaaand the rest of my post, which I had completed IN FULL got gobbled by the ether! *fist shake* I'll get over it, though and write it all again.

I'll be doing the 2nd talk, What it takes to win, on July 26th. The focus shifts from inception to delivery and how to deal with road blocks, obstacles and self doubt, using a positive attitude to turn them into opportunities for “adversarial growth”. The end result is to get the dream across the line.

I also spoke a fortnight ago at East Sydney High. I went in to give the kids a rev up speech and make sure they understood that life is going to go however they design it, so they better take their choices seriously and decide who they want to be. It was another extremely rewarding day and next term I'll be back to do a more in depth half day workshop with them on Strategies for Success Past School. Paid work, which is awesome...

On the subject of paid work, I've just launched a new business to encapsulate both Debzillah PT under Body and Breath, as well as my speaking work under Mindful Motivation: Inspirational Industries, with the motto Inspired, Ingenious and Infinite. The gorgeous Ingrid of Frankenmedia Design has secured the domains and will be starting work on my new website forthwith :) Huzzah!

Watch this space, Tuesday I'm talking about food and the good life!