Welcome to the beginning. Scary here isn’t it.

Some of you have been trying to go to the gym for years. Some have been and never entirely got on with it. Others have suffered injury, had a pregnancy, enjoyed too many liquid lunches, been a smidgen too lazy or generally feel so bad about your body that you’re not sure you want to ever show it it tight clothing in public again.

Or you are a generally a fit person, with your activities, healthy eating and sports, that staring at a wall of televisions or mirrors in a room of sweaty strangers doesn’t quite draw you in.

I was never a particularly sporty person. I was always chosen last on school team because everyone knew I hated participating. I made that part very obvious. To everyone!

But then I found something.

It wasn’t ethereal, a mentor, a lover, nor even some new fangled product shoved in the last few pages of a magazine. Remember those Charles Atlas advertisements? It was something far simpler and it resonated with me internally. And it was called ‘life’.

I loved the outdoors. I’d often walk for most of the day barely remembering to eat. Rain, hail or shine I loved them all. I loved meeting people. Awfully shy to begin with I found other people far more interesting than myself. I loved learning from them. More often than not it was learning from their mistakes. I loved searching for answers. I wanted to help people out. I was frustrated with their problems that often had left them scarred of stuck. It took some time before I realised that I had my own. Everybody did. And That FASCINATED me!

I’ve had some very tough times in my life. The toughest I am still recovering from right now. But the one thing that has resonated through my very soul via my enthusiasm for life and pursuit of a positive angle on EVERYTHING?

Four simple words: DO NOT GIVE UP.

Other people have been in the exact same position you’re in right this second. Your highest ecstatic peaks and your lowest, even suicidal, lows. There are still people in this world that care about others. And I mean REALLY CARE, not just stand there and nod like their head was being controlled by some string and a puppeteer.

But let’s get one thing straight: do you think honestly, whole heartedly, or even catch yourself thinking just when it’s full moon, that you care about yourself?

Sometimes it’s hard. Trust me, over these last 2 years I have had to pull myself from the depths of tears and sorrow and look at myself in the mirror. To really see myself crying and feeling sorry for myself. To open my eyes to the reality that I was creating right there and then. And that’s when I rediscovered that old thing called ‘life’ again.

As long as I was alive, things had the possibility of getting better. I had LIFE. Heck that had to amount for something, right? So every time I feel frustrated or at a loss with direction I silently (in my mind) say those four simple words to myself. Almost as if I’m telling my non-believing self off or something. And for that brief moment the inner me believes that outer me in the mirror. ‘Do not give up!’

..and I don’t.