Good Morrow fellow Rebels! I am a fair maiden looking for a community of support and fun, filled with both fitness and nerdy knowledge. As to what I can share, let me tell a story. Once upon a time, there was a young lass called Axi. She was very fit, she got up at 5am to swim with her squad each day from year 6 til year 12. She was also quite skilled at baseball, playing it from age 6 until age 20, and she also played rugby league throughout high school. However, as with all stories about young lasses, disaster struck. The dreaded HSC forced her to stop swimming in year 12 and her dedication to baseball stopped her from playing rugby league at 16. She was also plagued with shoulder injuries throughout her baseball times, a rotator cuff injury at age 13 forced her to take a break from pitching for 2 years, a broken collarbone left her on the bench for 6 weeks during her 16th year and finally it was a combination of ACL stress, a pulling of the pectoral muscle on her right (pitching) side and rotator cuff issues that caused her to finally give up the sport that she loved so dearly for many years when she was 20. Since then, Axi has moved states, completed a university degree and lived the complete student life, full of bad eating and sleeping habits, lack of exercise and lack of motivation to do anything other than study. She has also worked full time, which, in her mind, gave her no time to exercise or prepare meals correctly. Now, this story is not all doom and gloom. Earlier this year, the now not so young Axi decided that it was time to get in shape and try to reclaim some of the fitness she once possessed. Rather than jump into a sport she decided to finally stop in at the gym that she drove past every day to and from work that happened to only be 5 minutes away from her house. As luck would have it, this gym was about to start a 10 week challenge where participants would be given a personal trainer, have one session per week with them, have the opportunity to attend a weekly bootcamp, have measurements and weight taken periodically and were introduced to a physiotherapist, a dietician and a supplement provider. This challenge was tough, as it involved a massive diet change and massive lifestyle change for Axi, however she stuck with it, attended all boot camps and personal training sessions, attended the gym several days a week and followed the diet and workout plans to the letter. This resulted in her dropping 19kg of fat, gaining 7kg of muscle for a net loss of 12kg. She also lost 54cm over her body and changed her physique However now is a troubling time for Axi. The challenge finished 2 months ago and she has moved from doing HIIT cardio training to more strength workouts. The fat is still dropping and the muscle is gaining, albeit much slower as she has not been as "hardcore" with her diet or training, which caused her to put size, not weight, back on. She is also currently suffering from a hamstring injury, nerve irritation in her neck and lower back and wrist issues, which cause her to become discouraged as she can't always do the things she could do during the challenge. The Axi is continuing on her fitness journey but sometimes needs the reminder to stop comparing herself to others, injuries are not the end of the world, and that the hard work is worth it in the end. What she can offer is bad jokes, terrible puns, her wealth of knowledge about World of Warcraft which she can turn into exercise analogies and her willingness to help a fellow fitness journeyman out
