My Story

I’ve had an interest in fitness from a young age. I was in every sports team in school but once I left my routine and eating habits changed, I gained weight, fell into the trap of fad diets, my weight fluctuated, I used the gym incorrectly and was in a vicious cycle of feeling unhappy with how I looked. 

My mental health obviously suffered throughout these years and before I knew it I was suffering with eating disorders. My weight dropped so low I was wearing kids size clothes on my early 20’s and some days felt so depressed and trapped that I just didn’t want to be here anymore. 

What got me out of such a dark place?

Exercise. 

Fast forward to my recovery years which started when I met my husband. I was 23, he worked in a gym and introduced me to weights. I had only ever done cardio at the gym and loved how much better I felt after weight training, but the way I was eating held me back massively. So we slowly started to introduce a healthier food routine and went from 6 meals a week (on a good week) to 6 meals per day!!

As my recovery became my new norm, I wanted to really challenge myself mentally and physically. I suppose I wanted to test myself to see if I had really stepped away from my dark days, so I decided to do a bodybuilding competition. . . . and I won 

I actually ended up doing 9 shows in total, my final comp was in 2015 when I won Miss Britain 

My next and most important goal?

To become a mummy. 

Throughout my years of eating disorders, it was mentioned I could have been ruining my chances of ever getting pregnant as my periods stopped and my body was so frail.

The thought of never having children couldn’t be an option for me. I was desperate to be a mum and that was then driving force to get well, live a healthier lifestyle and to recover from eating disorders. 

In 2018 I had my first baby . . . 

Dreams do come true

As mums know life changes massively when you have kids. 

I went from being in the gym 5-6 days a week to not being able to leave the house because I was exclusively breastfeeding and he wouldn’t take a bottle or let anyone else settle him so it was time to come up with a new plan?

Home workouts 

I couldn’t find a fitness class where I could take baby with me and I qualified in pre and postnatal exercise whilst I was pregnant so decided to design my own workouts and set up my Team VG Bootcamp that caters for different levels of fitness and can also include pregnant and postpartum ladies

I have my 2nd baby in 2020 and have kept the bootcamp running throughout both pregnancy’s and a pandemic 

The thing I love the most about my bootcamp is that my kids get to see mummy doing exercise and it’s getting installed into them from a young age how important health and fitness is. I also love the community of incredible women on my bootcamp all supporting and encouraging each other every day