Photography | PHILIP HAYNES JULY 2019 | 73
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5 QY
some ownership over the way I felt
about my body. I started out doing
lots of cardio. I shed all the excess
fat I was carrying and dropped to
a size eight. But in the meantime,
I’d been watching weight-lifting
videos on YouTube and decided
to create my own programmes to
try out. I thought lifting heavy
would make me bulk up – and I was
still in a place where I didn’t like
that prospect, so I just did high
reps of low weights. That’s when I
discovered what a great community
there can be within fitness – a lot
of guys at the gym would help me
out, showing me how to do moves
safely and offering guidance.
My elder brother Mikhal is a
personal trainer and was incredibly
supportive, offering nutrition
advice, telling me I had to eat carbs
for energy, and fat to regulate my
hormones. I learned to appreciate
that I needed food, that it wasaturally, I’m pretty athletic- I have a strong physique
and muscular legs. Bar the
normal teenage hang-ups,
I’d always been pretty
content with how I looked,
but things began to change in sixth form.
To everyone else, I was a normal girl, but in
my own mind, I was hideous. I’d skip meals,
having just one a day, and lost all my puppy
fat. But my body didn’t want to be that weight - I was too slim – and it took a ridiculously
small amount of food to maintain it.
I was never formally diagnosed with body
dysmorphia or an eating disorder; juggling
university applications, my state of mind
largely went unnoticed. At 18, I left home to
go to uni, and, between the drinking, partying
and £5 pizzas, gained all the weight back. But,
although I was eating again, mentally, I was
in a worse place than ever. I was a size 12, but
when I looked in the mirror, I thought I was
huge. After I’d had any food, I’d feel pure
rage, telling myself that I shouldn’t have
eaten. I’ve deleted all photographs of myself
from that time. I became incredibly shy, not
talking to anyone on my course. The level of
self-loathing I felt meant I just didn’t have
the confidence to develop relationships.
I was barely exercising – I joined a gym
for a couple of months only to cancel my
membership soon afterwards because I
didn’t know what I was doing, and lacked
the self-belief to give weights or equipment
a go. During my third year of uni, I rejoined - but this time I approached it with a
different mindset. I wanted to take back
TOP BREKKIE
Protein porridge
and PB – I need
carbs first thing
FAVE SPORT
Football – I’ve
recently joined
a ladies’ clubFITNESS JAM
Drake songs
always get my
clients goingFor London-based PT Danielle
Lennon, 27, fitness was a way
out of a cycle of disordered
eating and self-loathingHOW I GET FIT DONE
‘I HAVE A WHOLE
NEW LEVEL OF
CONFIDENCE’
actually good for my body. Now, rather than focusing
on losing weight, my goal was to grow and get stronger,
so I lowered my reps and upped my weights. I found
that the way I felt about myself was transforming.
It wasn’t just the fact that I’d changed physically- although I had, becoming leaner and more toned –
my confidence was skyrocketing and I really started
to enjoy life. I was finally able to open up to people
and made a load of new friends – people I’d met years
previously but had never been able to let in.
Two years after graduating, I decided I wanted to
give fitness as a career a go, and I’ve not looked back.
I’m now a personal trainer, working exclusively with
women. Helping them grow into more confident
versions of themselves is my dream job.
Pictured at BXR
LondonB
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