The saying health is wealth could not be more true, no matter how well we eat, how hard we work means nothing if you do not have good health.  

I try the majority of the time to look after my body by eating generally well and exercising regularly alongside trying to keep a healthy balance of enjoying the not so good for you things like wine and pizza (two of my favourites things!) because lets face it, life is too short to eat salad everyday!  

Last year I was reminded to appreciate my body and what it does on a daily basis when I began to get some weird symptoms and started to feel pretty horrendous.    

What started out as a bit of insomnia and lack of appetite then developed into me feeling absolutely terrible for weeks.   After a lot of blood tests, my GP diagnosed me with a severe vitamin B12 deficiency. After doing some research I realised that actually I ticked pretty much every box on the symptom list and this explained why I had been feeling dreadful for a few months.  

Side effects of a B12 deficiency include…  

Memory loss (who needs to remember what day it is anyway?)  

Confusion/reduced brain activity (yep I looked for my phone many times whilst holding it in my hand)  

Difficulty thinking, reasoning, cognitive difficulties

Lack of appetite and weight loss (I lost 10kgs in 8 weeks) I don’t recommend it as a weight loss plan!  

Sleep deprivation (basically torture)  

Fatigue (is it ok to want to nap 6 x a day?)  

Weakness, numbness, tingling in hands, feet, legs (like being drunk but without the enjoyment of actually drinking!)  

Luckily the treatment is quite straight forward….. just 2-3 x weekly injections for 6 weeks in the muscle (ouch) and gradually the symptoms started to subside.   Alongside the injections, my GP recommended exercise as a good way to gain my strength and energy back which I had lost so much of.

Losing so much weight so fast meant I was really really weak and even riding the horses was proved exhausting.   That is when I started to train with Lars Jame – Personal Sports Coach, who not only totally understood how bad and low I was feeling but who’s training was essential in helping me gain strength, energy and the huge amount of fitness I had lost and helping me get back to feeling healthy and strong again.

1 year on I am feeling much healthier, 10kgs heavier, my body feels stronger and appetite is back to normal.

Life has a funny way of sending things your way when you are getting a bit carried away to remind you to get yourself back in check and take care of yourself.

Blog post with workout plan with Lars James – @personalsportscoach coming shortly….