Anna Schuchman, 41, is a PT, nutritionist and owner of aceLIFESTYLE based in London.
Growing up, I was always the chubbiest in the family and my mother was more careful about what she fed me. As an adult, I decided to take control. I got into health and fitness when I was in my twenties and found that my happy weight was about nine and a half stones. But after the birth of my fourth child, when I was 32 years old, I felt that I had swollen. He had really low blood sugar levels and he was just eating and eating and eating, the kind of hunger where you just inhale the food. I put almost four stones and weighed 13 stones (81 kg). I barely recognized my body as my own.
So I got back in shape, doing classes like body pump, which uses a light bar, and body combat, where you punch and kick to get in shape, once or twice a week.
I was working in logistics at the time, but decided to use my maternity leave to retrain as a personal trainer, along with another year studying nutrition.
My professional training also changed the way I personally ate and exercised. As I learned more about what types of exercise are most effective, I changed my workouts to focus on strength training and made sure to get a lot more protein into each meal, which is so important for building and maintaining muscle.
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