A Juzzy Rant- My views on the Fitness Industry today

I am so glad that when I competed back in 2008 that the fitness industry isn’t what it is today. When I started out on my fitness journey there was no social media and there was definitely not as much ego around as there is today. I had no one to compare myself too and had no one putting me down behind my back as I just did what I needed to do in the gym and in the kitchen and it was no one else’s concern until comp day.

These days it seems that every girl wants to be a fitness model and a lot of girls only want the accolades and titles that go along with being one. Social media has created a monster and given people a platform to be all they ‘perceive’ to be and more. The sad thing is that you can be anyone you want to be in images and you can tell the world what you think they want to hear and you will get people believing you. A lot of what you read can be so mis-leading and give you the wrong impression of what reality actually is. Real life is hurdles, real life is having set backs, real life is experiencing low days, real life is overcoming adversity, real life is not rainbow’s and fluffy white clouds! For people to really get a grasp on reality they need to understand that no one is perfect and no one has the perfect body, perfection is in the eye of the beholder and seeing things for what they really are will help you be able to move forward and become YOUR best and achieve YOUR best body.

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These days I will always tell the truth and call a spade a spade, I have had my fair share of girls latch on to me over the years and now I honestly have no time for it. I will give to those that I actually know and who deserve my time but having had my fair share of girls only want something from me so that they can benefit has left me only to believe and trust in a few.

I believe that what you see isn’t always what is and that unfortunately you can not take things for face value these days. I know that when I was unhappy within myself and seeking validation from the outside world I would preach that my life was amazing when in fact I was covering up to the fact that I didn’t have inner peace and was seeking approval from the public.
At the time I was being genuine and couldn’t see my actions for what they were, this is something that I have now looked back on and realised that I had done. You can put it down to the fact that I am always looking to improve myself and always trying to better who I am and be as honest with not only myself but to the women who follow me. I believe that being vulnerable and sharing my growth with others will hopefully inspire and help women to make better choices and not beat themselves up over the silly little things.

I love social media and know that it has helped me move forward in my career but I also see a huge negative to it in that it isn’t reality and far too many women see images and read statements and buy into them and then they feel insignificant and not good enough as their lives are no where near what they are reading day in day out.

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I don’t want to hear that your life is amazing everyday and that you are loving life, that does not motivate or inspire me one bit. I would love to scream that from the roof tops everyday but it just isn’t necessary, if you are truly content and happy within yourself then why do you need the world to know? Don’t get me wrong, it is fine to share your happiness from time to time with everyone, we all want to see people happy and living their lives to the fullest but when it is a daily external ritual that has to be shared then I question its authenticity!

Being happy doesn’t mean that you need approval or validation from the world, it doesn’t mean that you need everyone to know about it, it means that you are happy within yourself and can just ‘be’, you can live in the moment and be at peace with who you are and where you are at in life.

Far too many women these days are left feeling lost and alone by what they read and it is frustrating for me to see. I am strong enough to not take a lot of what I see on board but I know for a fact that there are a lot of broken women out there who need to know that fitness model’s have bad days and don’t eat organic 24/7. They need to know that those that are in peak condition have shit days and days where they lack motivation and give in to temptation and are just all round NORMAL people!

My respect these days goes out to those that I can see are growing in an industry that is heading down a very fake path, I respect those that can own up to their downfalls and learn from them. Those that are out there telling the TRUTH to people and not sugar coating the bullshit that lies underneath the surface.

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I am all for seeing people achieve their goals, I just wish that with that there were more honesty and more people out there telling it how it actually is so that the general public can feel content and happy with who they are and feel worthy of achieving all they deserve!

Justine xx

I felt it was necessary to write a blog to share my pics of the changes in my physique over the years.

The first pic from 2004 is a body that I am not very proud of. I was living in London then and had a very unhealthy lifestyle. I didn’t even go to the gym at all. My only exercise was walking to the tube stations and dancing on the weekends. At this stage of my life I can admit now that I was not eating very well at all. My staple diet was toast and cereal. You can see how thin I was then and how I had absolutely NO muscle on my body.

The 2nd pic from 2007 is from the stage in my life before I began to do weights. I was a cardio queen and still wasn’t eating properly. I ate a lot of carbs and hardly any protein. I skipped meals and was drinking a lot on the weekends. You can see here that I still had no muscle and was carrying a lot of body fat. Now I am not saying that I am fat or out of shape in this pic, I just look so different to the way I look now. I was uneducated in the training and nutrition department and had no structure to my training. I was unhappy in my job as a dental nurse so my only suffice was drinking and partying on the weekends, it was a vicious cycle that I was in.

The 3rd pic is from my last photo shoot that I did with Dallas Olsen in May 2012 and you can see a HUGE change in my physique. I am now carrying loads more lean mass and look healthy and balanced. Obviously this was from a shoot so I don’t look this lean all year round but it gives you an idea of what education, dedication and commitment can do. I love my life now and I don’t feel like I dont work a day in my life. The changes I put in place back in 2008 have paid off and I am now living the dream. I have what I believe to be balance in my life and I dont need alcohol to have a good time. In fact when I drink these days I feel low and sluggish so I choose to only have a few red wines from time to time when I am not dieting for a shoot.

I wanted to share these pics with you all so you can see that I am just like you and I have had issues in my life that I have had to deal with to end up where I am today. You can live the life you dream of, you just have to believe in yourself and then make it happen!!!

Justine xx