How I found my way back to balance.

I was an athlete before I was anything else.

For most of my life, sport was everything. I was a competitive alpine ski racer for the Welsh Ski Team, and discipline, structure, and chasing a goal were all I really knew.

Then at 18, an injury ended my skiing career. Just like that, the thing I'd built my whole life around was gone. I started partying, I hated it, and I felt completely lost.

So I jumped into bodybuilding.

I jumped right into a competition prep — so lost, with no real knowledge of anything bodybuilding-related. I just knew I could follow a diet. I knew I liked the gym. I knew I had work ethic. And I thought that would be enough.

My first prep was 17 weeks of a strict, harsh, low-calorie diet — working manual labour, with high cardio. I stepped on stage for the first time at 19.

Then I ate a donut.

The moment I stepped off stage, I ate a donut — and it turned into uncontrollable food urges that led me into a good three months of binge eating.

But it wasn't the donut that did it. It was the months of restriction, the hormonal imbalances, and never understanding what my body had actually been through. I was depressed, confused, and completely broken. I spiralled, gained almost 40 pounds, and stopped prioritising anything that mattered.

Desperate to fix it, I did it all again.

So I jumped back into another prep, desperate to lose the weight. I had a little more knowledge this time — but I was still deep in disordered behaviours, a harsh diet, and excessive cardio. I prioritised bodybuilding over my education and over my own wellbeing.

I came last in my height class and felt defeated all over again — like I wasn't good enough, and no closer to whatever I was chasing. I was pulled away from gratitude, love, and kindness, just spiralling and desperate to understand what was wrong with me. I felt so small, muscle-mass wise, so obsessed with the look of the bikini girls, and I just wanted to be better.

The bingeing came back — and so did something darker.

After my second show, everything I'd been struggling with returned, worse than before. The bingeing came back, and this time I started purging too. That went on for about two months. When the heaviest urges finally eased, I stopped tracking and tried to enjoy life again — but I was still so uncomfortable in my own skin.

I found real help — but I wasn't ready yet.

About five months after that show, I found a new coach who was the real deal — someone trying to help me work through my disordered eating, not just get me back on stage. But I had to be honest with her: my head wasn't in the right place yet. I asked for a break — and it turned into about a year and a half away from competing and the bodybuilding extremes entirely.

Slowly, my weight came back down. I was still training, still slipping now and then, but I was getting better and finally starting to understand it all. I poured my energy back into my education, and I started to feel a little more like myself.

This time, I tried to do it right.

By January 2025, my weight was back to a reasonably healthy place, and I finally felt ready. I decided to prep one more time — but properly this time. I started with Bree and Taylor Wilson, my two incredible coaches — both IFBB pros at the very top of the sport (Bree is on her way to competing at the Olympia herself). For once, I had coaches who put my health first, and instead of a harsh diet, I took a flexible macro approach. I switched to the Fit Model division, and I finally felt like I might actually have a chance. Cardio was steady, my diet was steady, and I felt genuinely happy — like I'd figured it out. It started to feel less like a prep and more like a lifestyle.

Then my health forced me to listen.

A few months into that prep, in May 2025, my body finally forced me to stop. I'd been living with severe pain for a long time — I've struggled with endometriosis, and pain that got labelled as fibromyalgia. When I finally started really tuning into my body, I found out I had parasites. I went on natural medication to clear them, and at one point I ended up hospitalised — they thought I might have meningitis. A lot of my health struggles, I think, were self-inflicted from years of dieting, binging, and purging.

That scare changed something in me. I finally started researching properly — learning how the female body actually works, and investing in my health instead of just my physique. Bit by bit, I began to heal my relationship with food, with training, and with myself.

The last five weeks felt like a horror movie.

Even through the health scare, the prep kept chugging along — slow, but steady. Then came the final five weeks, and they felt like a horror movie. To get conditioned enough for the stage, I was back to pushing low calories and high cardio. My body was hurting — it literally hurt to walk. I started criticising myself 24/7. And by the time I was a few days out from the show, I wasn't even excited any more. I just felt numb. I knew hurting could be part of bodybuilding, so I pushed through.

I made it — and then it came back.

My third show was the one where it all came together. I won three classes and came second overall. Show day genuinely felt like a fairytale — I had people rooting for me, and for the first time in years I felt loved, whole, and purposeful. For two whole weeks afterwards I had no binges at all, and I let myself believe I'd finally cracked it.

Then, sixteen days out from that high, I was at a birthday surrounded by food and not knowing a soul — and I lost it. It was my first binge-purge in a long time, and by twenty-five days post-show it had taken over completely again. Somewhere in there, the truth finally landed: a girl beside me on stage had "prepped for two weeks," while I had nearly destroyed myself just to be there. Even doing it the healthiest way I could, even winning, the cycle still wasn't sustainable for me. Maybe bodybuilding just wasn't meant for me. After about a month the food noise finally stopped — I was around 25 pounds up from stage weight, and for the first time, I stopped fighting it.

I chose myself instead.

It took three preps to finally understand what I actually wanted, and what I could sustain — physically, mentally, and honestly, financially. Competing wasn't it. I had to accept that if I kept going back to the stage, the bingeing would keep coming back with it.

So I let go of the version of me that was built on restriction and punishment. Walking away from the thing I'd given everything to was the hardest thing I've ever done.

I started moving for joy.

The biggest thing that changed everything was my outlook — toward the gym, toward food, toward my whole lifestyle. I stopped moving to punish my body and started moving in ways that actually brought me joy.

I took my first dance class in eight years. I tried pole. I found boxing — and completely fell in love with it — training every Thursday night with an incredible women's community here in Kelowna, Umbrella Lifestyle Academy. I started running. Now I go to the gym to feel good, and I don't force it when I'm not feeling it.

I stopped chasing a physique and put my energy into long-term health. I ate foods that actually make me feel good — nourishing food, in moderation, without the guilt. I learned to love myself. And slowly, the weight came off on its own, and my personality came back — I felt like a real person again, not just a competitor.

I've never felt better — mentally most of all.

Ten months on from my last show, I can honestly say I've never felt better in my head. I'm strong, I'm balanced, and I'm at peace with food and movement in a way I genuinely didn't think was possible for me.

Everything I learned the hard way — that's what HIT RESET is built on. Because you shouldn't have to hit rock bottom to find balance. You don't need another extreme. You need a realistic, supportive way to reset — and someone who's actually been there.