A physical trainer has warned against overdoing it following his own health scare.
When Alice Living first started sharing her fitness journey online 10 years ago, she never imagined the toll it would take on her body. At the time, the 22-year-old was one of the first fitness influencers, known as “fitfluencers,” on the social media platform Instagram.
Initially, she used the site to share healthy recipes with her followers, but expanded into fitness tips and workout routines, eventually gaining a following of over 500,000. Alice, from Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, also posted photos of herself to track her progress, and viewers often complimented her on her looks.
Appearing on ITV’s This Morning today, she delivered her warning to presenters Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard, with the 31-year-old explaining: “I think we all know and can attest to the fact that when you lose a bit of weight the first thing people say is ‘Wow,’ or ‘You look amazing’.”
“It’s really gratifying. All of a sudden you start hearing it a lot and it gives you a nice feeling of validation.”
Alice said she began this journey with the best of intentions. “When it comes to pursuing a healthy lifestyle, we all start with the best of intentions,” she said.
“I want to eat well and I want to exercise – there’s nothing wrong with that.” But her lifestyle began to become so extreme that she became “sick.”
Alice continued: “I’ve spoken to a lot of women over the years and I think a lot of them follow a similar path: they slowly start to get interested in doing more, and then they start to do even more. What we know about health and fitness is that more isn’t always better.
“You can exercise too much or eat too little and not nourish your body. So understanding that there is a tipping point, yes those things are important, but if you overdo it, it can go in the opposite direction.”
Alice, a qualified personal trainer, revealed that during this time she lost a lot of weight and her period stopped because she was eating so little. Comparing pictures of herself now to those of herself at the peak of her exercise addiction, Alice commented: “You should never associate someone’s appearance with how healthy they actually are.
“In the photo on the left, I actually didn’t have a period. This was lost as a result of my body being under too much stress, struggling with the amount of exercise, and not eating enough to nourish my body.”
Alice now focuses on eating the right foods to fuel her body and using exercise as a way to get stronger, which she details in her new book, Give Me Strength.
She said, “I think we have to realize that there’s a middle ground. Yes, exercise is important. I’m sitting here as a personal trainer and I’m going to tell you that, yes, moving your body is important and that’s a key part of the book, but doing it in a healthy, sustainable way over the long term is also important.”
“I want people to come to me and train for the rest of their lives, not just to look good on the beach this summer. So it’s my mission to give people a reason to exercise in a healthy, positive way, without having to make the same mistakes I made when I was there.”
Alice added: “I come here as someone who has been very willing to own up to the fact that I’ve been wrong, and I think this book is about bringing a lot of that to light and saying, ‘Look, I could have done better, here’s how I could have done it. In fact, because of what I’ve been through, I think things could be better this way.'”
