We all reach a certain age where we can no longer take part in our favourite physical activities without paying for it afterward.
But more often than not, we can push that date far off into the future if we just change our habits.
Just ask Emily Dobson. At 26, the student and barista was already losing her love of volleyball thanks to knee and lower back pain and frequent ankle sprains.
“My body just wasn’t able to keep up with the level and volume I was playing at,” she said. Emily plays in Tier1 and 2 competitive community leagues.
She saw her doctor, gave physio a try and attempted to find a medical reason to explain her challenges. But she came to realize she just had to face up to the truth – she was overweight, didn’t engage in any routine of fitness to condition her body for the game and had neglected her overall health for too long. Nor could she still eat the way she used to without packing on the pounds.
“I was really tired of feeling the way I did – exhausted from always being in pain,” she said.
Six months ago, Emily decided to give the Free Form Fitness location close to home in Westboro a try.
“I walked in really open-minded and I put a lot of faith in this process, in these who people who have put so much of themselves into learning how to help others,” she said. “I made the commitment to listen, to leave my comfort zone and to not fight them over what they wanted me to do. I let them be my doctors and my training program was my prescription.”
Six months later, it’s paid off in spades.
Emily has lost 25 lbs, seven percentage points off her body fat and seven inches from her waist.
Best of all, she’s lost most of that pain and regained her mobility. This is thanks to losing weight and a routine of strength training for the muscles around her knee. A well-rounded fitness program has also made her much stronger overall than she was before.
In volleyball, Emily plays the power position, responsible for scoring the most points for her team. “It’s great to be able to live up to the title of that position now,” she said.
She’s found herself in the “humbling” role of being a mentor and an inspiration for friends who come to her now for advice on fitness and nutrition. “My partner tells me all the time how proud he is of me.”
It’s not just how Emily looks, but how she feels, too. “My demeanour is a lot more approachable than it was before,” she said. “I am a much more easygoing person now, more patient.”
As someone who’s always felt rather guilty about eating meat, Emily also decided to go (mostly) vegetarian with her change of habit, confident in the expertise of the FFF team to provide the nutrition counseling she needed to still eat a balanced diet with sufficient protein.
“I love that there are many spectrums to training at FFF, that it also focuses on mental wellness and spiritual wellness, too,” she said. “For this reason I feel it’s important to continue training here until I feel comfortable doing it on my own.”
She even sees a difference at work.
“I used to not be able to lift the bags of sugar at the café, but now I can with no problem. They guys ask me if I need help and it’s a super cool feminist thing to be able to say I can do it by myself.”
