Leila Dehghan

About

I have always felt driven to help people, and for a long time, I thought that I could help the most people by being a doctor. What I realised though was that I was helping sick people get well rather than helping everyday people stay healthy. I want to help you stay healthy, and a fit lifestyle is the best way to achieve optimal health.

Fitness has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I was an active child, going to gymnastic classes, swimming, cycling, and also practicing jiu jitsu as a teenager. I did some sort of exercise every day because I loved that sense of agility and lightness it brought to my life.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the way many of us lose that childlike exuberance for exercise. For me, I have a vivid memory of my 14th birthday when my uncle gave me a bike as a present with the comment, “You need to lose weight.” And then a neighbour saw me riding that same bicycle one early morning and asked, “You trying to lose weight?”

In hindsight, I realise that my focus shifted from exercise as a way of FEELING good to a way of LOOKING good.

Thereafter, at the age of fourteen, I went on my first diet… and I gained weight! In the coming years, I became far too skilled at transforming every food item into the number of calories it contained and calculating every activity into the number of calories burned. In my mind, working out was nothing more than another tool to lose weight.

My self-esteem plummeted. I binged to feel better, and then I purged and went through a vigorous exercise regimen to compensate. Later, as a junior doctor, the stress and the long working hours sent me into binge eating and yo-yo dieting with bouts of intense exercising. I felt exhausted, drained and heavy!

My life was out of balance and I HAD ENOUGH!

Fast forward ten years of this endless cycle of trying and failing

before I finally summoned the courage to put my health first; I left medicine and learned to create balance in my life with EXERCISE.

Today, the rhythm of my life has changed – once again I feel light, energised and ready for life! And you can too!

My motto is: IF I CAN DO IT, ANYBODY CAN!