Shredheads Interview: @dapbim

Earlier this year Kathie (@dapbim), a longtime Shredhead, injured her tailbone and ended up being unable to exercise for 4 weeks. I read her tweets as she was getting back into it, and found it to be extremely motivating and wanted to know (and share) how she was doing it!

You may have noticed that her tweets all come at odd hours…well, living in Germany will do that to a girl. Of course Shredheads was too cheap to fly me to Germany to do the interview (we need to get a budget here) so I talked to Kathie through the internet. Not quite as personal, but much more cost effective.

She’s originally from England, so I left her British spelling intact. Feel free to read it with an accent…I do!

What’s your fitness background?
Feel free to hate me, but I have never been really overweight. Sorry. I am one of those people who could pretty much eat what they like and, whilst I wouldn’t say I never gain at all, I pretty much just fluctuate within a 5kg range, with the lowest number being my “ideal” weight (ie. the weight at which I feel good about myself, like the way my clothes fit etc.) and the highest number being where I start to get uncomfortable. When I reach that high point though, I just stop eating so much chocolate, so many snacks etc, and I’m pretty much back down to a middle point at which I feel ok within a week or so.

So why am I a shredhead? Well, the disadvantage to my body type is that I never really needed to exercise, and so never did. So whilst I’ve always been what most people would consider slim, I’ve never been toned, and definitely never been strong. And particularly after the birth of my son, I realised that I needed to get into shape, in the most literal sense.

What’s your exercise routine like?
I started running and going to the gym about 3 years ago. I kept it up for about 9 months, and then I was in a traffic accident and broke my elbow, which obviously put me out of action for a number of weeks. About the same time, I found out I was pregnant, and made the mistake of deciding that I now had the perfect excuse to do nothing, and eat cake.

I think I first read about the 30 Day Shred on Linda’s blog, at about the time the whole internet started doing it. I thought it sounded good, and so looked for other blogs on the topic, which lead me to the Shredheads.

The best thing about Shred is that each level is so short, and yet gives you a really tough workout. I find it a lot harder to find an excuse not to do half an hour than I do to do an hour. Plus the fact that it is a DVD, thereby enabling me to do it at home during the week when my little boy is asleep.

I try to exercise 4-5 times a week, which is usually 1-2 Shreds, 1 longer DVD (like No More Trouble Zones), and 1-2 runs. In addition, I have started doing Yoga Meltdown 1-2 times a week.

What do you like best about exercise?
The fact that I can eat more when I do it. I like to think that I have a pretty healthy diet, but I do like to eat, so strict diets aren’t for me.

Also, when I stick to it, I’ve obviously noticed the physical changes. In addition to that, I have fewer headaches and more energy.

What’s your biggest struggle?
I’m going to be totally honest here and say my inherent laziness. I was always totally unfit, so hated sport, and therefore stayed unfit – it’s a vicious cycle! And I still now really have to force myself to work out. I am the queen of excuses – I can’t because of my son, I can’t because I don’t have time etc etc, but really, it’s that I don’t want to.

Tell us about coming back from your injury…
At the beginning of February, when I was at the fittest and strongest I think I had ever been, I slipped on black ice on our path and badly bruised my tailbone, which put me out of action exercise-wise for about 4 weeks. The first word that occurs to me is FRUSTRATING. The rate at which I lost my stamina and strength was just so depressing – where I’d been doing Level 3 following Natalie 4 weeks previously, I was struggling to complete Level 2. And that in turn, put me off the idea of exercising at all. It’s only now that I would say that I am really getting back into the groove, because the feeling of having to start all over again was so demotivating.

What are you most proud of fitnesswise?
January, when I finally managed to do the Shred from start to finish! At that point I’d had the DVD for like 18 months, but had never managed more than 12 days on the trot. I was back up at my heaviest weight for the first time in ages after Christmas, and we had decided that in 2010 we would start trying for a second baby. I wanted to go into a potential pregnancy fit and strong. Combine that with my little boy finally realising that sleep is a good thing, and I was rested enough to contemplate doing something other than collapsing on the couch once he was in bed.