Susan's story

Caring doesn’t come naturally to me. I’d much rather set my own agenda. The two relatives (my mother and my son) who I care for both have complex needs and this means we are often house-bound. My mother is in a wheelchair.

What I have found over the ten years or so that I’ve been a carer is that being fit has helped me massively both in terms of my mental and physical health. But it’s only in recent years that I’ve become fit.

For most of my life I have been unfit. I’ve always been able to function in the sense of getting up every day, bathing, dressing and working. But it was always an effort and I felt chronically below par and easily stressed. I thought this was normal and that everyone felt this way – that is, that life was universally stressful for adults and there was no respite. I even found holidays tiring.

While working full-time in an office, I availed myself of the free services of a workplace-based health coach. We had a wonderful rapport and enjoyed setting goals together. I felt inspired and motivated and started doing circuits twice a week. Then my circumstances changed – a different and more stressful job, childcare and elder care challenges, and far less free time. My fitness diminished and I was back to square one.

I quit my office job when I was 53. It was a difficult decision but an inevitable one. My son no longer wanted to go to breakfast club, after school club and holiday club. My husband was working really long hours. My mother was diagnosed with dementia and severe osteoporosis and needed a lot of support from the family.

I decided that this was my rainy day and I lived on savings while re-training to be a fitness instructor alongside being a carer. My decision to become a fitness instructor relates to seeing my mother go from being an active person (walking around London, playing table tennis, gardening etc) to being bent over with osteoporosis and with rapidly diminishing mobility. She can no longer walk, following a stroke.

My decision to quit the 9-5 was really tough at first – I missed my office colleagues and the structure of the traditional working day. Overnight, my status in society reduced to ‘zero’, and rapidly my skill-set atrophied. But I really didn’t want my muscles to atrophy – I’d seen that happen to my mother, with dire consequences.

Being a carer also meant that my professional contacts vanished. Caring can be very isolating and I was desperate to establish a new set of contacts. Networking is a good thing and it’s relatively easy to do from home. I reconnected with a work team that I’d been part of in the 1990’s. Most were now retired and had the time and inclination for a monthly in-person or Zoom catch-up. It became my favourite hour and in one conversation I mention my situation as a carer and my aim of becoming a fitness trainer. It so happened that the wife of one of my former colleagues is a fitness trainer, so we were put in touch. Alison, who has been a class instructor all her working life, is a wonderful coach and mentor to me. Alison delivers FLexercise classes via Zoom and it’s great to be part of that community – the Monday night class gives some structure to my week.

Another lucky break was a good friend telling me bluntly that I had terrible posture. I was mortified. Next day, I searched out Alexander Technique and Pilates classes, and learned all I could about posture. Good posture is life-changing. Pilates is also life-changing and is now a key part of my life.

Though now a carer through circumstance rather than choice, I am a researcher, writer and project manager by background. I am also naturally curious. I wondered if other forms of exercise had the ‘magic’ of Pilates. I decided to work through the alphabet. I’d already got aerobics and Alexander Technique under my belt, so to speak. Then I tried badminton, cycling, dance and so on, finally reaching yoga and Zumba. The research took three years, due to the constraints of being a carer. The findings have been a revelation. This research project has kept me sane during my years as a carer.