About Helen

Once an exercise-hater, Helen has realised that maybe exercise is the missing link to a healthier lifestyle. About 15 years ago, following a health scare for her husband, they decided to have a complete lifestyle change.  Helen already had a BSc in Health but probably hadn’t actually taken anything on board from that.  It was training as a Life Coach that helped her to break down goals to smaller achievable goals – seeing the bigger picture. This resulted in a joint weight loss of 11 stone and the business was born!

Firstly, called Strawberry Sofa (still is officially) this was mainly focussed on Life Coaching, making simple changes to work, life and finding a balance.  Helen delivered training packages in a corporate setting, but as her weight loss continued, more clients wanted to talk to her about weight loss goals. She did a year working at Weight watchers alongside the Life Coaching business and Training to become a Personal Trainer.

The business has really continued in this way – a mixture of Life Coaching, Nutrition and Exercise, promoting a healthier lifestyle but not really focussing on the actual weight loss, believing that other things are more important, and that weight loss is just a small part of the change towards a happier and healthier life. 

For the past 2 years Helen has been providing classes for local NHS, supporting people to start exercising and take more control of their health. This has been mostly focussed on supporting those with type 2 diabetes. We were extremely successful and lost almost a ton in weight for the 2 surgeries (all classes had less than 10 people) and some people really didn’t want to lose weight – or exercise – but we worked together and we were very successful!

During this time Helen also started to do Strength & Balance classes for older adults, making sure that all the classes had a little bit of added fun – exercise shouldn’t be serious. All this has been in addition to her own classes in the local area.

More recently Helen has completed qualifications in GP referral, cancer rehabilitation specialist instructor and cardiac rehab specialist instructor. This has enabled her to support many more people with a wider array of health conditions. Ultimately her passion is helping people become healthier, although not necessarily super models!

Away from all this exercise stuff, you will find Helen swimming in the local lakes or ploughing up and down the pool.  Not a fan of running but she feels that “run fit” takes your fitness up a notch - after completing many run events – she still doesn’t like it!  she has also completed many triathlons – never winning but seeing it as training -taking that to an extreme by completing 2 70.3 triathlons!

How did this love affair with exercise start? Very slowly – starting with walking, but setting goals (as a life coach, goals are really important) so 4 times through the Moonwalk, then an ultra-walking event until she really got fed up with walking about and then deciding triathlon might be fun!

For a woman who was never very good at sport, never picked for a team – always a bit chubby, acceptance became one of her main values in life – it took a year to lose that first 5 stone – this has never gone back up, the last 2 stone has always been work in progress, but you know what that’s fine!