Hello! I’m Leah and I have been running Fitness At The Farm since January 2018. 

I have the enormous privilege of living on a beautiful farm in South Oxfordshire which means I have all the space anyone could need to keep active.

I never really loved the gym environment and always found the regimented, rep counting, calorie tracking approach to exercise very unnecessary.

When I qualified as a PT, I knew that I didn’t want to teach in a gym because my personal preference when it comes to movement is to be outside and I wanted to create a safe space  for others to experience just that.

I haven’t always been that active and I only really got into exercise in my early 20s. I started to love exercise when I took on the challenge of triathlons, because that was when I started to explore physical activity outside of the gym. Being outside made me feel so much better about what I was doing. I wasn’t monitoring how far or how fast I went, I was just enjoying the exertion. I worked out when I wanted to, because I wanted to and I didn’t want it to ever become a chore again.

Since I started my own business, I haven’t done any organised events. I don’t have the time or inclination for training any more and that’s fine. It’s something I used to love, but I’ve moved on to other ways of movement. I now do a lot more strength training. In a few years time that focus may change again to something else. So long as I can find some way to move my body in a way that excites, challenges and calms me, I’ll be good.

Being active is a joy for me; preparing and eating food is a joy for me; not something that I ever want to relate with feelings of guilt or inadequacy. I am not one of those trainers that you’ll find on instagram posing in unnatural positions with rock hard abs. I am just a woman in her 30s who is finally at peace with her body just as it is. Someone who exercises for fun and because it makes me feel great, not for ‘results’. Someone who eats intuitively, for pleasure and as a way to connect with others.

My aim with my business At The Farm is to help people develop healthy attitudes towards nutrition and physical activity; to find happiness with their bodies at any size; to get outside more and just feel good.

I now work with a great team of independent fitness instructors as well as my full time emotional support coach…Geoffrey.