Super Mum Christelle, Tossed Aside Years Of Self Doubt To Achieve Her Dream Physique

Christelle had been training for many years.

She had always enjoyed pushing hard in the gym, until her first pregnancy sadly ended in a miscarriage.

She blamed herself, thinking that her training had cost her the baby.

So when she fell pregnant again, she completely stopped training.

This abrupt change in activity levels caused her to rapidly gain weight until she just couldn’t recognise herself any more.

After her baby was born, Christelle returned to her training and lost some weight but she never got the results she was seeking.

All this time, she had been following Akash (RNT Founder) on social media and had been listening to the RNT podcasts.

And then one day, she decided to stop watching from the sidelines and get into the action: she signed up!

1. What were the series of moments that led to your “trigger” moment to begin your journey with RNT?

I first crossed paths with Akash back in 2016 when he was working in a gym in London

I was doing Group PT sessions there and while I did not speak to him directly I saw how he trained personally as well as how he trained other people. And I’ve been following him on Instagram ever since.

I had been training for about 10 years and I did shed a lot of weight during this time. However, I just couldn’t achieve the body of my dream. I put this down to the lifestyle I enjoyed while living in London.

I was partying and going out A LOT and I didn’t want to give that up (I was having WAY too much fun!).

I moved to Dublin at the end of 2018 and was still pretty active and joined a Crossfit club.

I got pregnant quickly after and so I stopped all activity except for walking.

When I was living in London I had fallen pregnant but it ended in a miscarriage. I had been training hard at that time so I think I unconsciously blamed myself for training too hard and assumed that was what caused the miscarriage.

So this time, I didn’t want to train at all. I ended up gaining about 20kg (thanks to my endless craving for pizzas, pastas and cakes).

I did not recognize my body when I left the maternity hospital weighing 80kg!

The birth was traumatic, with an emergency C Section, a 2 weeks hospital stay and back and forth trips to the hospital for the next 3 months.

And then, COVID hit.

I was very unhappy, feeling down and decided to contact an old trainer of mine to get back to my normal self.

I signed up to a gym and started walking more. I also started paying more attention to my nutrition. I got down to around 60kg and was feeling much better but still really didn’t push myself. I just wasn’t happy with where I was.

All this while, I was still following Akash and RNT on social media, I had also listened to pretty much all the podcasts.

That’s when the seed was planted in my head and started growing.

If all these people could do it, why not me? What was missing? I needed people that believed I could do it around me to guide me and support me and this is what I came to seek in RNT.

2. What were your biggest problems before starting RNT?

Without a doubt my nutrition! I did follow a nutrition plan for the first part of 2022 but I then eye-balled everything and stopped around September as my coach didn’t think I was in a good place to continue dieting.

This actually triggered something in me to stop training with this coach. I needed to work with someone who believed in me and my ability to do what it takes.

3. What has the process been like, and the biggest challenges and obstacles?

I was lucky to already have strong non-negotiables in place like my 4 times a week training (I LOVE strength training) and my 10K steps per day.

The only missing part for me was nutrition and education.

I listened to a lot of the RNT podcasts in 2022 during my walks and related to so many people’s stories.

The process has been fairly ‘easy’ to follow with great support from my coach.

Since I was doing this on my own, I needed a place where I could find like-minded people who could understand my journey.

Even though the people in my cohort were all on different levels, it was still motivating to have people root for me when it got tough.

4. How has the physical been the vehicle?

My life quite literally fell apart during The Grind. I got made redundant from work and entered a month-long consultation process, my car broke down 3 times, my daughter got sick.

Although all these were highly stressful, I decided to immerse myself into The Grind and put my rational brain to the side. I dived into the process and trusted in myself.

Instead of panicking, I became a lot more resilient and decided to play with the devil instead of giving up, like my old self would have done.

This whole grind has taught me that I am a lot more resilient than I thought I was.

I proved to myself that if I really want something: I CAN achieve it!

It has definitely helped improve my mental and physical health!

I am a meticulous planner and a bit of a control freak so my old self would have panicked and thrown in the towel, but not this time.

This time I decided to take ownership and worry about the things that were within MY control.

As a bonus, I also got my job back!

Trusting the universe (and RNT) was the best thing I could have done!

5. What almost kept you from joining?

The price was the only thing that got me thinking, but I’m SO GLAD I joined as even if I had coaches before I NEVER had this level of support and I would have NEVER been able to get to this physique without RNT.