Hello, and welcome to Women’s Radio Station. I’m Dr Annette Greenwood, life coach and author. And on today’s show, Dr Annette talks, we are talking about how to look good, well, how to look young naturally.

What an exciting topic this is for many ladies out there who are listening and maybe men as well. My guest today is Zara Groves. Zara is 52.

She’s travelled the world and lives in North Wales. She’s a health, fitness and body confidence coach and has helped transform hundreds of ladies lives in the last 30 years. She can help you go from feeling unhappy, lethargic, hating what you see in the mirror, to loving every inch of yourself.

Zara’s clients are amazed at how quickly they decide to ditch the downy clothes, stop hiding and start exuding happiness. Zara’s mission is to help even more women over 45 to radiate health and confidence going inside and out. My God, I need to go and tip my wardrobe out now.

So welcome, Zara. I hope you’re okay on this fine day. Do you feel okay and ready to share some of your wonderful tips and story with us? Yeah, I feel amazing.

The sun is shining. What’s not to be happy about? Oh, well, it’s not so very sunny here in Dull North Yorkshire. So I need to pop over to where you are.

So what a bio you’ve got. And I know you’ve got some exciting things to share with us, but health, fitness, body confidence coach, transforming all those ladies lives and that idea of being able to look in the mirror and if people are hating themselves, to be able to come to you and you’re going to help transform that. And I’m guessing it’s not a quick journey.

It’s not a quick fix of anything. So you share with us, you know, about your journey, how maybe you became too, to be a fitness and body confidence coach. But just just just tell us a little bit about you and where you go with this and how you’ve been helping these ladies.

Okay, so I kind of started my journey back when I was 20 years old. And I was traveling the world and working in the summer resorts in Europe. And we were saving to go to Australia and Asia.

And that meant I had to come back to North Wales. And at the age of 23, or whatever it was, it was really boring, because I’d been all over the place. And that’s when I really got into exercise myself, because I was bored.

And I was working in the day as a secretary, I was working in the night nightclub. And in between, I was doing kickboxing and aerobics and all that sort of stuff. And then I kind of maybe I should do this exercise bit as a job.

And then I can get rid of one of my jobs. And I can get paid for the exercise. So that’s how the idea started.

I didn’t actually do anything until I arrived in Hong Kong in 1995. And that’s when I sat all my exams. And really, it’s funny, I listened to lots of people’s stories of how they started.

And it was always these really sort of profound things like helping ladies be happy and all this. And really, all it was was I loved music, and I loved jumping around to it. And I just thought I just need to be paid for it.

So that’s how I started. Just literally teaching martial arts classes, aerobics classes, loud music in clubs, on stages, and absolutely loved it. But then obviously, I got older, my ladies got older, and, you know, as the longer I was in the industry, I was like, okay, I think I need to learn a bit more.

And then that’s when I went down the nutrition route. And then I started personal training ladies. And as I say, probably in the last 10 years, it’s really sort of transformed, because obviously now all my ladies now were over 40.

And it was it’s not just the exercise anymore, there’s a whole big package that comes with women. Because it does break my heart, honestly, when I hear these ladies, and they just they just really beat themselves up, and they hate so many bits about themselves. And yeah, it just I then I just started studying more and more and more and more stuff.

And then my sort of most recent thing, obviously, I went through the menopause myself, or the perimenopause. So then when that started happening to me, I was like, what is happening? So then I started studying all about that, to help ladies through that part of their journey. And then the latest thing I’ve added on is all about your skin.

And really, that side of things is what it showed to me was with it, I’m always about getting people healthy from the inside out. That’s why I always was. But I found with doing things like the skin care and makeup, which I’ve added on, it was it’s an instant transformation.

So the instant transformation would then make ladies want to do more for themselves, because they felt better. Whereas the the inside out part of it, it just takes a little bit longer, it’s a little bit slower and can be a little bit painful. So it’s sort of mixing everything together.

I do now really, because what I want is ladies just to feel happy. Yeah, and if if you’re somebody who’s maybe because of the pandemic as well, Zara, this has hit a lot of people, hasn’t it? People not doing the normal exercise classes are not motivated enough. And not everybody can be motivated by doing it online.

I do appreciate that. And I like to have somebody face to face. So if you’re somebody who’s maybe gone into the menopause in the middle of the pandemic, because it’s a frightening experience.

I know, I know from my own experience, you don’t know what’s happening to your body. And all you know is things are changing, don’t you? And you’re not sure where to go with it. And if this is just my own personal experience, so, you know, tell me what you think if you are back in the day, when you went to the GP and said you’re in the menopause, it was like, well, so what? So what? Well, actually, so what doesn’t really help you if you’re depressed and frightened? I mean, things might have changed a lot more now, but I had to go through it and I chose to go through it naturally rather than HRT.

That’s not for everybody, but yourself, you know, being in the perimenopausal state and coming into the menopause next, it can be a real sort of a bit of a jerk for you in your life, isn’t it? Because you know, you’re at a certain stage, you know, maybe if you haven’t got children, you won’t be able to have children. And then you come into something like the pandemic as well. And you’re not doing anything to be able to help yourself.

And I guess the skincare and makeup would be great if you can get hold of somebody to do that. But when somebody is not all fair with IT or able to to come online, the face to face would be the best thing. So how would you work with somebody then who comes to you when they are feeling unhappy or lethargic and they hate what they see because they the makeup and skincare part of it is one thing, isn’t it? But as you say, you need to go dig a bit deeper into the reasons behind to help them move forward.

So how typically then would you would you work with somebody like that? There’s different sides of the coin, isn’t it? There’s somebody who’s unmultivated and really struggling, then you’ll get the others who are so motivated, you know, they want to be at it, you know, 24 hours a day. Yeah, I mean, the menopause thing, I mean, for me, I look back now and think I was quite lucky because I had this crazy anxiety come from nowhere where I didn’t want to leave the house. I thought I was going looping.

And then I went to see a doctor and I had a really good doctor. And he said to me, I think you’re going through the perimenopause. I was like, what? I’m way too young.

But I was 49. And then he put me on beta blockers for a week. The anxiety went away.

And then the minute I stopped them, it came back. And the anxiety meant that I didn’t want to stand on the stage in front of women. I’ve been doing this for nearly 30 years.

And then I got put, he put me on a combination pill and instantly I just reverted back to myself. So I realized that this really scary experience only actually lasted for about two and a half weeks. And so I now dealing with the ladies realize I was really fortunate because some ladies have been going through it for a long time when they’ve been struggling.

And the problem with the menopause is a lot of the symptoms can be associated with so many other things and not actually the menopause. And because they are hormonal based, some days it happens and some days it doesn’t. It’s because your hormones are constantly changing.

So when ladies are of a certain age, I know it can happen any age, but when I go into the average age of 45, I do send them off then to go and get themselves checked out. And lots of times I’ve had ladies come to me that have been on antidepressants and then I’ve got them sorted with their hormones and they’ve come off the antidepressants. So there’s that kind of conversation.

The majority of ladies who come to me, it’s always about weight loss. That is their first primary conversation that they have with me. They hate themselves because their overweight is generally the conversation we have.

But my goal is always to get them to change their daily habits and the way that they look at themselves. And I have to say, one of my programmes ended a couple of weeks ago and it was funny the feedback that I had from the ladies. Not one of them mentioned the weight that they’d lost and I knew that they had because I’d been keeping a record as we’d gone along.

Every conversation was how amazing they felt, how they could look in the mirror now. One lady said she ditched all of her dowdy clothes and pinned them or she’d taken them off to a charity shop and bought all new bright colours. So even though their primary thing is weight loss, I know it’s not.

I know if I had a magic wand and just suddenly changed your weight overnight, it’s not sort of dealing with your daily habits, it’s not dealing with the way you look at yourself, it’s not dealing with the understanding of your body. So I work on all of that side. But obviously, as they follow my programmes, because obviously there is nutrition and exercise in there as well, they do end up losing weight.

But what I realised with the skincare, because like I said, to do the health and the fitness, you’ve got to change your daily habits, it’s uncomfortable. I’m telling you to get rid of your 10 snacks a day that you have, which you’ve loved, you know what I mean? It’s all about putting you out with comfort zone. And then obviously, with exercise, that can physically hurt you.

And it takes time. With skincare, I can have ladies sit in front of me, I had one the other day, and she came around to see me. And her skin, she didn’t do anything with her skin.

And when I’d given her a facial and put all these lovely products on her, she couldn’t stop looking at herself in the mirror. She thought that she had makeup on, that’s what she felt she looked like. And she hadn’t.

And it was basically because her skin had been hydrated. And because it’d been hydrated, it was plumped out. And that feeling that she left with of like, oh my god, I look good.

It was when I can get somebody to feel I look good, then I know they’re going to do more things to make themselves look good. So when you feel crappy, you just sort of think, well, this is all a bit rubbish. So I might as well eat a whole chocolate cake as well.

Whereas if you’re feeling good, you think twice of that unhealthy thing that you’re about to do to yourself and think, oh, no, no, I’m not going to do that because I’m feeling really good today. And it’s a bit of a with women, it’s a very, if I can get you on the good track, you will do more good stuff. When you’re in that bad frame of mind and on the bad track, you just remain there.

So it’s trying to access them. And really, the best way for me is always to, I always have conversations with everybody first and assess where they’re coming from, assess what’s happening for them, how they’ve ended up there. Because the other thing is, everybody wants a quick fix with the weight loss.

And I try and explain to people, if you’re three stone heavier than you want to be, and you feel that you used to be, you didn’t become three stone heavier overnight. So don’t expect overnight that it’s going to go away. So just this is where the coaching comes in now with ladies, because I just feel that they need me talking to them and advising them and coaching them along the way to stick with it.

And isn’t that one of the things it’s this, you know, the modern world we live in with everything’s finger touch, isn’t it? You press a button and it’s all there. And like you say, it’s a really good point that if you’re three stone overweight, you didn’t become three stone overweight overnight, that’s been a gradual thing, whether it be through overeating, lack of exercise, snacks or something medical, because it’s not always about somebody’s diet, is it a lifestyle? But it’s interesting that you say that. And what I’m really encouraged by and what sounds really exciting, I think for ladies is the fact you’re saying, you know, this program that you’ve got, people have been doing that.

And they’ve never even mentioned the weight loss. The fact that they’re looking better, and they’re feeling better, and sometimes a few extra pounds isn’t a bad thing. It’s when it’s going into the stones, isn’t it? I guess some people are really, I mean, I don’t know what the classes are obese now, because they keep changing the goalposts, because I can look at somebody who looks totally okay to me and they’ll say, well, I’m classes obese, but they’re not.

It’s because the size and it really kind of, it winds me up a little bit, Zara, that it’s a one size fits all, isn’t it? You’re obese if you’re five foot four and you’re X, Y and Z, when actually you might be really healthy, because do you find that? I mean, do you find that everybody’s bodies are different and it’s not a one size fits all statement really, is it? Yeah, everybody’s body’s different. And I do wish the doctors would, because it’s so antiquated, where they do the body mass index, you know, they did it once on a whole load of American football players, and they all came up as obese, and they didn’t have an ounce of fat on them, but their thighs and their weight. But the one thing that I mean, as much as I train ladies to love their bodies, there is a very fine line between loving your body and then also abusing your body, because my goal is to get you healthy.

And there’s, I hear so many ladies that say to me, I can’t do this because of my health. I can’t do this 100% across the board. But a lot of illnesses that are out there these days are caused by you being unhealthy.

And they can be reversed, you know, type two diabetes, there’s so many things that can be reversed. But it’s always people like to make excuses and go, Oh, I would love to do that. But I can’t because and actually, you could make changes.

There’s lots of people and there’ll probably be people now screaming at this listening to the way, but you can make changes. I mean, the illness fibromyalgia that I hear that all the time now 10 years ago, I hardly ever heard that word. And it’s it’s I’m not saying it is an illness and people do suffer with it and they are in pain with it.

But everybody is completely different with it. And it’s an auto immune, but a lot of these are brought on, I truly believe by excess inflammation within your body and the inflammation within your body is caused by your bad choices of nutrition and exercise and exercise doesn’t have to mean go into a gym exercises movement. I meet a lot of people that don’t even move.

They sit down all day, and they might be tired at the end of the day, but also mental exhaustion is completely different. Unfortunately, we live in a society where people eat way too much ultra processed food. And that’s the foods where if you look at the ingredients, it’s just all names you’ve never even heard of.

I see people that don’t even drink a drop of water. They say they quench their thirst by their fizzy drinks, which is impossible. Then they’re sugary drinks and they’re not good for you.

Yet then they’ve got all these illnesses and you kind of go, God, if you just changed some of your habits, some of those illnesses would start to lessen and go away and the pains would. And I think personally, I think that people don’t understand how good their body could feel because they’ve just gradually got worse and worse over the years. And yes, it’s uncomfortable in the beginning.

And yes, it’s giving up what you think is a treat. But honestly, people have too many bad, unhealthy treats than what they actually need. Instead of being the 80% of the time you put good stuff into your body and you do good stuff for your body, they’re doing the bad 80% of the time and maybe a slither of good here and there.

And then the body is an amazing machine. If you had a car and something broke on your car, your car wouldn’t work. Whereas with your body, if something is breaking or failing, other systems will come in to override it, to help your body to still function.

And then it keeps going and keeps going and keeps going until finally it goes, okay, I can’t do it anymore. But so there is a very fine line in my theory between loving your body, whatever your shape and size to causing your body harm because it is carrying way too much body fat. And I’m talking way too much here now.

I’m not talking about you’re fluctuating a stone here and there. I’m talking about the carrying the four, five, six, seven, eight stone of excess body fat. It’s then causing damage to your body internally, which then turns into illnesses, which then turns into you do less and less, which then means your body gets worse and worse.

And there’s a fine line, I think. I think we should personally look after our bodies to the best of our ability. And there’s so many things that you can do that are good for your body that are free.

It doesn’t have to cost loads of money. Food, good food doesn’t have to cost loads of money. I know some does.

But there’s a lot of, you know, because I see a lot of people and they give me their food diaries. You know, I’m amazed by the amount of people that go out and buy coffees every day. I’m amazed by the amount of people that go out and have fast food deliveries every day.

And there’s a lot of people out there that do that and then say that they can’t afford to buy some fruit, for example, buy some vegetables. And, you know, it’s that there is a balance here sometimes. And isn’t there something there about the coaching and the mindset change and the fact that somebody feels uncomfortable? So this is my own belief with what I do with my own coaching work.

Somebody feels uncomfortable. And to take a step outside of that can be more difficult. So looking at what the goal might be, you know, the end result about how, you know, you’re going to feel amazing.

You’re going to feel more energized. It seems such a long way off. And so you’re having to break it down into little steps.

But it’s frustrating, isn’t it? Because, and you’re right, people might just, you know, go mad when they listen to this when it goes live. But the bottom line is, if you’re going out and buying a coffee every day, if you’re going to McDonald’s or you’re getting all that fast food stuff that I know they do a lot of these cheap deals. But at the end of the day, we’re not talking about not having a treat in our lives We’re talking about the eight to 20 rule where 80% of the time you eat as healthily as you can.

You have your fruit, your veg, your fiber, you have some exercise. And then maybe on a weekend, you do have a takeaway. You do have a bit of chocolate or a bit of cake.

So it’s more of a treat than it is the norm. And you can go, I mean, whether you love or hate supermarkets, you can go into places like Tesco’s and the others. And they are doing, I think there was something Tesco were doing a few weeks ago, it was about 18 pence for veg.

They were really selling it cheap to people to get to buy into it. You don’t have to spend a fortune. I mean, Iceland and all those, I’m sure even if you can’t get fresh veg, you can buy frozen veg.

If you buy a chicken, if you use the whole of the chicken and strip it back to the bones, you’re getting, you know, some reasonable meals out of that pulses and things like that. Do you do, do you offer recipes and things as well, Sarah? Or is it mostly about? Well, and the reason I say this with cooking is because I always classed myself as a pretty bad cook, really. And then what I’d done was learn to throw some things together easily.

And when I first started doing some of my online programs, I started doing some cooking with my ladies, and it was a small group. And that was a bit embarrassed, really. And they were like, these are really good.

Because my style of cooking is there’s hardly any measuring to do. It is really chucking it in. And it’s even as simple as, you know, I don’t, I don’t do batch cooking, because who’s got the time to do extra batch cooking, but what I do do is if I cook something, I make more of that thing.

And then whatever’s leftover gets frozen. So for example, I found out that I could make a Thai curry by literally a can of coconut milk, and then a scoop of Thai curry paste. And that’s it, that’s your curry done.

And then in my freezer, I’ve always got frozen veg. So on those days where you’re being really, really lazy, I can go to my freezer. When I make the curry sauce, I will freeze some of it.

So I can pull out a frozen curry sauce, I can pull out some frozen veg. I do have a rice cooker, I bought that years ago, best invention ever. I make a whole load of that in one go and then freeze it.

So I’ve got homemade two minute rice in the microwave. And then I don’t actually eat meat. So I chuck in either some frozen prawns or some frozen veg into that curry sauce when it’s when it’s heating up.

And that is your curry made and the rice goes in the microwave. So I started showing these to ladies of how simple we could make these things. And they were like, and they’re so tasty.

And it’s a fraction of the price. So I, for example, if I wanted to go and get a prawn curry from my local takeaway and rice, I am talking about eight pounds for that. Now, a batch of frozen prawns is about three pound 50 for a batch.

And rice is pennies, you know, and frozen veg is a couple of quid each for a big bag of veg each and it’s in your thing. So it will make lots. So this is what I mean with money and speed.

It’s just initially a bit of effort, isn’t it, and getting used to it. It doesn’t have to be. I understand if you want to go out and get smoked salmon and avocados.

Okay, then we’re getting a bit more pricey then. But there’s no reason not to have meals that you can make. And especially if you’re making for a family and you just make more of it.

Like if you’re making a chili con carne from scratch. I mean, from what I gather, that’s just mints and tomatoes and some spices. And then you freeze what’s left over.

And then you have got the microwave ready meals, but they’re your home cooked ones. So I try with ladies to show these simple things like omelets and stir fries. And they’re everything that you just chuck into pans.

And I’ve started cooking a lot with to show people tins of stuff. So tins of your pulses, tins of this, tins of that. So again, they’re not expensive.

They’re in your cupboard. And you can literally go to your cupboard. And within it’s, you know, to make that Thai curry from scratch, even if it wasn’t frozen, I can make that faster than a delivery can get to me for a fraction of the price.

So there is ways around it. And it’s just changing habits. And it has to a lot of my popular programs, the two week ones, because they’re a big kick at the bum, they throw you in it, mentally, women go, oh, it’s only two weeks, I can do two weeks, it’s only two weeks.

And because I throw you in, in that two weeks, you feel better, you see some weight loss results, I’ve given you some cooking tips, and then you kind of go, okay, this isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be kind of a thing. And I always say to people that, you know, if you wake up one day, and you have chocolate cake for breakfast, chocolate cake for lunch, chocolate cake for tea, it doesn’t matter. It’s a day, it’s life, it’s what you do the next day, whether you then choose to wake up the next day and repeat the bad habits, or kind of go, no, that was yesterday, I’m going to start today, good again.

And do you find, well, again, it’s all personal experience. And do you find because I similar to what you’re saying there, I’ve got, I do eat meat, but not a lot. I eat more vegetables and pulses, and I’ve got like a little recipe.

And all it is is, I think it’s a tin of tomato, some celery, some herbs, what else is in there? Not linseeds, the orange things that will come back to me. Yeah, lentils, and you just chuck those lentils in, it simmers for about 10 or 15 minutes, and you’ve got about four, four or five bowls of soup. And there’s a lot of nutrition in there.

And it is about those habits, isn’t it? Those, those little habits and just one habit change. Because when you say to somebody, okay, you’ve got four or five or six stone to lows, that’s a massive goal, isn’t it? If you’re saying we’re starting with one thing, and that one thing is something really small, where you might go for a five minute walk every day, and you are just changing, you’re having some fruit for your breakfast or something like that. It doesn’t seem as unrealistic, does it? As when you’re saying, wow, we’re on a six month program, this is what’s going to happen.

This is what’s going, that is just too much for somebody’s mind to take in. And it’s the thing is that people have this mindset, because I do run all various programs, and my longest one is a 90 day program, because the theory is, after me coaching you for 90 days, other than the exercise side, you should now know what to do. But people do kind of go, oh my God, that’s that’s way too long to be healthy for which is quite funny, isn’t it? Because you’re either unhealthy or you’re healthy.

Do you know what I mean? It’s, you know, your body, your body constantly fluctuates. And what I try to get people is because they do kind of go, I want to lose, I want to go from a size 22 to a size 12. And it’s like, should we just try and get you from a size 22 to a size 20? You know, let’s just let’s we just get those steps.

Or if you want to be at you can’t walk around the block without being out of breath. Let’s see if we can get you, you know, half around the block without being out of breath. And it’s you’ve got to remember, it’s the, it’s the little steps along the way that then they get a bit easier.

So once they get a bit easier, you do a little bit more. And then once that gets a bit easier, you do a little bit more. And it’s, it’s it’s the when people kind of get to the end of a week, and they’ve starved themselves for a week, and they’ve killed themselves physically for a week.

And they go, Oh, my God, I’ve only lost a pound. That’s it. I’m giving up.

And it’s trying to get rid of that mindset and going to know what, let’s just start with some smaller things. So you’ve told me you have McDonald’s five times a week, and you have pizza three times a week. Okay, let’s see if we can get that to maybe one pizza a week and maybe three McDonald’s a week.

Let’s see if we can cut that back. And let’s replace some of those with something a bit healthier. Let’s replace those two liters of coke you drink every single day, with maybe some orange squash, let’s do these little small habit changes.

And it’s and it’s crazy that people don’t realize that there comes a point where it’s really tough. But you have to push through the toughness. And then all of a sudden, you realize, oh, actually, I don’t miss that two liters of coke every day.

I don’t even think about having the coke every day. I’m really happy with my orange squash. Actually, now I might change some of my own squash to just water.

And it’s it’s but people don’t go long enough. They do it for a week, or they do it for whatever. And they do crazy things for a week.

And they expect these crazy results with their body. And then when it doesn’t happen fast enough, they go, Oh, that’s rubbish. It’s not working.

And they give up. And that’s why they’ll you’ll hear so many ladies say, I’ve tried every diet in the book, and none of them work. And I can guarantee you, they’ve probably only done it for a week or two weeks, or maybe four weeks, I mean, and then they’ve reverted back.

And it’s, you know, if somebody was starting a brand new business, you wouldn’t expect them from opening a business one day to earning 100 grand a year in a couple of weeks time. So why do we expect to go from having our bodies like this one day, and within a week, it’s turned into El McPherson from the body? Yeah, yeah. And the thing you said earlier about how we treat our bodies, it’s almost sounds a strong word.

But in some cases, it’s about abusing your own body, isn’t it? And, you know, you’re talking about, you know, like that, the three litres of coke, the McDonald’s, the pizzas, I mean, what that must be doing to your body and to actually just to give yourself that instruction to say, I’m going to stick with this because I want to feel better. The motivation for this is I want to be able to walk around the street, around the block, I want to be able to walk up a hill, I want to be able to walk to a 300 yards without being out of breath, because going to the doctors and I’d seen something yesterday in a newspaper as I was in town, that they’re bringing out this new pill, is it to reduce obesity? Well, all right, so the pill isn’t going to give anybody motivation and what the side effects going to be. And the other side of, you know, being overweight and all the rest of it, all those things that come with it, there’s a mental health side as well.

So if you start exercising and you start feeling better and feeling more energised, to be able to feel more energised is amazing. You know, I do chigong as you know. And to me, that’s one of my go tos.

But to just feel a bit more energy, surely that’s got to be better than reaching for a bag of crisps. But I know that’s a fine line between this is what I’m going to do, because this is what made me feel better. But actually, it’s short term, isn’t it? Yeah, and I think the problem is with all these quick fixes, as in like any kind of surgery or any kind of pills, is it’s not accessing what’s actually going on mentally, because if you are carrying like, I’m not talking now you fluctuate in a stone or half a stone, but if you’re carrying really excess body fat, you’re consuming an awful lot of calories to be able to maintain that body weight, and you’re not moving very much.

So what is going on in your head? Because I’ve met ladies that have had gastric bands, and I’ve had ladies that have had tummy tucks, and they haven’t dealt with the head thing. And there’s a lady that I met, and she’d had a tummy tuck, and that tummy is flat at the front, but she calls them herself. She has saddlebags on either side, because she never changed her nutrition.

She never changed her daily habits. So, I mean, I met a lady once in an airport, and she said to me, and we only got chatting because we had the same coat on, and she said to me, oh, I’ve had a gastric band, and I went, oh gosh, how was that sort of a thing? And then she said to me, and really, when you have them, it means that you can’t eat very much, and you definitely can’t drink alcohol and eat at the same time, but I’ve worked out that I can eat Doritos and drink alcohol at the same time, and it doesn’t make me sick. Listening, thinking, you’ve gone through surgery, to lose body fat, to make your eating habits better, but all you’ve done is found cheap ways to get the rubbish in you without assessing, why am I doing this to myself? I have met ladies that drink two litres of coke a day and say to me, I don’t eat very much, I don’t understand it.

To me, coke is just poison. It’s horrible stuff. It’s full of chemicals and sugar, and other than the people that like it and the flavour, that’s all it’s got going for it.

It’s crazy some of the stuff I hear. I know that when we get older, we hit the menopause, that changes the things that we could do in our 20s. We can’t get away with it in our 50s.

I understand all of that. There is changes, but unfortunately, I think there’s too many people that blame other stuff for why they are unhealthy and gaining weight and feeling ill without actually assessing the problem, which is basically, they’re just not treating themselves very well. I have ladies on the phone to be crying because of the way they look and they feel, and some ladies won’t even work with me because they kind of go, yeah, no, it’s not for me after all.

In my head, I’m like, oh my God, you’ve just been crying on the phone. You’re so unhappy. Yet, by me trying to make some small changes with you to get you started, you won’t do it.

Yet, you’re literally at constant unhappiness. Ladies might not like to hear what you’re saying, and I agree with what you’re saying. It’s a similar thing, isn’t it? Because it’s about taking personal responsibility and saying it doesn’t work or it can’t work before you’ve even tried it or given up on yourself.

That’s something that people need to work on, isn’t it? And keep going and keep going, because without people who’ve got that determination and that motivation, and sometimes you can’t do it on your own, sometimes you need a coach to help you bounce things off, to help change your mindset, to help you see things differently. It’s like having a road map, isn’t it? And you follow the road map. And so it’s so disheartening when I hear people say, well, it doesn’t work and I’m not even going to try them.

They’re calling themselves names. And I mean, that’s not a good place to be in, but that responsibility has to come from the person. It can’t be with you.

It can’t be with me. It can’t be with the GP. And to keep, you know, the gastric band idea, I don’t know what the cost of that is to the NHS.

And similarly, I knew somebody who had a gastric band and then they’d go out and eat a cream cake and then say they couldn’t eat the tea. And so you are, you’re kind of going, well, I’m not quite sure where you’re going with this because you’ve gone through all this trouble to have this operation and not taking any responsibility. But something that I know there’s a couple of things that I wanted to ask you about.

One of them is about you had a TV programme or a TV show. Are you a part of something? Was it this year? Yeah, it was called Take a Hike. It was filmed last year and it aired this year on BBC.

So it’s still there on iPlay. And in fact, it repeated recently. And that was such good fun.

So good fun. I mean, I’ve never, I’ve been on TV before, little small things, but never been on like a TV production. So be with a sort of film crew and to be with the whole day and to really see behind the scenes what happens and to then see it aired.

It was it was brilliant. And the people I was on with the crew were amazing, all the other contestants. And it’s for those who haven’t seen it, it’s like come, it’s like come down with me, but it’s walks.

So there’s five contestants and we all take each other on our favourite walk. And our area was in Wales and it was just amazing. It was the best thing ever.

And I wish I could do it again. It sounds I can hear the energy of your voice. It sounds super exciting to have been part of that.

And so like a mini show or something like that would be brilliant for you. I’ve no doubt at all because when people see it and people can see lives being transformed, that’s when they they want to try it for themselves. And I know in your own life, it’s not all, you know, all lovely diet, fitness and exercise and feeling joyful all the time.

I really it was it was a trauma in your own life, wasn’t it? About about a fire, how somebody put a fire bomb through your letterbox. Would you like to sort of share a bit of that with us? I’m interested to know how you how you kept yourself on track with that, because that’s a that is a scary thing to happen. Yeah, and it’s just going before us, I’ll lead into it.

But just this happened in the March last year. But in December, was it of the October of the year before? So what year we 23 to 21. A lady had cut me fat.

Now, I was a size 12. At the time, I still am a size 12. And I was probably just bulging out the size 12.

And it was a lady had been talking to a friend of mine. And she said, Oh, I’m going to book that Zara. And then she saw a picture of me and decided not to, because she deemed me to be too fat.

And she had put on a few pounds and just kind of thought, Oh, it’s getting older. I mean, I’m still only a size 12. So I was by no means, I was no, I was not fat at all in the slightest.

But it did give me a bit of a shake up. And I thought, Oh, do you know what, I am now gonna so I put it out there and went right in the new year. And I’ve gone to Mexico to see my brother.

And when I come back, I’m gonna put myself on my own program. And I am going to practice what I preach. And so I put myself on my own program.

And this is how I know exactly at the age of what I would have been last year. 52 now 51, then and I know exactly what you’re going through, because there was this bit of light started off all easy. And then I did hit this block of because I’ve given up alcohol for 90 days, because I had through lockdown started drinking more and more and more red wine, which then meant I was eating more and more crisps and cheese and crackers and all those you know, the snacking stuff.

And I hit a block where I was like, Oh my god, this is so boring. And only because of my sheer determination, I thought, Well, I’m not giving up yet. Anyway, this is where I knew the feeling of the daily habits.

So I’m on this 90 day program. And I’d had a challenge with my brother as well not to drink for 90 days. So this was all rolled in together.

And I was on about week nine of this nice day program. By this point, I’m feeling amazing. I mean, I’m like, Oh my god, this is amazing.

I’m not missing any of these snacks. This is my new normal. I’m like, Oh my god, this is what I’ve got to get across to people.

I now know it. I now completely understand it. And one day I was in my house on the 24th of March heard this almighty bang, open my middle door.

And if it hadn’t been for that middle door and the way I opened it, I do believe that I would not be here today. Because when I opened the middle door, this flame, this huge, huge flame just came rushing into my house. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.

I screamed, I slammed the door shut. And I was the panic that was going through me and the complete bewilderment because you know what the hell was going on. And my first thought was I need to put the fire out.

So I turned around to grab water. At that point, the middle door blew off its hinges. And I’ve got a window right as soon as you come into my kitchen, and the window just started cracking as if it was going to smash.

So I luckily had a back door, grabbed the keys, ran out the back, called the fire service. And luckily they lived near me. There were so many in such a horrible horrendous situation.

There were so many luckies. Lucky no one else was in the house. My friend had left about an hour earlier with her dog.

So God knows what had happened. Lucky my niece and nephew weren’t staying over. So many luckies.

And the biggest one, lucky I didn’t, if I’d been in my lounge and come to open the door, I would have been burned from head to toe. Whether I would have survived it, I don’t know, but I would have been really, really, really badly injured. I know that for a fact, because the damage that was done to my house was done within 15 minutes.

So that was the beginning. That was March last year. It has been probably, the last 15 months has probably been the worst that I’ve ever, ever, ever had to experience.

It’s been a constant battle. It’s been a constant battle with my own mental health, not to allow it to slide. I can’t tell you the amount of days that I have been lying there crying.

And because I coach people on their mental health and how to help them, I basically used every tool in my arsenal on myself. I had lots of holistic therapies being done to me. One of the things I’d got into in the lockdown was cold water swimming.

And I was pretty much in that sea every single day. Some days I’d be crying, my eyes are in that sea. And if anybody does follow me on my social media, you’ll see that all my social media is always me happy, always me positive.

So I had to make a decision. It was about eight or nine weeks in after that it happened. Apparently the first two weeks I was like a zombie, friends were feeding me, dressing me, telling me to get in the shower.

They said there was nobody at home. I was just literally awake. And that lasted for a good two to three weeks.

And then when I sort of came round, because all my work was online, all my work was in my house, my house was destroyed. My house was unlivable for six months. I had no house insurance.

So it was pretty much a GoFundMe raised about £8,000 by a couple of friends. It was the help of friends, family, strangers coming and doing jobs for me to even to work on to get the house livable. I had to make a decision.

Lots of people told me that what I should have done, or should do back in the time was go to the doctors, take medication. I was offered it. I refused it because I was, A, I don’t take any medication for anything.

And I prefer to treat anything the holistic way, the natural way, if I can. I’m not anti-medication anywhere. I will take it if it’s necessary, but I’ll always try the natural way.

But one of the biggest reasons why I didn’t take it was because I was told by the doctor that I would feel a lot worse for at least six to eight weeks before I’d even start to feel any better. And I thought at the time, I can’t possibly be any worse. I’m barely keeping myself going here.

I then thought, I did lose a lot of my clients because obviously I wasn’t delivering my work. I can’t blame them. And I knew that if I came back to my work and had to deliver, I’ve done my job for almost 30 years standing on stages.

It’s almost a bit like an actress sometimes. I know that I can turn it on. So I realized if I actually got back to work and tried to coach the best I could, I was filming outdoors because I’d know it’s a film.

I knew it would help me because I would have to turn on for that however long it took with each client or whatever I was doing. And it would snap me out of the mental place I was with. And I was running.

I was having holistic therapies. I was having counseling. I just wasn’t having it from the NHS because I was on a waiting list.

It took me six months to get to the NHS counselor, which by the time he got to see me, he realized that his former counseling wasn’t going to work with me because it was this EMDR and it’s where they bring the trauma back into your mind. And he was like, oh my God, you not only talk the talk, you walk the walk. He said what you have done to yourself is amazing.

And he recommended that I didn’t continue with that type of counseling. I still am having energy healing and all sorts done to me. And the one thing I, when this all happened, like I said, I was on week nine of this, no drinking lark.

And I realized then that if I’d have had a drink, I would have gone massively the wrong way. I knew to keep my health and my sanity and everything, I had to stick with the going for the runs, the training, the people, the swimming in the sea, the not drinking the alcohol, because some days it was so hard to get out of bed. And it’s been ongoing.

Honestly, I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. And lots of people say to me and I try and look at the positives. I’ve got a lovely new kitchen now.

But the trauma I went through to get to the kitchen, I don’t, at the moment still can’t find the benefits of why this happened because I always think things happen for a reason. The court case was ongoing, it was on, it was off, it was on, it was off. It took until February this year for the court case to come.

The man basically has been detained in a mental hospital indefinitely, but there’s no minimum sentence. The judge said that she wasn’t going to award me any compensation because he had no means to pay. So all the credit card debt, everything that I’ve had to go through to get my house to level it out at the moment, it’s not finished, it’s all on my shoulders.

I did have a CICA claim going on. They wrote to me two weeks ago, which I am going to appeal, in a nutshell said, we don’t feel you’ve been through enough mental trauma to compensate. And it does make you think, and it’s because I didn’t do the things, because I didn’t take the medication, because I wasn’t on the phone to the doctors, because I didn’t go on sick pay, because I didn’t do all of those things I should have done, basically, because I wasn’t a drain on the NHS.

And because I got on with it and did things my way, they feel I haven’t had enough mental trauma. So they don’t feel they need to compensate me. And you do have to think, Jesus, what does a person have to go through? But before somebody’s out there, if these big organisations kind of goes, I think this woman could really do with a bit of help.

So yes, with everybody that says they can’t do these things for different reasons, you can, I know you can, because I’ve just done probably the hardest thing that anybody would ever have to go through and still continued with looking after myself and not allowing myself to slip into despair. And I could have really wallowed and ate junk food and drank loads of booze and stayed in my bed. But where would I be now? And you’re saying there, and just listening to that, it’s so empowering, and it’s so inspirational for other people, myself included, to hear how you’ve managed that, and you’ve come through that.

And what’s shocking is the fact that you’ve almost been told that you had to go down the route of you want medication to make it look like you weren’t able to cope. And that’s a concern, isn’t it? Because that is around, no wonder NHS services are stretched. If people are being encouraged to deal with everything that happens in life by going down the route of taking a tablet.

I’m not saying in some cases that’s not necessary, not at all. But you had family and friends who you said supported you and helped you through those very dark days. But ultimately, you were the self-discipline that you needed to be able to come through that.

And as you say, it’d be so easy, and we all know people who’ve done this, where you just go to the supermarket, you buy a bottle, and you sit there and drink your way out of it. That is not the answer. The answer is not in the bottom of a bottle.

And what’s even more sad is that because you didn’t have insurance, you weren’t able to get your house back together. And so every time you walk into that new kitchen, you’re reminded of how you got it. But I do feel that because you’ve come through this journey, because you’ve come through this trauma, and all those difficulties and challenges it brought, and the fact that you actually did your own program and pulled on all your resources shows that this stuff works.

It works. There’s no two ways about it. I do think that if you, this is what I say to ladies, look, all you’ve got to do is trust me and join me, and then follow the advice.

I’m not saying you’re going to follow it 100%, because who does, do you know what I mean? I know that if I have a program where I’ve got a workout every single day, no one’s going to do the 14 days worth of workouts, but in 14 days. But if you do 80% of what I deliver, you will get the things. And I go in through that, and I ended up, through all that period, losing about a stone and six pounds.

And then I kind of said to everybody, see, don’t come to me. This is what I mean. Don’t come to me with excuses of I’m getting older, it’s the menopause, it’s this, it’s that, it’s the other.

I understand all these things. I’m not belittling any of anybody’s traumas or body issues or anything. I’m not, I’m not at all.

What I am saying is, is you can make the changes. You can, if you’re determined to, you can make the changes. I know it won’t be an easy journey.

And no, nothing is a straight line. It’s up and down, up and down, up and down. But you, if you, if you, if you have a plan, if you have a goal, if you really are unhappy and you want to make changes, you can do it.

But you do need a coach. I mean, obviously I don’t need a coach in fitness and nutrition, because I know it myself. But what, through that period, what I did have, A, I’ve done it with my brother who was also a coach.

We’d set each other the challenge. So we held each other accountable. And on the days when, before the fire, when I was going, Oh my God, this is boring.

I just want to go and get red wine and have crisps and nachos and stuff. He’s like, don’t do it. Don’t do it.

Don’t do it. So that was where the accountability held in with the trauma of my fire. I was, I am, I do with all of this still think I’m really lucky because it could have been so much worse.

And I was so lucky with all of the friends and family that literally came and helped me and loads of strangers helped me. And when I say strangers, they probably know me from social media, but we don’t actually, we’ve never met and had a coffee or anything. The amount of people that came out in support and help was unbelievable.

You know, and I’ve said through every newspaper thing I’ve done, every interview I’ve done for that one act of evil, I had thousands of acts of kindness to counteract it. So I still, it still cemented my belief that this world is a good place. There’s just some bad things that happen in it.

And obviously the bad things get highlighted, don’t they? And so, you know, like Tesco shops of cans of beer and things to have a beer in the gut, you know, all this sort of stuff. Like it was, it was beautiful, what people did to help me. But, you know, with the, and this is why when I hear excuses by people when they’re unhappy, I’m like, okay, but you, everybody, every in this country, we choose what we eat.

We choose what we buy. We choose what we eat. We are fortunate enough that we don’t live in a place where we have to eat what we’re given.

Do you know what I mean? Everything we choose to cook, everything we choose to buy in the supermarket, everything we choose to put in our mouth is our choice. And we’re constantly on a sliding set scale. And yes, me eating a cream cake today is not going to affect me today.

But if I had a cream cake every single day or two a day, eventually it’s going to affect me. And we’re constantly on this sliding scale. So every choice we make is a sliding scale towards a healthier version of us or an unhealthier version of us.

And if you kind of get that in your head, and every time you go to do something and just take a second to think, A, do I really, really want this if it’s something unhealthy? Do I really, really want that glass of coke right now when I’ve already had one already? And sometimes you’ll kind of go, no, actually, I don’t. And B, is it going to benefit me? Is this in my long term goal of the imaginations I have in my head of where I can run around with the grandchildren and I can go to my wardrobe and everything in my wardrobe fits me. I don’t have to cherry pick what fits me at the moment.

Is this going to help me towards that goal or not? And if the answer is no, don’t do it. Change it. Absolutely.

And there’s those that empowering choice or disempowering choice. And that’s what you’re talking about. And I just, I don’t want to forget this because I want to make sure that people can know where to get hold of you.

So how can people get hold of you, Sarah, if they want to speak to you or if they want to do one of your programs or just find out more about what you do? Well, luckily, I’ve got an unusual name. So it’s Zara Groves, Z-A-R-A-G-R-O-V-E-S. And if you Google that, you can pretty much find me everywhere.

All of my social media is my name, Zara Groves. I think Instagram is, I am Zara Groves. But pretty much everything else, YouTube, Facebook, everything, just put in Zara Groves and you’ll find me.

My website is ZaraGrovesFitness.co.uk. I’m quite easy to find, really. And for people who want to do some one-to-one coaching with you, I’m making an assumption here that you do it online and by phone or Zoom or Skype or whatever. So does it work as effectively as somebody seeing you face-to-face? It doesn’t make any difference whether you see me face-to-face or whether you do me online.

Most of the stuff I run is groups because I personally prefer groups to one-to-ones. I do do some one-to-ones, but I prefer groups simply because in my experience, if I put a group of ladies together, so say, for example, they join my two-week tone, it’s all run within a Facebook group. These ladies start interacting with each other and these ladies start inputting their own little bits of stories and their own bits of where they found this hard today or they found this easy.

And they start chatting with each other. And I find that that works so much better because if I say things, I know that it’s a bit like that, oh, it’s all right for you. You do this all the time.

Whereas when they’re talking to other ladies that are all new to it, they’re realizing that these other ladies are going through the same experience as them and then they feed off each other. And I find that I get much better results with the ladies when they’re interacting with each other than just me on their own because it’s almost like they feel like they’re on the journey with somebody else is in a similar position. So everything I do is online.

I do come out face-to-face to do things like, for example, this weekend, I’m at a fitness festival and I’m going to be talking. So I like doing all those things. So I get booked for things like that.

But most of my programs is online. So there are either two-week programs, 90-day programs, an ongoing membership. I’ve got all sorts.

So all the people need to do really is contact me. We’ll have a chat and then I’ll be able to gauge what I think is best for them because some people come to me and they’re already pretty healthy and pretty fit. They just want to take it to another level.

Some people come to me and they haven’t exercised either ever in their life or they haven’t exercised for years and they’re really starting from scratch. So it depends on where the lady is really. And then I guide them and say, okay, I think this will suit you best or I think this will suit you best.

So if you’re wanting to begin this journey, so it doesn’t matter where you are on your own journey, whether you’re 40, 50, 60 and beyond, whether you’re overweight, whether you eat healthily, you can start the journey with you, whether it be for two weeks or longer. But the thing is to keep mentioning this all the way through this discussion about blame, blaming other people. I’m not doing it because of my kids.

I’m not doing it because of the school. I’m not doing it because of sometimes in life, things do get in the way like what happened with you. And that’s a genuine life challenge, but you’ve not made it as an excuse into not turning your life round or to continue towards your goals and aspirations.

And that’s one of the things, isn’t it, about blaming other people and self-blame. You just got to get up and keep moving forward. So people who are frightened to make the journey, they just have to take the steps.

Am I right? Yeah, and I’ve teamed up with another lady who is a similar age to me. He was amazing. And we are running a meno fits programme.

So this is specifically now targeted to ladies that are hitting that perimenopause and they want more advice around that subject. So yeah, there’s so much for you to choose from and there’s so much. And you’ve just got to start.

You’ve just got nothing I do is expensive. You know, if I, I mean, one of my lady I met, she bought a coffee from, you know, one of the big one Starbucks costs or one of those every single day. We worked out that she was spending just under a hundred pounds a month on take away coffees.

So I know, you know, it’s just when it comes to money, and I understand before anybody screams that they’re listening to this, you know, the world isn’t the money. I understand all that. I mean, we’re all in the same boat with bills and things, but everybody has priorities of where they choose to spend their money.

If you spend your money. I’ve just got to hop in now because we’re on the last few seconds. I know it’s big.

I know. I mean, I’m just going to finally say thank you to Zara Groves. You’ve been so enlightening and inspiring.

So thank you for tuning in to Doctor Annette Talks today. Please check us out at Women’s Radio Station. Please look on Instagram, Women’s Radio Station, LinkedIn and all the usual social media accounts.

But Zara, you’ve been so inspirational. I can sit here and say I feel energised by what you’ve had to say. We have to say goodbye now and we’ll speak to you again soon.