50 miles in 21 days to raise money for Angels and Rainbows

One of our volunteers Natasha, decided to set herself a challenge in January. Here’s her story.

Before I became pregnant with my Angel baby Catarina in 2018, I was extremely into exercise and healthy eating. I was a size 10 and loved my healthy lifestyle. So much so, I carried on doing Aerobics, Pilates and walking, until I was 6 months pregnant and my constant hip pains made it very uncomfortable. Once I stopped exercising as much, I piled on weight during my last trimester. When I lost Catarina, I was determined to lose the baby weight, but being extremely depressed and comfort eating, made that a task I was just not able to do. I then fell pregnant again, 6 months later and had a beautiful Rainbow baby, our daughter Athena. So then I had two lots of baby weight I wanted to lose. I’d gone from a size 10 to a size 18.

The 310,000 steps in October challenge, helped me FINALLY get out of my Maternity Jeans and back into normal person jeans. So after Christmas, all the gorging on very unhealthy food, I decided to take the challenge a step further. As well as walking every day, I decided to give up all goodies and snacks for the whole month, as well as giving myself a minimum of 50 miles to walk. My lifelong friend Jodie Cheek heard about my challenge. She wanted to give me some support and to change her lifestyle, to get healthier. So Jodie joined me with the challenge. Jodie had been a massive support to me, in the immediate aftermath of losing Catarina. She used to contact me every day, to check on me. I have loved going for walks with Jodie and it’s been great to reconnect with her. She managed to do over 100 miles, I managed 69. Neither of us had any goodies or Snacks!! Between us, we raised £557!

We are so grateful to everyone that supported us and sponsored us! It really does mean a lot. After Christmas, I decided that I wanted to do something to help me get healthier and encourage me to go out on regular walks.