My health & fitness inspiration - Part I

There are two people I can credit with getting me into the whole exercise and health and fitness thing, and I am about to introduce the first lady who motivated me to get off my fat ass and do something!

Name: Danielle Hampton
Blog: www.sometimessweet.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/danihampton



I discovered Danielle's awesome blog through her Flickr photostream, and I can't actually remember how I found her Flickr. Probably through a tattoo group on there (as you will see if you visit her blog, Danielle has some of the most beautiful tattoos I've ever seen!).

I shouldn't like Danielle. She's the complete opposite of me. She's sweet (sometimes, according to her blog!), focused, positive, happy, healthy, clever and so pretty! So really, I should dislike her, or at the very least she should bug me, but she doesn't. I think she's an amazing young woman and she inspires me so much. Her blog isn't a health and fitness blog per se, but it features a lot because health and fitness is such a big part of Danielle's life.

Danielle was the first person I encountered who was young, cool, trendy (cool and trendy, OMG, that sounds so square!) who actually enjoyed exercise and talked about it and how beneficial she found it. I never came across ANYONE online or IRL who did that. I knew people who went to the gym or went running, but they all moaned about it. The fact that it was something you could enjoy, well that was a revelation to me.




Danielle has recently had a gorgeous baby boy, Henry, and she stayed fit and healthy through her entire pregnancy. She looked amazing (as always) and I even read that she exercised right the way up to her due date. This is definitely something I aspire to do should I ever fall pregnant. Before I'd have used it as an excuse to sit on my backside with my feet up and be waited on with plates of chips and chocolate bars and coffee for nine months. Now I would like to have a fit, wholesome pregnancy like Danielle.



After reading her blog for a while, maybe a year or so, I decided it was time for me to try out exercise to see if it was a good and fulfilling as Danielle said it was. And with that, I joined Curves.

After going to Curves for a few months, I felt like it wasn't really the gym for me (I'll go into this in another post) and I joined a "real" gym - the gym I'm at now, which has machines, weights, classes, pool, showers, changing room etc - and I have never looked back! I now LOVE exercising and I understand exactly what she means when she says its a natural anti-depressant.

Check out the blog for motivational hints and tips and info on what type of exercise Danielle does.

Danielle also posts super tasty recipes from time to time. Always nutritious and delicious and generally with ingredients that are easy to source (something important to me being in the UK and not always being able to get super exciting healthy foods like you can in the States), with nice easy to follow instructions and pictures, which is great for me since I'm not the most accomplished cook you'll ever meet (but I'm trying to learn!). She also knows how to treat herself so you will get the odd cookie recipe in there as well! :) Again, I think she takes a very balanced approach to her health and she isn't afraid to have a slice of pizza or pie every now and then.




Besides the health and fitness aspect of Sometimes Sweet I love it for the positive and happy outlook she has on life, as well as for her super cute outfits and general life updates!



All in all I genuinely don't feel I ever would've joined the gym and discovered what a joy exercise can be if I hadn't read Danielle's blog, so for that I'd just like to say a huge THANK YOU to Danielle for being so awesome and inspirational and if you haven't been there before, check out Sometimes Sweet!