Who am I?
My name is Frédérique (Fred) Shaw. Born and bred in France, I came to the UK to work as an au pair over 20 years ago and immediately fell in love with London. After working in PR and marketing, I moved into Human Resources. There I specialised in Learning & Development and qualified with a diploma from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
A couple of years ago, I was diagnosed with high functioning anxiety. I had suffered from the condition my entire life without realising. It was never a problem until a mix of busy work and home lives made me feel like I was losing control of my life.
I started seeing a therapist who helped me put the focus back on myself. I quit my job and took time off to reassess who I was and what I loved. What I realised through that process was that my lifestyle (what I ate, the type of exercise I did, how much I slept, what I did in my spare time) had a much bigger impact on my moods and overall wellbeing than I had originally thought. One by one, I looked at these aspects of my life and made changes for the better.
In the process, I rediscovered the real me. It’s not been easy and it’s not happened overnight. But that’s ok.
Life – there are so many boxes to tick these days
We need to be successful at work, in a loving relationship, have brilliant children, lots of friends and stay fit. We must look slim, young and beautiful. We need to be mindful, practice relaxation and yoga. We must have a perfect home that is clean and tidy at all times. We can’t eat carbs or meat. We must be intellectual and witty, extrovert and thoughtful. I could go on and on…
My fitness journey
I was a late developer. I only truly got into exercise in my mid-30s. Before then I was the true stereotype of the French girl who eats what she wants and does no exercise whatsoever. This is where the stereotype ends though as I was starting to put on weight… So I reluctantly started exercising a couple of times a week, attending a few classes at the gym, focusing on cardio and building up to 5km runs. I had little clue what I was doing, but it made me feel better about myself.
It’s after I became a mum and when work became really stressful that I realised how much exercise mattered to me. It helped me better cope with stress but was also an opportunity to have time to myself again, away from being a partner and mum. I wasn’t getting any results from training by myself, so I started exercising with a personal trainer. Over a couple of years, my body and mindset changed in ways I didn’t think possible. So much so that I became a personal trainer myself. Today, I feel that I can do anything I set my mind to.
No diet fads – make better choices using the knowledge and science that underpins key nutritional principles
I grew up in France with a mostly Mediterranean diet. Every meal was eaten at the table with the rest of the family, and usually consisted of 3 or 4 courses with lots of fruit and vegetables – and no snacking. I was slim, healthy, picture perfect. However, as I grew older, busier and more stressed, I chose more convenient and richer foods and kept eating as much as I used to when I was younger. Unsurprisingly, I started putting on weight. I worked in restaurant PR and was out socialising all the time, so a big part of the weight gain was down to the food choices I was making, and the quantities I was eating – and drinking…
I tried everything – cutting down how much I was eating, exercising more. But nothing worked until I started being kinder to myself. I went back to basics and incorporated the simple principles that I had grown up with. I lost the extra weight in 6 months without scuppering all the hard work from the gym. This made me keen to understand more about how to best fuel my body. I decided to learn more about nutrition to support people who want to make better choices but may lack the knowledge and science that underpins key nutritional principles.