Balance Festival

Oops - I'd hoped to post this sooner but life and procrastinating got in the way! 

A few months ago I finally thought "sod it" and bought myself a ticket to Balance Fest. I'd never been to anything like this before so was intrigued and a few of my favourite bloggers were on the line up. So even though it meant travelling to London (not a big deal for some I know!) and going on my own, I didn't want to use these as excuses to not do something that I wanted to do! 


So what is Balance Festival?

Well I wasn't totally sure tbh! It's described as the "UK's largest celebration of fitness and wellness". 

What this effectively means (as I now!) there's lots of different fitness classes, various talks and lots of different fitness and food brands in one place for three days! 

I had looked at the line up and decided to go on Sunday as this was when I hoped to catch some of my favourite bloggers and be a fan girl! 

On the Friday I happened to mention to a friend that I was going and she decided to come along with me. This not only meant I had company for the day (life is better with friends) but also that I didn't have to solo navigate the tubes!!!

I had booked on to an ab class taught by Carly Rowena (www.carlyrowena.com) (I don't even like ab workouts but may have a slight girl crush on Carly!) and a HITT class with Zanna Van Dijk (www.zannavandijk.co.uk) - however I didn't actually go to either! 

When it came to booking my trains, I realised that I was going to have to seriously rush to get from Waterloo to Shoreditch to make it in time. Not knowing how long the tubes would take, if I'd have to queue to get in to Balance Fest etc, meant that I made the decision not to stress about it and just see what happened. Maybe I could have made it if I rushed but the journey was more enjoyable without worrying, but this did mean that I missed the class! 

The other class I was meant to do was later in the day so can't blame the trains for missing that one! But as I had unexpected (but very appreciated) company with me and had been able to tell that my ankle was getting worse so didn't think a HITT class was the best move - I missed that one too! 

So what did I actually do at a fitness expo if I didn't do any fitness?!

Let's just get it out there - I love a freebie! I was slightly in my element trying all the free samples - so much so that we actually didn't eat all day! 

There were lots of different brands there, some with amazing looking stalls! However I did hear someone make a very good point - just because a brand was at a health expo, does not mean their products are healthy! (12 day cleanse anyone?!)

So when we weren't ambling around the stalls we watched a couple of the talks that were on. 



The first one being the three girls which make up Girl Gains - Zanna, Tally and Vic. I briefly mentioned Girl Gains in my last post, but to sum up what I feel they represent - self love, health to be healthy (not for appearance), and supporting others. 

I really love the content they put out, including their podcast. Their talk was primarily about self love and being kind to yourself - which I know may sound cheesy, but I think both me and my friend took something from it. The key things I took away were:-

  • You are more than a number on the scale/the way you look
  • Your friends would never state the key reason they love you is your great abs, butt etc
  • Do what you can - if you only have time for 10 minutes, smash those 10 minutes!
  • Injury is only for a very short time, you can always get back to full fitness! (Very relevant to me right now!)
Really gutted I didn't man up and ask for a photo with them as I am a proper fan girl so this was all I got!



The other talk we watched was by someone I hadn't come across before - Rosie Millen aka Miss Nutritionist. This was all about the connection between food, stress and fatigue. In a world obsessed with diets and food for appearance, it was really interesting to hear about the chemical reactions food can have on your bodies and how that can impact mood, stress, energy levels! 

So after a few hours of wondering around (and still somehow only coming across a huge area which we had somehow missed!) we headed back to Waterloo, lugging our hauls of free stuff! 

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