Hey guys, it’s Gemma and James from ‘Fit with Jay and Gem’ here and we are super excited to share this first blog post with you. We are a fitness couple based in Derry and Dublin. We both have a passion for fitness, food and health and wellbeing. I guess we will start from the beginning of how we both began our fitness journeys. Gemma; I had always been sporty when I was younger but I would say that I began my fitness journey properly earlier this year at the beginning of January. I had always been fit and played a lot of sport growing up and in school but when I moved to Dublin for University I let myself go, a lot without even realising; living the typical student life. It was New Year’s Day when I realised the extent of damage my binge eating and alcohol consumption had caused and flared up my IBS. I knew something had to change. I began by signing myself up to a 6-week programme that taught me how to track my calories and eat sensibly, the programme provided me with different workouts I could do from the comfort of my own home. It give me the option of doing the exercises at my own pace, but because I was so determined I really wanted to push myself, making that change whilst falling back in love with exercise. James really helped me through this by teaching me different exercises in the gym so I felt comfortable when I was training by myself in my gym in Dublin; as it can be quite daunting at first. James; My journey began when I was in lower sixth, like most boys I went through that geeky video game stage only I ended up putting on weight through this. I only really noticed it when I was in my last few years of school and appearance seemed to become more important at the time. So a few friends and I decided to start going to the gym; one of them even challenged me to my first half marathon, which is where I found my love of running. My friend Craig was the tall athletic type and I was short and pudgy at the time so nobody believed I’d be able to beat him, so I trained really hard and proved them wrong. Since then I have kept up the running and now have ran 11 marathons and just over 30 half marathons up to date. Gemma has had a big part to play in this as she really spurs me to push myself and supports me by coming to all of my races and helps with prep. I even dragged her to do one of the half marathons with me. She’s really been a big influence in this way and with the two of us going through the same routine it makes the whole process easier for each other. However, we do like to treat ourselves every now and then. We strive to support each other as best we can with our fitness goals, which is one of the things we love, as it’s great to have a support system there to keep us focused and motivated. The main reason we started our Instagram account was to keep us both accountable so we could achieve our fitness goals, we also love all of the opportunities it has created for us to interact and get to know other like-minded people and for this we are thankful. Sharing our journey with everyone has been exciting so far and a great help as we receive tips from others and inspiring comments which make us realise that it is all worthwhile. Thanks so much for reading our post, hope you enjoyed! And make sure to check us out on Instagram: @fitwithjayandgem