KATE Buckland is used to raising the odd eyebrow.

She knows that she doesn’t look like everyone’s idea of a personal trainer.

“If I’m covering a class for someone, people often think I’m there to participate rather than run it,” says the 34-year-old from Chandler’s Ford.

“Working in a commercial gym, I developed a thick skin pretty quickly. But you can be active, strong and improve your health, even if you don’t look like a gym bunny.

“If I let what some people think bother me, I’d shrink into a shell and never come out,” she adds.

But nothing prepared her for the abuse she received via email and social media when she was featured on a local television news programme earlier this year.

“People said I was a disgusting excuse of a person, how do I sleep, that I shouldn’t be alive and that I should kill myself,” she says.

While most of us are familiar with the ‘bottom half of the internet’ – the often unkind comments made online on news stories – this level of personal attack is shocking.

The mother-of-two and stepmother-of-one admits that the abuse knocked her confidence. But luckily she has a strong support network of other fitness professionals who, as she says, “don’t fit the stereotype” who helped pick her up.

It was they who encouraged her to go ahead with our interview when I approached her to talk about her experiences as a personal trainer.

And it is important that Kate and other people who may not fit the stereotype of what a fit person looks like don’t hide in the shadows.

“There has been a bit of a push lately to say that people can’t be fat and fit,” she says.

“That sends the wrong message. People say ‘I’m not going to bother’. But everyone can gain from activity. People need to think about what being physically active can bring. Weight loss is a great by-product, but there are other benefits to being active.”

She adds that it is important for people to recognise and celebrate a much wider range of body images, particularly in her industry.

“There is room for more body positivity about all shapes and sizes in the fitness industry,” says Kate, who runs Empowered Health and Fitness and is based at MGB Studio in Swaythling.

“There needs to be greater diversity and celebration of more varied shapes and sizes. Fat shaming is really wrong, but so is skinny shaming.”

Kate knows only too well what it’s like to be unhappy in your skin.

She has PKU, a rare genetic disorder which can lead to dangerous amino acids building up and causing brain damage.

When she was pregnant with her first child, due to concern about complications she was put on full bed rest.

“I went from being a healthy weight to being extremely obese in nine months,” she says.

“I felt horrible. I was so uncomfortable, I didn’t want to leave the house.”

Kate began very slowly to get back into shape. She found that exercise not only helped with her physical fitness but also her mental health.

“I battled very bad postnatal depression after the birth of my first daughter and found exercise was a great way of dealing with it.

“Someone said ‘why don’t you retrain’. I laughed at the time. The idea of me being a personal trainer was so far out. But the idea grew on me.”

Some of Kate’s friends and family were surprised at her decision.

She had hated PE at school and also had a lucrative and successful career in public relations. But she knew she had found a career that she would really love.

“I retrained and I haven’t looked back,” says Kate, who grew up in Queensland, Australia.

“I hated PE at school, probably because I was bad at it,” she continues.

“But now I find empowerment in pushing myself physically. I love challenging myself. I love feeling how strong I am now. I can do all sorts of things that I would never have though I’d be able to do.

“My body is very different to how it was before I had children. It went through a massive change and it won’t go back. I’m not bothered by the stretch marks or the C-section scar.

“I look very different but I feel much better about myself – and that’s where fitness comes in.

“In the gym the other day, I lifted 265kg on the leg press. I felt really emotional because before my children, I would have struggled to do 50kg.

“I see the strength in my body that I didn’t have before.

“I have my fitness goals but I choose to focus on the positives – what my body can do and how much better I feel.”

Kate urges her clients to focus on what they can do with their body, rather than what the scales say.

“Everyone should get out and be more active. Focus on what you can do, not what you look like,” she says.

“It’s not about being amazing at what you’re doing – it’s just about doing it.

“Don’t focus on weight loss. Focus on things like being able to take longer walks, not getting sick as often, getting up and down stairs without pain. People need to think about what being physically active can bring, beyond weight loss.”

And for Kate, what she can do will always be the most important thing.

“I think it’s better to be active at any size than to be thin or fat and inactive. I would rather be as active as I am now than be much thinner and not doing anything.”

Kate's top training tips:

1. Find something you love to do and do it. It's much easier to be consistent if you're doing something you enjoy.

2. Surround yourself with people who lift you up and encourage you, both in 'real life' and online. Find your tribe!

3. Don't be afraid to try new things. Sometimes doing something that scares you turns out to be something that amazing and you end up with a new passion you never expected.

4. Move every day. Walk, dance in your kitchen to your favourite music, chase your children in the park and play. Little steps build up to big results.

5. Don't let anyone else define your goals. What do YOU want? Do you want to lose weight, run a marathon or do you want to feel healthier, more energetic and be able to keep up with your children or grandchildren? There is no wrong goal except the one that you have let someone else define. Your journey is about you.

6. Remember that self care is important, in whatever form that takes, be in finding an hour to go to the gym, taking a walk alone, a massage, meditating or even something as simple as a quiet, hot cup of tea. It is not selfish, and in fact is very important.

7. Go to bed! Sleep is so important for recovery, mental health, weight management and overall health and wellness.

8. Don't be afraid to ask for help in reaching your goals. Working with a personal trainer, seeking counselling for your relationship with food or help with how you feel about your body. Your health - both physical and mental - is worth investing in.