Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

I lost my dad for the second time in April 2022.  What I mean by this is he passed away in April 2022 but I lost him long before that, to dementia.  He was around 65 when he first started showing signs and quickly deteriorated and went into a nursing home in January 2020, age 71.  Not being able to see him during lockdown and the way in which the Home had to adapt to the covid restrictions, I feel, significantly added to the speed of his decline.  Watching the real him disappear was a terrible experience and significantly impacted on me, my mum and sister. 

My husband Jamie is a personal trainer and he and I lift weights regularly anyway but once my dad passed away, Jamie came up with the idea of ‘Deadlift for Dementia’ where, between us, we would try and lift one million kilograms of weight, via various forms of deadlifting, in one year.  This equates to us needing to lift almost 10,000kg per week each, which is not easy as it stands but when you add in things like holidays, illnesses and life getting in the way of doing this, it makes it even more challenging.  We started on 1^st June 2022 and are increasing the weights we do weekly, deadlifting more often and want to add in some fun challenges too like deadlifting in different places (other than the gym!) and getting ‘guest-lifters’ to take some of our weight too.  I am hoping my mum, who will be 72 then, will lift the final few kgs when we hopefully reach our target
in May 2023!

There have been studies that show that lifting weights can have a positive impact on brain function and I choose to believe this as I want to do anything I can do to prevent be succumbing to the same fate.

Dementia UK was the obvious choice of charity, given the illness that took him, and it is only now that I can see the amount of support
we could have got from this charity that we just didn’t know existed before, so I hope through doing this I can raise awareness of the services they provide and the good work they do as well as putting some money into further research and prevention of this terrible illness.  We raised £1,543.75 from donations in lieu of flowers when he passed away and I want to build on this with the challenge. 

You can follow our progress on Instagram
deadlift_for_dementia

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.