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Ash Lane was living her ‘dream life’. The super fit mum of one, was running her multi-million dollar fitness business, helping thousands of women become the best versions of themselves, travelling across Australia in a caravan with her husband and son, and enjoying the ‘freedom’ the lifestyle afforded her family.
But just three months into their new life on the road, after selling the family’s multi-million dollar Burleigh Heads house, swapping home comforts for an RV, the Train With Ash owner received a devastating diagnosis.
The family had just arrived in Perth and were getting to grips with their new nomadic lifestyle, when the personal trainer woke up one morning and realised something was terribly wrong.
‘I had lost feeling in the lower half of my body,’ Ash told Daily Mail Australia. ‘I could walk, but I was walking like Bambi, everything from my waist down was numb. We we went to hospital and I spent the next five days in the hospital having blood tests, an MRI scan and a lumbar puncture.’
It was following the extensive tests, that Ash received the shocking news.
‘I was told that I have MS. The doctor who told me the news had a terrible bedside manner. He told me I would be in a wheelchair and that I would have a shortened life, he said this in front of my husband and my 10-year-old son,’ Ash explained.
Ash Lane was enjoying a new life travelling full time with her husband and son and running her popular fitness platform Train With Ash when she received a devastating diagnosis
The fit and healthy mum-of-one was diagnosed with Multiple sclerosis, a neurological disease that affects your central nervous system
‘It was one of the most heartbreaking experiences of my life, and I haven’t had an easy life.’
Through her fitness platform, Train With Ash, the mum-of-one has helped thousands of women transform their lives but in that moment her own life changed, as Ash learned that she was suffering from a chronic illness. Naturally she wondered what that would mean for her going forward.
Multiple sclerosis is a neurological disease that affects your central nervous system but as Ash explained ‘there is a spectrum and everyone is affected differently. Some people end up in a wheelchair and some people don’t’.
After learning her diagnosis, Ash decided she needed more information and turned to social media.
‘I was able to get in contact with a Professor from Perth who was able to assess my scans and he told me that I’ll be fine.’
Ash received the diagnosis in 2023 but after coming to terms with her new reality, the fitness trainer says she is now ‘incredibly optimistic’ about the future and focuses on what she has.
‘Generally I feel well, I have such an optimistic personality it’s hard for me to not think positively. You do get brain fog with MS but I’m used to it and it doesn’t bother me. You can lose your eyesight, but I can see and I feel so very grateful for that.’
‘Generally I feel well, I have such an optimistic personality it’s hard for me to not think positively. You do get brain fog with MS but I’m used to it and it doesn’t bother me,’ Ash said
A year and a half on from learning about her condition and Ash is back to training how she was before she received the shock news.
‘At the time I couldn’t squat my body weight and as a usually fit person, it was very, very tough mentally. It’s only recently that I’m back to squatting the weight I could do before,’ Ash explained.
The nutrition coach now has to visit a hospital every six months, which given their family is on the road, means visiting a different hospital each time.
‘We now have to plan a little more but you go to the hospital, you get an infusion and you leave.’
Living life to the full: The 36-year-old travels full time with her husband Brad and her son. The couple work together on the Train With Ash platform
‘Now to this day I have got feeling back, but when it is hot I get a flare up, a tingling feeling or if I’m in a really stressful situation, that’s when it can affect me,’ the fitness entrepreneur explained.
Although many people might have let their career take a back seat to focus on their personal journey and health, Ash didn’t stop showing up for her clients and continued to build her business sharing her journey with the Train With Ash community.
‘I feel incredibly lucky to be able to do what I do helping other women transform their lives and I am very present, very responsive with the community. When this happened I shared a lot of what I was going through.’
A year and a half on from learning about her condition and Ash is back to training how she was before she received the shock news
Ash, who studied nutrition and who is a qualified personal trainer, describes the thousands of women who are on the Train With Ash platform as ‘family’ and travelling around the country means that she and her husband Brad, who also works full time on the business, can meet people in real life.
Train With Ash is a training and nutrition programme costing $300 for 12 weeks and focuses on strength training that can be done anywhere, as well as providing advice on what clients should be consuming, but Ash says it’s much more than that.
‘I’m a fat loss coach and a body transformation coach. We are not just a training programme, we focus on health and fitness but this can help to improve career progression and help to foster better relationships for clients, both with themselves and others. It’s life-changing for the women on our platform.’
Couple goals: Ash and Brad are content with the freedom their nomadic lifestyle affords them and they enjoy running their business together
‘We focus on a non-restrictive and balanced approach but we teach people how to have their cake and eat it too.’
Train With Ash clients shared how they view the platform in a community Facebook group post recently. One member said: ‘Train with Ash for me is being able to see a future of sustainable food freedom It is education, support, guidance, knowledge, power. It’s repair and growth. It’s not starve and sweat. It is everything I didn’t know I needed. And I’m not even in my Fat Loss Phase yet. Forever grateful Ash. Thank you.’
Another wrote: ‘I joke with friends saying I’m in a healthy cult… in all honesty it’s a support network and health education with amazing ladies from all stages of life and different struggles goals it’s a community.’
Unlike other fitness platforms, Train With Ash offers a free five day challenge, which only take place three times a year. Women looking to take charge of their health and fitness can undertake the challenge to identify what they’ve been doing wrong and why their approach may not have worked in the past.
‘During the free five day challenge, we look at why women have they been yo-yoing. Why that has happened and how they can fix that. I’ve always been passionate about offering that for free,’ Ash explained.
Seeing results: A Train With Ash client. The platform offers a free five day challenge and after that women can opt to join the programme
‘After the five days you’ll have the opportunity to join Train With Ash but if you don’t want to, that’s fine. Most women do join though.’
Despite her recent health challenges Ash and Brad’s business is thriving and they have over 1100 clients on the platform and 100 premium member clients who receive one on one online coaching from Ash, or one of the three staff coaches.
Ash concedes she has come a long way from starting her PT business in 2018, when she quickly realised that physically training clients in person had its limitations and that she needed to move her business online, which she did with the help of her husband.
In September 2019 she ran her first challenge with a goal of getting 20 clients and achieved 19. By the next free five day challenge Ash exceeded her goal of 50 clients and Brad was able to quit his job to join the business full time. The couple have never looked back.
The business grew quickly and the success the couple enjoyed meant the couple could buy a luxury home on the Gold Coast in 2022, but they only stayed there for six months as they realised a huge house and a luxury lifestyle didn’t suit them.
‘We focus on a non-restrictive and balanced approach but we teach people how to have their cake and eat it too,’ Ash said of her female focused online training platform
‘We had this big, beautiful home, we were living this lavish life and we’d never been more miserable. We had spent so much on our lifestyle, but it just didn’t align with our values or who we want to be and who we are to our core,’ Ash explained.
The family moved quickly and went looking at caravans the next day. The house was sold and the family hit the road in late 2022.
‘Our highest family value is freedom. Not knowing where you are going to go next, there is no freer feeling for us. It can be hard and a little chaotic, but it’s a blessing.’
Since being out on the road the family have completed a full lap of Australia and this year they’ve decided to revisit some of their favourite spots, what Ash describes as ‘a highlight reel’.
‘There is no end date for us in terms of travelling. We work full time on our business and we are lucky that we can do it from anywhere, and our son is homeschooled. This is how we choose to live life,’ it suits us, Ash explained.
For the foreseeable future Ash is living life to the full, feeling optimistic about her health and is committed to building her business, with a new app in the works set to launch in September.
‘I feel so lucky. We get to help people change their lives every single day. I’m incredibly grateful for that.’
To learn more about Train With Ash, click here.