You would be hard pressed to find someone in better health than Adel Murphy.

An exercise fanatic, she is a personal trainer, champion muscle model and also runs a nutrition hub.

But that was before the 40-year-old, who lives in Maidstone, contracted coronavirus last June.

The illness brought her active life to a standstill overnight and left her battling extreme fatigue as she developed what is now known as long Covid.

It is estimated one in five people who have tested positive for coronavirus have gone on to develop enduring symptoms, lasting up to six months.

Now the fitness coach, who runs Murphy Motivation, has spoken about her experience of the condition, hoping it will help others who have been struggling.

Miss Murphy first began to feel unwell in June but returned two negative Covid tests, even though doctors were convinced that was what was causing her symptoms. Then in December, during another bout of sickness, she was given a positive diagnosis.

She said: “I couldn’t get my head around why I was so fatigued, why I was getting these chronic headaches.

“It was like someone came in and flattened me. I felt like there was nothing of me left.”

It was at that point she had to step back from her online fitness coaching sessions.

It took Miss Murphy - who won the Pure Elite UK muscle model championships in 2017 before going on to finish fifth at the world championships - five months to recover from her first bout.

She said: “I had so much guilt because I felt like people needed me to help them through their own struggles through the fitness coaching but I felt like I wasn’t able to do it.

“I got to a point where I had to say ‘Look, I can’t physically do it’. I tried to go back at the end of January but I nearly keeled over."

She has suffered swelling to her lower limbs, heart palpitations and chronic headaches but also social anxiety following her battle with long Covid.

She said: “Long Covid is hard for me to get my head around because I have an athlete’s mind which is telling me I can do things but I physically can’t.

“Some days I get up and it’s a struggle to get to the toilet. To go from being so fit to that feels debilitating. Fitness is my identity.”

Miss Murphy shared her experience on a Facebook Live video on Sunday and was blown away with the response.

“To be honest even just from sharing my story, I cannot express the amount of messages I have received,” she said.

“Of course, people have been saying things like ‘I cannot believe it has happened to you because you’re so fit’.

“But there have also been a huge amount of messages from people saying ‘Oh my god, I don’t feel like I’m going crazy any more...I have those pains’.

“That is why it’s so important for people to speak out.

"Mental health issues are going to rise, so it is so important that even people who maybe have never struggled with their mental health previously are speaking out as well.”

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