About us

Antonia van Deventer is a BODY CONTROL PILATES TEACHER, FULLY INSURED, REPS LEVEL THREE INSTRUCTOR.

Antonia began practising Pilates on the reformer machine during physiotherapy sessions at the English Institute of Sport as part of her ongoing treatment. Pilates exercises featured heavily in her rehabilitation for a back injury sustained during a long-distance rowing race. Having successfully overcome the injury, she decided to pursue Pilates further, working with Wendy Davis of Caversham Physiotherapy and ultimately training with Body Control Pilates at their headquarters in London. Antonia continues to expand her Pilates knowledge through further career development courses, by practising the Body Control and Classical method every day and attending advanced classes with another experienced teacher. She believes that to be a good teacher, you need to strive for greater understanding of your own body and impart that to others.

Antonia is a trained languages teacher with a penchant for exercise! She is a rower who has represented Great Britain at numerous World Cups and three World Championships, and is training to re-enter the international rowing scene after a two year lay-off due to injury. In the 2007 - 2008 season, she has run four half marathons and completed the London Marathon with her husband Rich Taylor. Antonia ran the 26.2 miles in 3 hrs 13 mins while Rich had to endure much ribbing from his mates for being beaten by the “trouble and strife” and coming in at 3 hrs 26 mins. They also managed to raise £3,000 for the charity Children with Leukaemia.

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Antonia’s exercising history is not conventional - the pictures are the evidence! At her heaviest, she weighed 13st 4lb (84 kilos). Realising she was busting out of size 18 clothes (US size 16) gave her the wake-up call she needed to make some drastic changes. Smoking 30 a day would have to stop, truck loads of curry and pizza would have to pass her by.

Before (May 2000) :
84kg, 30 cigarettes per day.		 After (May 2006) :
57kg, GB International Athlete

Making the change from a lifestyle you are accustomed to is not an easy thing to do. No matter who tells you that you need to do it, the impetus and motivation need to come from you. It simply isn’t good enough to wish you were thinner and fitter. Getting to the state you find yourself in now has required time - so reaching your weight and fitness goals will need more than a week’s fad dieting.

A typical day for Antonia started with a cigarette and strong coffee. Breakfast, if she had it, consisted of croissants with lashings of butter and jam of course) or a fry up. If she could have two helpings of something, she would. On other days she would be consumed with guilt about how fat she’d become, how much she’d eaten or how drunk she’d got the night before. She would try not to eat anything all day, maybe some fruit, but by supper time she was so hungry that she made up for it in fine style. Everything was out of control.

So, how did she drag herself out of it? Initially, she wanted to get back into rowing having taken it up at school as a means to avoiding hockey, but she was afraid that she would be laughed at or that her bottom wouldn’t fit in the boat. She began slowly, by walking and swimming (after battling the humiliation of getting into a swimsuit) and built up to running. She also ate more sensibly - not starving herself and not even banishing wine and pizza altogether. She was simply more balanced about how and what she ate and excercise was the key.

That was in 2000. By 2001 she had competed with her university (Southampton) at major regattas and the following winter she decided to try for the lightweight category at the British Indoor Rowing Championships. There she made the top ten. She decided to learn how to scull, to fit in with her teacher training at Homerton College, Cambridge, and she entered her first regatta in the autumn of 2002. She won, and from there went on to become British Universities champion in the double sculls in 2003. She went to her first Great Britain trials for the 2003 - 2004 season and made the Great Britain team, winning a bronze medal at the Lucerne World Cup, before competing at the World Championships in Banyoles, Spain. Since then she has continued to broaden her knowledge and interest in sport, making the British team as reserve in 2005 and in 2006 achieving a world ranking of ninth in the lightweight single scull at the World Championships at Dorney Lake in Eton.

To lose weight you need to consume fewer calories than you expend: a simple formula but one that people can’t seem to get their heads around. Working at a desk will not require the calories of a professional athlete, so how can you justify doughnuts and cake at work, followed by pizza and ice cream that evening?

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