AS career changes go, setting aside your briefcase after almost 40 years working as a bank manager to retrain as a personal trainer are poles apart.

But Ingleton woman Sharon Rucastle is proof such epiphany moments do happen and she hasn’t been happier.

Sharon, who turned 60 in June, lost five and a half stone three years ago after embarking on her own health journey and today the business suit has been replaced with Lycra.

“I left banking in 2013 after 37 years, the latter part looking after HSBC clients in Settle, Kirkby Lonsdale and Bentham.

“That year I started the Couch Potato to 5k programme and ran the Race for Life for the first time.

“I’d walked it with colleagues for the previous nine years so I felt a real sense of achievement running it for the first time,” she said.

Wanting to continue on her fitness path, she attended Slimming World run by Emma Simmonds at Kirkby Lonsdale and also started working with Bentham boxer Tomi Tatham.

Two years later she had reached her weight loss goal shedding the pounds to reach a healthy size 12 and a turning point in her life.

She had been well and truly bitten by the fitness bug and knew no other way to put her enthusiasm and experience into practice than to teach others how to reach their goal.

She said: “I was so inspired by how much better I felt and how much more energy I had . My knees never felt better. I was able to play on the floor with my grandchildren and then get up again. I wanted to pass on the passion.

“Doing the Couch Potato to 5k was an eye-opener. I had a health check through work afterwards and the results were fantastic. I was determined to carry on,” she said.

Sharon trained in secret to do her first running 5k but her renewed energy and fitness levels, as well as the pounds falling off became all too apparent so she kept running.

Last month she completed her fourth Great North Run half marathon.

To lose weight she followed a diet plan with Slimming World and found it worked for her.

“I had tried every diet in the book and was dieting myself big. The weight would come off and then I would think I could carry on as before and it went back on - with a friend!

“I knew it was a case of having a long term eating style and Slimming World taught me that. I can have treats. Nothing is banned and making just a few changes has helped me keep it off.

In order for her to use her expertise and knowledge to help others trying to lose weight and get healthy she took the step to enrol on a personal trainer course at Kendal College.

With that under her belt she set up her business, Sharon’s Fitness For Life, run from Peak Fitness, in Ingleton.

She is currently expanding her repertoire by studying a nutrition course which is a series of eight modules. She also keeps her clients on their toes by posting regular challenges on her Facebook page.

“I have some lovely clients at the gym. I know what it’s like to want to lose weight/get fit and not know where to start; that’s where I can help.

“I tell them when they walk through the door into my class that they have already taken the biggest step.

“When we talk about weight and people ask me how much I have lost I say: 'twenty years!’, I feel that good.”