Having retired from sport, former swimmer Angela Galea and footballer Jesmond Zerafa speak to Veronica Stivala about maintaining their fitness, eating good food and staying motivated.

Angela Galea

Retired swimmer
Career highlight: Participating in the Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 Olympics
Current profession: Interventional and cardiac radiologist

I retired in 2007. The coach I had worked with for many years was leaving and I believed I had reached my potential as a semi-professional swimmer. I did toy with the idea of turning professional – however, with a heavy heart I decided it was not the right choice at 24 years of age.

During the time I trained professionally, I was in the water for up to five hours a day and did three gym sessions a week.

Nowadays, I am an interventional and cardiac radiologist at the Royal Cornwall Hospital, UK. Interventional radiology is a poorly understood, relatively new specialisation. It is essentially pinhole surgery using X-rays to guide the procedure. I have been a doctor for seven years and have been training in this specialisation for four years.

I eat half of what I used to

I find I need to exercise to keep fit both mentally and physically. I have found it difficult to rekindle the same passion in a new sport so I do a variety of exercises to keep fit. I started open water swimming, life saving (rowing on rough sea), waterpolo and surfing. Since I live near the sea I try to make the most of it. I exercise up to three times a week so this is significantly less than what I used to do.

I work on a shift system so most of the time I exercise alone – however, swim training is heavily dependent on teamwork so I do miss this very much.

Since retiring from sport, my diet has also changed significantly. I have lost most of my muscle bulk so although I feel bigger, I weigh much less than I used to since muscle is heavier than fat. It is tough as I eat half of what I used to yet I have to be more careful to maintain a stable weight.

As an athlete I was very driven and ambitious and I am well aware that I will probably never achieve the same success in the next stage of my life. This is tough to deal with on some days but on most days I am content with what I achieved and happy to enjoy other things in life which I missed out on.

When I retired from swimming, I found myself with an extra free six hours a day and felt I had too much time on my hands and nothing to do. It was at this stage that I felt I needed a new challenge in life and this was one of the reasons I decided to move to the UK. I still follow Maltese sport. I read online newspapers and my relatives usually fill me in on what’s happening. I have made a lot of friends in other sports, during our travels together for Olympic or Small Nations Games but also at the monthly Malta Olympic Committee meetings. I am still in contact with most of these athletes and I follow most international sport too.

Sport is a way of life and being fit is as important to me psychologically as it is physically. I have transferred my same drive and ambition in sport to my career and I have no regrets of all the time I put into the sport. It was well worth it and I would do it again. I try to give back to sport a bit of the joy I got out of it and volunteer at sport events and also as a coach at my local club.

Jesmond Zerafa

Photo: Jason BorgPhoto: Jason Borg

Retired footballer
Career highlight: Breaking Rabat Ajax’s unbeaten record
Current profession: Football coach

I retired relatively early in my career – aged 32. The reason was that I had started my professional football career when I was just 17. At the time I decided to retire, I had won quite a number of awards and was peaking in my career – I wanted to leave while I was winning.

I also wanted to start my career as a coach, something I had wanted to pursue for a while. My life is football and this was just the next step in my career.

I spent seven years as a professional player with the national team and during this time, training and keeping fit was my full-time job. I would wake up at 8am and have a light breakfast. Then at 9am I would start my training with the team at Ta’ Qali.

In summer, when I have two months off, I go jogging or walking for an hour every day

We would train till around 11am and then have a shower and lunch prepared for us by the chef at Ta’ Qali – this usually consisted of high carbs and protein, so we were eating lots of pasta and meat. We each had a specific diet prepared by our doctor and chef according to our weight.

After lunch, we would rest at the training grounds in Ta’ Qali and then get ready for our afternoon training which would last from 4 to 5.30pm. Since we played against international professional football teams we really needed to be on top of our game. While in the morning training we concentrated on the physical aspect of training, during post-lunch training we would focus on tactics.

I ended my football career with Birkirkara Luxol in the 1996-7 season but I still carried on watching what I eat and did my best to keep up some physical form of training. I’m 47 years old now and even though I’m admittedly not as toned as I used to be when I was a professional footballer, I’m in relatively good shape. I never drink and I follow a relatively similar diet to when I was training. Obviously I have to eat less since I’m not putting in as many hours of training as I used to in the past – lunch is my main meal and then I have a light supper.

Sometimes I train at the gym with my team, though since I’m monitoring them, I cannot always do this. In summer, when I have two months off, I go jogging or walking for an hour every day in Valletta, my hometown, or else I go for a swim.

Looking at today’s young footballers, I see a big difference from my training days. Training has become stricter nowadays – which is a good thing. I’m very professional in my coaching and am a strict coach. Young footballers are lucky today in that they have better facilities and are trained professionally from a young age. Naturally this means that local football has become more competitive because by the time they reach professional age, there are far more skilled players than there were in my day.

Football is my life and I strongly recommend it for young people. It’s an important sport – as is all sport – because it keeps you healthy, gives you self-confidence and helps you stay away from drugs.

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