A bit about me...
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| Ruby and William |
Firstly I should start by saying that I'm 30 years old and the mother of two gorgeous children. Ruby is three and William a newborn. I am a primary school teacher with my husband about to finish his teaching degree in 12 weeks. I have a very close relationship with my mother Jenny and my sister Renee. Sadly my father Terry passed away four years ago and not a day goes by that I don't think of him. I wish he was here and my life has never been the same without him. He was just as passionate about food as what I am. I can remember my father getting excited about a good meal and I do the same thing.
I've always been a good eater. I was one of those kids that if I stopped eating, you knew I was sick. I just loved food, and all of it. Growing up, my mother and father always had an abundance of food in the house and I can remember many dinners at my Aunty's house watching my mother, aunty and grandmother sitting at the dining table peeling and chopping veges then everyone to sitting around a large table to eat a feast. It was always a joyous happy (and very loud) time, definately the Italian coming out in them all!
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| The love of my life |
I started getting rather chubby around grade 3 and was turning into quite a plump little girl. Sport soon helped me loose some of that weight and moving from NSW to QLD saw me drop most of the weight at the age of 12, which I think was due to the climate. It was so hot - salads and water were on the menu most nights.
From then onwards, my weight was pretty stable as I continued to eat pretty well - everything in moderation was my key to food. I've never been one to diet, but have always been aware of how food influences my weight. Soon after I turned 18, I started putting the weight back on and I can remember stepping on the scales to see that I was 80kgs! I was shocked. Why didn't anyone tell me I was fat?
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| My sister and I - I'm the youngest. |
This started my fascination with running. At first it was to lose weight, but then I became addicted to the 'rush' of running and loved getting my own space and clearing my head at the same time. Running also lead me to change what I ate, when I ate and how much I ate. I figured that I had worked so hard to lose weight - (running the km's), why would I eat shit and put it back on. What I didn't realise was that it was my food choices that really kept the weight off, not the running.
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| My mother and father in the early days |
For the past 10 years (I'm now 30), I've noticed that my desire to eat has swayed towards sweet foods. I have often said that I could live off ice cream, donuts and cakes. My father, mother and grandfather also had a sweet tooth and it turns out that I had developed one too. I just loved eating sweets. There was nothing better than a block of chocolate, a french vanilla slice or some creamy ice cream... all in one day! I could eat this stuff for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The past 5 years have lead me to really see this as a bit of a problem. I've become increasingly aware of my sweet tooth and had to make the decisions 'not' to have another chocolate bar and to limit my ice cream to a few scoops and not the whole tub. It was hard and always something that I had to deal with as junk food was always around (work, home, BBQ's, birthdays, friends houses, mums house and at every shop counter)
I then started to become what I thought was 'better' at shopping and stocking the pantry. Low fat foods filled my fridge - mayo, yoghurt, ice cream, cheese and even 'fat free' marshmallows. Having muesli for breakfast with some low fat yoghurt, a banana and even a drizzle of honey was my idea of a healthy breakfast. If I was lucky, I was able to wash it down with a glass of orange juice. How wrong I was!!!
