So I haven’t posted on here in a little while but going to start documenting whats happening on here to keep a log of my Australian adventures.
I’m a nanny in Bondi in Sydney to a family with two young girls, two and four. this has made me appreciate how much parents do in a way I’ve never thought about before, I’m so grateful for my own parents after looking after young children myself.
this trip is very much time for myself which I’ve never really had, I’ve stayed off the radar for the last two months since i arrived because i felt like there wasn’t much to report but i think id like to record it just for myself on here.
My health.
so two weeks ago i began an 8 week transformation challenge, to attend one personal training session a week and three self motivated gym sessions a week. Ive also worked on my diet and am really trying to take my health into my own hands for the first time ever.
at home i had a very up and down relationship with my weight and could never seem to find a sustainable way to keep myself fit and healthy. this challenge has very much been a challenge for me. I have swayed from my strict vegetarian and sometimes plant based diet to a balanced and more doable diet including meat and eggs. I have found in previous diets I felt like if i ‘broke the rules’ all bets were off and i could eat whatever i wanted, this usually spiraled into a binge and i would start back at day dot. this challenge has helped me realise that even if i mess up and ‘cheat’, its okay and is just a blip.
i don’t think i could have made this work without changing my mindset from a diet to a lifestyle change, thats why i felt that vegan wasn’t really for me. it took away the spontaneity from eating, i felt that although there are so much vegan options out there i was always consciously thinking about food and that wasn’t healthy for me. i also feel like the vegan culture can be very elitist and isolate people who feel like they want to eat something that isn’t vegan.
one of the big influences in me going vegan were YouTubers who displayed a polished and quite expensive and time inefficient diet, this just didnt seem to work for me and after about 4 years of an on and off plant based diet I still couldnt seem to acheive my goal weight or health. after adopting a diet that i feel cuts me a little more slack I am more content with how I look and feel.
exercise which has gone alongside my food has also changed, in the UK i never found workouts that excited me and gave me goals that i felt would challenge me and make me want to work towards. the personal trainer i have here is teaching me about weight lifting and how it can sculpt your body in whatever way you want, by trainign my arms and butt i can have a smaller waist for example. i swear i was never told this and it has changed my idea of fitness insianley. i am doing two days of wieghts and two days of cardio a week and this seems to be doing well for my body (even though its only been two weeks).
Seeing physical changes in my body other than just fat loss has helped me to love my fat more, i no longer want to be ‘skinny’, my goals have changed to being stronger and fitter and have moved more to how i feel over how i look. obviously i still wanna have a slim figure and maybe not have my thighs rub together as much but that is less the goal. I remember when i sued to run at home i would just visualise how i would look once i get to my goal weight, I would be happier once i look like a skinnier version of myself, what i didn’t realise was that was teaching myself that the way i look now isn’t good enough, and heck that ain’t never a good way to talk to yourself.
My plan.
So as I’ve only been on this new lifestyle for a short period I am still aware that in the face of temptation I become a jelly mess looking at a piece of cake or a cookie, so im not putting myself in those situatons. I feel like changinf my mindset about food has been like a recovering drug addict, I definitly used food as a crutch when i wasnt feeling so sweet, so now I have been removing food that will trigger a binge when I feel like I need it. not to say I havent stumbled, god knows I ate a whole bunch of cake when no one was looking but I havent felt the same grip food used to have on me. after a binge or even a stumble I now can see it for what it was and move on.
I wish i could tell my 15 year old 13.5 stone me that one day food wouldn’t rule my life, she would be happy to know that.
I can see physical and emotional changes in myself which I’m happy about. I am also feeling lonely though, Australia is a long way away and i do think i have thrown myself into bettering my physical self while I’m here to take my mind off that. maybe i needed this time but its also hard to not have support of family and friends who are so far away.
Being so far away from small english town life has made me appriciate the simple things in life. I thought that my moving to Bondi would open a world of possiblities for me, and its not that i dont enjoy my time here but its made me realise the big city isnt for everyone. I miss recognising people and knowing the best spots and i miss the people of a home town.
Bondi has many different types of people and i like that about it, that there are no preconceived expectations of what or who i should be, which come with any new city i guess, it’s quite humbling to know that no one really cares what you’re doing. Its also so liberating cause you can do whatever the fuck you want and no one cares.
I want to make youtube videos about what I’m up to and whats happening in my life but i haven’t found anything exciting to film yet. i spend a lot of time on the top of the hill by the house. the view looks out onto Bondi one side and double bay on the other. I went up there when it was thundering over the harbour and it was beautiful, i was kinda sad that it didn’t look cool on camera but that also made it nice cause it was unrecordable. i like those kinds of views.
and thats me really, I don’t feel like I’ve come to Australia and ‘found myself’ quite yet and I’m not sure if i will but hey maybe not everyone catches the travel bug and enjoys markets and beaches. also side note, crafty farmers markets are so overrated and once you’ve been to one you’ve been to them all. its the same with beaches.. sorry.
thanks for reading the ramblings of my brain this Tuesday morning
have a good one
About the author