It’s December. Hooray! I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend and is ready to dive in headfirst to the holiday season, no matter what you and your family celebrate. For December, I found Kia, also known as @nuts_for_energy. She caught my eye months ago with her lovely aerial photos and glorious globs of nut butters. I couldn’t wait to read her story and see her week of (super nutty) oatmeal!
Hello Fellow Oatmeal Lovers!
My name is Kia. Well my full name is Kiarra but I get called Kia by everyone as it is easy to say and pronounce. I am currently in my final few weeks of year 11 at a private school in Australia. My day to day life consists of my desire to being healthy, fit and the best I can be. I train 6 days a week and some of those days I train twice; as I am a distance runner; who runs both road, cross country and athletics. But my day cannot be complete with of cause eating huge bowls of delicious oatmeal!
Well I am sorry but I will have to go quite deep to explain how I discovered oatmeal and what I think about health and nutrition.
My Story
In this world, sport to most is a way of life; everyone has self-desires and goals that they hope to achieve. Sport is like that to me and I have always wanted to strive and improve my ability in anyway necessary. My desire was to improve my fitness, strength and health. So even though I played a lot of netball I increased my exercise. I also began only to eat healthy foods. I thought I was on the right track but I was terribly wrong.
The internet has the strongest influence on people especially teenagers; if you ask anything about health, it links everything to weight loss for adults. I didn’t realize this so I did what the media said to do. I began to completely over exercise, having no rest. My food took a dramatic change as my calorie intake was too low as I cut out junk food. But then I started cutting my meals as well and would never tough sugar or fats, even though I know fats are an important nutrient for the body.
I was constantly stressed about what I ate, how much I ate, if I missed a workout etc. This developed a dishearting relationship with my family. I was always yelling and screaming at them, especially if I miss out on my run or I ate something I didn’t like. My brothers got scared, I didn’t want to see my friends on the holidays and my mum and dada couldn’t trust me anymore. At dinner, I would hide my food or feed it to the dogs so my mum wouldn’t see it or I lied about what exercise I did, as I would sneakily exercise so that no one would know.
Though I didn’t realise how much I affected everyone. My brother’s friends, my friends, mum and dad’s friends and people we barely knew would ask if I were ok because I looked sick. This made me angry because I was supposed to look fit and healthy. My mum got annoyed as everyone would tell her to find me help because I looked sick, which she had. This lead too many fights and many tears, even from my dad and family friends.
It went too far, I was sent to the paediatricians as my weight was too low and I had also lost it too fast. I lost myself, this lead me to develop the eating disorder of Anorexia and an obsession with exercise, getting me involved with frequent visits to the doctors for blood test as I was malnourished and appointments to a psychologist for my mental health. My food was increased and my exercise decreased to gain weight. But the thought of gaining weight was too much; I continued to lose weight as my mind wasn’t right. Slowly after seeing the psychologist I began to realize what I was doing to my body. I was always tired and it started to take effect on my sport. Soon I began to eat just enough to maintain my weight. Though school came and I was so scared of what people would think of me. So I lost even more weight as I was self-conscious of how much I ate compared to others and some comments really got to me. Though my friends were really concerned about me, I had the thoughts that they would judge me and when I told them what happened they cried with me. I told myself I had to concur this, because it was destroying not just my life but everyone around me. I had also lots what it means to be healthy and happy.
So I turned myself around focused on my running which was my saver and I then discovered Oatmeal!
It was a nutrient packed breakfast with combinations that are endless; it made me look forward to food! It helped fuel and recover me from my runs and satisfied my tastebuds! And now I can’t live without it!
I recovered halfway through 2013.
I constantly think of oatmeal, I am always dying to wait for breakfast in the morning but sometimes I might even have it for lunch! It is the best when you spoon Nut Butter on it!
I make my oatmeal with the base recipe of; ¾ cup of rolled oats, 1 cup of water, dash of cinnamon, 1 egg white,1/8 cup of milk (stir in at the end), ½- 1 mashed banana. I cook the oats with the water and cinnamon first then add in the mashed banana and milk. Then I add anything else of desire. For example, vanilla, pumpkin or sweet potato puree, fruit, dried fruit, nuts, nut butter, coconut, maple syrup, honey, coffee, Questbar, cocoa/cacao powder, maca etc. and I always top my oatmeal with a spoon of one of my nut butters (nut butter addict) and more of the foods listed.
I also love overnight/refrigerator oats, baked oats and oatcakes!! Oatmeal is too good! Well that’s me and my love for oatmeal so here is my week of my Oatmeal recipes. I picked some of my favourite recipes, so I hope you enjoy.
Monday: Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal
Most people hate Mondays but I love them! Because it is my chance to start a new fresh week and look to the present and future and forget the past. So I woke up ate half and Questbar and banana and went to swimming for my cross-training session. I got home and hungrily made this delicious bowl and Oats! The tastebuds, stomach and muscles were satisfied with my favourite bowl of Oatmeal which is Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal. This flavour combination is mouth-watering and never gets old. The banana and peanut butter mixed throughout the oatmeal, turns it into a creamy heavenly concoction! I topped it withmore sliced banana, granola, the other half of my White Chocolate Raspberry Questbar and Justin’s Honey Peanut Butter. Both melted into perfection on top of my oats. It was double peanut butter goodness!
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