Travelling Overseas and Maintaining your Weight.

Travelling Overseas and Maintaining your Weight.

All of us have travelled overseas and thought “Yes, time to relax, time to unwind and enjoy ourselves.” The amount of times, I have always said to myself: “I am going to be good whilst overseas.” Then BANG I’m surrounded by amazing restaurants and cafes, cheap alcoholic drinks and indulging in cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. I come back home and I’ve gained 3kg and increased my bodyfat % Who has ever had this happen to them? I am going to expect a majority of us.

After that painful experience of putting on weight from our first holiday, we then do a 10 week detox program. Where we reduce our calorie intake, eat hardly any carbs and go to the gym everyday for 2 hours. We have a goal to drop weight and look lean and “fit” for our next holiday, we go away again but put on even more weight then the first holiday and so the cycle goes on.

This is something that I always did. It became a habit and what I thought was the correct way of dieting, I was really putting my body into a very stressful state, stressing out about what I was eating, then putting a lot of pressure on myself which then resulted me being paranoid about enjoying myself overseas.

It took years later, after meeting my mentor, who taught me to eat more, to train weights and how to maintain a healthy looking body.

Only this year, was the first time, I could go overseas, eat healthy yet still enjoy myself but still continue training. Why? Because I stopped stressing. I stopped worrying about losing weight. I continued my training, if I ate bad I wouldn’t stress and just be at the gym the next day. I always ate regularly and always had my fats, protein and carbs in each meal.

I am here to tell you In 5 simple steps on how to maintain a healthy body whilst travelling overseas.

1.    DO NOT GO ON A STRICT DIET 12 WEEKS BEFORE YOU GO OVERSEAS.

This is something that so many people do. They go overseas, where they’ll be parading in a bikni for most of their trip, so they want that “hot summer body.”

What happens is, a very poor trainer advices them to eat 1200 calories or less, to lose weight. They get given a program to stick to for 12 weeks. Yes they lose weight and look fantastic. What they don’t get told is, they have stuffed up their metabolism by limiting themselves from certain foods, as well as slowing it down. So when they go to eat a burger overseas and start drinking heavily, the body doesn’t recognise it and the metabolism goes crazy! It will hold on to all the bad food you put into your body and you end up storing it more and gaining even more weight then what your previous body looked like. What is worse, people then think they have to keep repeating such a shocking diet, which causes a yo-yo affect on the metabolism, putting a lot of stress on the body. You’ll never be able to enjoy food out, if you keep doing this to your body. You’ll also do permanent damage mentally and can lead to eating disorders or disorderly eating.

The best outcome, is to train your body and your metabolism up so I’ts able to enjoy food out. It all comes down to moderation. If you are healthy and clean during the week, have the weekend not to be BAD but more relaxed, where you can enjoy that Spaghetti Bolognese out. Just always do weights training 4-6 days and minimal cardio. The key is MODERATION

2.    HAVE A TRAINING PROGRAM MADE FOR WHEN YOU GO OVESEAS

To be organised is something that helps people stick to something. If I didn’t bring a training program in to do whilst overseas, then I would get lazy and just half-ass do my training as I haven’t put it onto paper and planned it in. I am not saying you have to kill yourself overseas, but if you’ve worked so hard back at home and you stop training overseas for a good month, then you will feel sluggish and weak when you come back home and set yourself back from your training. Having more days off oveaseas and training 3 days instead of 6 IS A GOOD PLAN. Because your body probably needs the rest, it deserves it but to completely stop won’t help you when you get back. Program in, your rest days and training days. When you come back, chances are you’ll be 10x stronger because you’ve rested and still continued to give your body a moderate training session.

3.    STILL DRINK ALCOHOL BUT KNOW WHAT TO DRINK

A holiday isn’t a holiday if you are not enjoying a drink here and there. The problem can be, because alcohol in most countries, are cheap as chips than Australia, so we go overboard.

Beer is a popular drink, but extremely high in calories PLUS makes you more bloated. Have you heard of the expression ‘beer gut?’ If you just drink beer your tummy will look like a pregnant woman’s tummy.

The drinks I recommend Is having dry wine, or your spirits. Vodka and Lime, Gin and tonic. If you decide to have cocktails, don’t go overboard, as there is a lot of sugar, added fructose and milky ingredients into them.

4.    HAVE THE CAKE BUT NOT EVERYDAY

If I restricted myself to something for a long time, the result is I will then go on a massive binge and eat something more than I should’ve. As humans, we put so much pressure on ourselves because we care about our image and how we look. Don’t stress about your body and put so much pressure on yourself. If you have been good and eaten clean, you deserve a slice of cake. Just don’t eat the whole cake and don’t do it everyday. Give yourself a mini goal that you’ll eat healthy and factor in one or two cheat meals. If I am going to go out for dinner, I will eat clean that day and train then enjoy a nice pasta for dinner with a glass of red. I wouldn’t do this everyday, but I don’t restrict myself. I limit myself. Two different things. Key is MODERATION.

5.    TRAVEL WITH PEOPLE WHO SUPPORT YOU

Travelling with a loved one, friends or family can really test you and your mental strength but you also need them to either a. Do what you do, or B. Support you. I have travelled in the past with people and I wanted to go eat elsewhere or train and they’ll either not agree with me, or make me feel guilty for wanting to look after myself while I am away. Those people you DON’T want to travel with. Find someone who wants to train with you, eat healthy with you or do the things you love to do. Even if you don’t train, enjoy a hike or a walk together. Go ride a bicycle together. Or even if the other person doesn’t want to train, know that you can spend a few hours apart doing your own thing and they won’t get angry at you for leaving them.

Never forget, this is your holiday too! You deserve to have fun and do the things you love. Don’t change your routine for someone else.

My Life Before Fitness

 My Life Before Fitness

It has been 5 months since I competed in my second body building competition. My first one was only a month ago. I reflect on the last 4 months. The emotional roller-coaster I had. The ups and downs, the tears, blood and sweat. I realised that, this was only a small battle I had faced, which to me now, looking back on it, really wasn’t a battle. It was a challenge, yes, but nothing I would never do again. This is a sport I have now found a love and passion for. The real challenge is what we face nearly everyday. Life.

 

2015 - TM FITNESS

The real battle I had faced in the past, was where I was before I competed. Before I really had taken fitness seriously, or even life seriously.

My mum always jokes that I was a child that never sat still. I was always moving. I was loud, cheeky and drove my mother insane.

She put me into dancing lessons at the age of three and also acting classes to help improve my English and writing at the age of six. Soon I realised, growing up I wanted to be a performer. I loved the stage, I loved the emotions dancing can express when words can’t.

Unfortunately growing up my life wasn’t like everyone else. Mum was an AVON lady looking after two children, whereas my dad was a project manager who earned amazing money, but always gambled it. Mum was someone who would work extra hours at the dance school to help fund my school, so I could continue dancing and do the things I loved.

Years went on and the love and support I yearned that other children got from their families- especially financially, was something that was so rare for me. I remembered one day when I was in year 7, I came home from school and I tried to get into the house we lived in and the lock had been changed. Dad had owed that much money that the people owning the house we rented, changed the locks, took all our furniture to pay for the debt and we ended up on the street. We stayed for a few nights in a caravan park and people from the church would stop by and give us money and food. That experience, is something I will never forget.

I grew up, became a rebellious teenager once mum and dad split. I started drinking and taking drugs whilst hanging around a bad crowd. I look back at that now and I realised I was a typical teenage girl, trying to get the love and attention from my parents who were too busy dealing with their own issues.

Drinking and partying

Then a miracle happened.

I got accepted into Mcdonald College Performing Arts School where I studied acting for 2 years and completed my HSC there. Those two years were the best school years of my life. I was surrounded by artistic school kids who aspired to one day, be a phenomenal performer.

I graduated in year 12 having the lead role in my acting stream year, which to me was one of my most memorable moments growing up. I was ending my school life, doing what I loved and showing the talent I actually had.

Yr 12 Grad Play- 'The Visit'

Year 12 Formal

 

ACTT 2008

I then went on to study Musical Theatre at ACTT for a year and then auditioned the year after in 2009 for Ed5 International with my Brazilian best friend Paulo and got into the full-time dance program.

My background was acting, but I wanted to improve my dancing so much, I attended ed5. Compared to everyone else, I had a lot of work to do. I was behind in technique, I wasn’t familiar with all the new styles and I had to work twice as hard, as everyone else to be at the level of a professional dancer.

That was the year, my five year long boyfriend, decided to break up with me two weeks before I graduated from my college, leaving me homeless and no where to go. Not even my family. THANK GOD my best friend Holly, who is still my best friend to this day, had her own apartment available with a spare room. She let me stay with her until I was able to get back on my feet and start paying rent. I was only 20 years old. I finally graduated, kicked butt at the concert and scored an agent- my life long dream.

As any graduate at Ed5 may have felt, after you graduate from being in a college for a year, you grow so much confidence. You feel invincible at every audition and you start to believe that the next big musical will be yours within the first few months.

Well it wasn’t. And slowly, your confidence levels go down, you start getting rejected at most auditions, you then start self-doubting yourself and then spiral down into a hole where you feel worthless.

This happened to me. I started to question my talent, my look and even started picking at myself, especially my body.

I started to find quick fixes of diet trends, to even extreme measures like sourcing out Duromine which is a tablet that obese people use to lose weight (like speed) and Clenbuterol- an airway dilator for horses. It also has anabolic properties which led to its use in food-producing animals to increase lean meat yield. I was obsessed with losing weight the wrong way, I didn’t realise how much damage it was doing to my body.

I was also going to the gym, partying heavily again and mixing all my poor choices, plus working 10 jobs to support myself.

I became depressed, went to a councillor who put me on anti-depressants, and also a sleeping tablet called Stilnox, which down the track changed my life forever.

I knew things had to change. I was a zombie on medication and I was knocking myself at night, so I could numb the pain of my life- which in worse fact, made me sleep walk and sleep eat.

The day I quit Stilnox was the day I humiliated myself with a guy I was seeing. I had become extremely paranoid about this particular guy, wouldn’t hear from him when I texted and called so I knocked myself out with Stilnox and wine. To my horror, I woke up, not remembering the night I had. I had called him about 30 x on my phone, had taken more Stilnox when I was asleep and had long conversations to him on the phone where I was slurring my words and saying things that I actually regret. I don’t know how I didn’t overdose that night.

I stormed straight to the doctors and demanded that they stopped prescribing me Stilnox to me so I can stop getting addicted.

It was the wake up call I needed. I needed to change, to start fresh, get rid of all my bad habits. So I did.

Everything started to turn positive again. I worked hard for a top agent who I am still with now, getting good auditions and amazing jobs that I’ve treasured so much.

I then started to worry more and more about my future. I can’t keep having 10 jobs, where there was no stability or guaranteed work. How will my children survive when I have a family? I would never put them through what I went through.

Few years down the track, I studied Personal Training, I met the love of my life at college where he was one of the lecturers there and my whole life turned into a life I was proud of, a life of light, passion, love, dreams and motivation.

I learnt how to be the best personal trainer I can be and met my coach Michael Lee and Clinton Williams who introduced me to my new love of FITNESS MODELLING or BODY SCULPTING.

I went from someone who used drugs to get fit, to being all natural at the gym everyday, training nearly 3 hours a day eating as clean as ANYTHING sticking to a healthy diet. I stopped drinking, I stopped partying and I won my first competition and then placed top 6 in Australia in my second competition.

6th Place in Nationals

You are probably asking yourself: “Why is she sharing all of this? “She’s just asking for attention.” Well no, far from it. I have realised from meeting so many beautiful souls during my years as a Personal trainer, speaking to my clients who suffer from depression, eating disorders or any mental illnesses that, I want to be that voice. I was someone that had a bad life growing up, been through hell and back since a very young age, then made that decision of not being the victim of my past anymore. You have a choice. Sure it’s not easy, it’s easy to dig a hole of your painful sorrows and just keep yourself hidden from the world and hope that life will just get easier along the way. Life is hard, no matter what- It’s whether you choose to be a strong individual and make each day count, or choose to die. I chose to live.

This year, 2015, is all about helping others, being a mentor for those around me. I want to prove to people that you can have a good, healthy life by training regularly and eating well.
 

There are people that have entered my life now, who just by giving small advice along the way, have changed how I look at the world as a whole. Those people are the ones I want to surround myself with, so I can grow and stay positive.

I am always here for anyone that needs any advice on anything! 

To all my athletes who are competing this year, this is your time to shine, if you can get through LIFE, through the bull-shit of problems we go through every single day, then you know deep in your heart that you can compete. Because each day you get out of bed, you are living yet another day, you are surviving and fighting!
 

One quote I always will live by and will share with you now is: “Pain is temporary, quitting is forever.”

I am not a quitter and neither are you.

Tam x

The Less You Eat The Skinnier You Get Myth

The less You Eat the Skinnier You Will Get Myth

Every time I hear one of my clients say to me how many meals they eat, (which ends up being 2 or 3 meals a day) I feel like having a giant big red button that sends off alarm bells! I ask, why don’t you eat more meals throughout the day ?” and the usual reply is always: “I don’t want to get fat.” This day and age, we are living in a society where children and even adults are not educated on how they should be eating and how many calories or portion sizes they are allowed to have. They say to lose weight, you should be eating 1200 calories in order to drop the weight. I hereby say that, that is incorrect. It all depends on your MACROS! Every single person has a different height and weight and based on their metabolic rate, is how you calculate how much you should be eating as well as what training you are doing.

Eating less does not create the need to burn body fat. Instead, it creates the need for the body to slow down. Contrary to popular opinion, the body hangs on to body fat. Instead, it burns muscle tissue, and that worsens the underlying cause of obesity. Only as a last resort, if the body has no other option, it may also burn a bit of body fat. ONLY A BIT!

Repeat after me, the less you eat, the more your metabolism slows down.

Why does the body hang on to body fat and burn muscle? To answer that question, let’s look at it another way.

What does our metabolism want more of when it thinks we are starving? Stored energy.

What is a great source of stored energy? Body fat.

So when our metabolism thinks we are starving, does it want to get rid of or hold on to body fat? It wants to hold on.

Next, what does our metabolism want less of when we are starving? It wants less tissue (which burns a lot of calories). What type of tissue burns a lot of calories? Muscle tissue. So when our metabolism thinks we are starving, it gets rid of calorie-hungry muscle tissue. Studies show that up to 70% of the weight lost while eating less comes from burning muscle—not body fat!

Burning all this muscle means that starving ourselves leads to more body fat—not less—over the long term. As soon as we stop starving ourselves, we have all the calories we used to have but need less of them, thanks to all that missing muscle and our slowed-down metabolism. Now our metabolism sees eating a normal amount as overeating and creates new body fat.

alk about side effects. Eating less was worse than doing nothing.

Why?

After our metabolism is starved, its number one priority is restoring all the body fat it lost and then protecting us from starving in the future. Guess how it does that? By storing additional body fat. Researchers call this “fat super accumulation.” From researcher E.A. Young at the University of Texas: “These and other studies…strongly suggest that fat super accumulation…after energy restriction is a major factor contributing to relapsing obesity, so often observed in humans.”

The most disturbing aspect of fat super accumulation is that it does not require us to eat a lot. All we have to do is go back to eating a normal amount. The Eat Less Group in the study gained a massive amount of body fat quickly while eating the same amount as the Normal Group and the Skinny Group. The metabolism was trying to make up for the past losses.

There is another reason: eating less slowed the metabolism. Put the same quantity and quality of food and exercise into a slowed-down fat metabolism system, and out comes more body fat.

At the end of the day, we are being given numerous of different opinions from each individual and what their intake is on “what’s healthy.” I ask you this: What is diet? Why do we need to follow a diet, to eat right? What is classified the right diet for everyone? As each individual is different, we all have different body shapes as well as different lifestyles. It is finding the RIGHT balance that is suitable to us. My eating plan is completely different to an athletic male, or someone who is shaped differently to myself and is a lot taller than me. Seek advice from a nutritionist, or follow set guidelines your trainer has given you.

Listen to your body and don’t starve yourself to lose weight. Start educating yourself and become a better you!

Tamara Meyer

My 100 Days of Happiness

My 100 days of Happiness

Towards the end of 2013, I had everything planned out for my new year of 2014. I had everything planned out. I was focused on being successful in my career as a performer, I had auditioned for a school touring company that would have me working a whole year travelling around Australia, performing at different schools. It was down to me and another girl and I was overly confident that I had the role. Sadly the cards weren’t in my favour and the position was given to someone else.

 

HAWAII 2014

When you plan your life to a tea and life doesn’t go the way you thought it would, well that’s exactly what had happened to me.

My life has always been anything but perfect. I have lived through a lot of experiences, some traumatic and some where I would enjoy sharing everything to all my closest gfs over coffee. If you ever heard of things happening in three’s well that’s exactly what happened to me at the end of 2013.

After not receiving the job I wanted, I had also had my car defected, costing me a whole lot of debt after $3000 of repairs.

Do you think it stopped there? Sadly not, I had then found out that my uncle in Brasil had past away with liver cancer, leaving my mother in bad conditions, finding different types of religion to help her with her grief, whilst my dad had relapsed his gambling addictions.

It had hit me that, 2013 had ended unexpectedly, I have always been a positive, bubbly, happy person. If you ask anyone who knows me, they would always say that I am someone that always lifts up peoples moods, I have a warm, friendly aura and I loved helping others.

 I found myself lost, not knowing what my life had in store for me, I felt like I had no direction in where I wanted to go. I kept asking myself, ‘What do I do now?’ Where do I go from here? I was in a dark, deep place and I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. I had everything going for me, yet still I found myself feeling low and worse about myself.

I am a visual person. I learn visually, and by displaying things on my wall or on my social media page, instagram and my blog page, I believe that what you think, is what you attract, especially if that image is right in front of you.

2014 had started, I had set my goals, was working hard, had started back my training program and working at the best gym possible. I still had that lost sensation feeling. I found myself flicking through Facebook, when I saw someone post something about: ‘100 days of happiness’ I clicked into the website and the first thing I saw was a bright yellow screen pop up, with the words in big bold black letters, 100 Days of Happiness Challenge! It immediately caught my attention. All it was; was that everyday for 100 days, you had to post a photo of something that makes you happy. It had also said only 29% of the population were able to complete this.

I had found my new challenge. You may think this is easy, but 100 days OF HAPPINESS, can be quite tricky. Especially if you want to get creative with it. Luckily for me, my day to day life, is never dull and I wanted to share with the world, what my 100 days of happiness is like.

Slowly, I had my first photo for my 100 days of happiness. My favourite place- the beach, sunny, sand, water- I was just completely at peace.

Each day was something different. Tricks I had up my sleeves, people I had met, auditions I had attended, people that I had helped and slowly people started to notice what I was doing and other people started to get into it.

You may ask, why was I doing this? What was the point? Without me realising it, but I had started to set myself up each day for a new challenge, to stay positive and find happiness in my life and it was all around. It didn’t mean that I was always a HAPPY person. NO not at all, there were so many moments where I had, had the worst day possible, I had found a lowness in me, then out of nowhere, I would strike up a conversation with someone, or have my students give me a compliment that I was an inspiration, or I had people coming to me for advice, or thank me for just making their day by staying positive. I realised I was starting to impact others around me, without even realising it.

I had learnt, through this experience that, life is never easy. You can go through hell and back, have family problems, money issues, relationship problems, yet there is so much goodness and beauty still around us. The simple things in life can make a difference to not just one individual, but the world.

I had documented my life, through images of one day at a time, which made people learn more about me as a person and also helping me find my way, and finding happiness in my life.

.I think this simple concept, can help so many people. Just because your setting your mind to think positively. It makes you go, ‘Yeah that coffee date with my friend, really uplifted me.’

Or, ‘Work brought me a cake today for working so hard’ small, kind gestures, but to that individual, mean the world to them.

Coming towards the last week of my 100 days of happiness, I had started to think; Wow what am I going to do for my 100th day!?!?!
It had to end with something amazing, I just couldn't think what.
I had previously last year, booked a sky diving experience for myself and my house mate Holly for her birthday. When we got there, the weather was SHOCKING and we since then hadn't been. Coming to May, I rang the place up, booked a date on for the 18th May which fell on a Sunday.
A few days past and it hit me all of the sudden. Hang on a second. I checked my calendar and counted what day my 100th day fell on.

18th May...
The day I booked sky diving.!!! WHAT A CRAZY COINCIDENCE.

I look back on that day, the day was beautiful. I was jumping off a plane on my 100th day. To be honest, when that moment happened, when I finally just let go of everything and let my instructor take control and push me off the plane, I felt free. It felt like the whole world had stopped. I was in absolute peace and soaked in the most beautiful view I had ever experienced.
After that moment, I felt like nothing ever would scare me anymore. I want to do so much now. I want to visit so many places, meet people, help third world countries, inspire people around me and just live life to its fullest.


To everyone out there: I challenged myself with my 100 days of happiness. Some people supported me, some people laughed, some people learnt so much from it, others were inspired. However people felt towards it, I am glad I accomplished it and I am happy that I was able to share my story with you.
I hope to touch other people's lives by all my other crazy adventures or life lessons I have learned. Because this is only the beginning of all my wild stories.

Love Tam

Tamara Meyer

KARMA

KARMA

As the famous JT song – ‘What goes around comes around’ lyrics spin in my head, I felt that I owe you all the right to share you a few of my karma moments I have had in the past and how I strongly believe in K – A – R – M – A.

How often have you had something bad happen to you or someone has done something to hurt you and all you’ve wanted to do is get even and act out in revenge!
I have on numerous occasions! To the point where I have even recently wished karma and something bad to happen to someone that so specific that it ended up happening. (guilty) Didn’t mean for it to happen and I don’t think I have any special powers to inflict pain to someone BUT the amount of times I have done something wrong, in the end, it always comes back to bite me in the ass.

Don’t believe me?

Well let me tell you of what young Tam was like back in the day.

Growing up as a teenager, I thought I was pretty cool. I was never a bully. I was the funny, popular, weird girl who got along with everyone. I was confident in always making new friends as I was ALWAYS changing schools due to my dad’s work situation.

I never had enemies, or was rarely hated by people, but I can say that I didn’t particularly like one girl in my school. Many didn’t, particularly like Anna; she had the reputation of being a slurry. (slut in a hurry) which is what we used to call her. Sadly, because everyone else didn’t like her for her behaviour, I didn’t like her either. She wasn’t a bad person; she did shifty stuff, but wasn’t intentionally ever trying to hurt me. Until we both realised we never liked each other. We did petty little things to each other but because I was the “cool” girl, I always seemed to have everyone on my side.

We graduated high school, we both grew up and whenever we both saw each other out, we would exchange in small talk.

One night, as my best friends brother was having his 21^st, Anna was there as was her boyfriend, all our friends and I.

A week or two ago, I had hung out with her boyfriend and had stayed at his house in the spare room as I somehow lost all my friends out in the city.

Anna approached me about it and asked if anything ever happened, I told her the truth and told her I just needed somewhere to crash.

The bad thing was, Anna never knew this and a lot of problems went down. She was shocked yet appreciated that I told her the truth.

Within minutes, I had gone to leave and I felt a hand grab the back of my neck and Anna had started to punch me in the face. Both of us were at each other and then hell went lose.

After that, I always had the fear of seeing her. On numerous occasions I did. We would be out and she would spit on me and say hurtful things and I eventually started to become scared of her.

3- 4 years later, I look back on the events that had occurred. Was this karma getting me back, for my high school days? Surely not?

To be honest, I truly believe it did. I was never one to hurt someone physically but words can be just as harsh as throwing a punch at someone. I believe I deserved that, I never made moves on her man but I wasn’t a nice person to her in my young years.

That was a HUGE lesson learned for me as I also started to become wary of saying anything harsh or upsetting to anyone anymore. I didn’t want to be a bitchy person, or hurt people. This incident taught me to be more honest and to not do wrong to others, or cheat your way through life.

Don’t get me wrong, I have had SO MUCH bad stuff happen to me, people have hurt me beyond the way you can imagine, the best thing I have learned is, rather than lowering yourself to that person, or react to how others would- by doing something back to them. My advice is simple.

FORGIVE

FORGET

AND LET IT GO

How often do we still hold onto the past, or what someone has done to us? What’s the point of staying mad when you create so much tension in your life by doing so?

Be the better person, focus on yourself. Let KARMA do its toll because in the end, no one gets away by doing bad things.

Eventually… what goes around WILL COME AROUND.

Tam x

Refresh, Recharge, RESTART

"Why God, WHY do you do this to me, ABOVE ALL THINGS?!" Looking at my, once again flat tyre, and noticing that my other tyre in the boot had also been flat.. "Life sucks balls."
Has anyone found themselves, cursing to God or to the world, one too many times?
Yep I am for one guilty of that. Literally happened about 10 days ago.
I had cracked.

For about 9 weeks since the end of Australia Day, I vowed to stop drinking for 2 months (till April). I went on a new plan, strict counting calories for 9 weeks, WHILST training at the gym 6days a week. I was ready for it, if anything more determined and motivated then last year. I had a Personal Trainer - Jeff, training me 6 days a week, a training partner- Kate and also my mentor- Damien who was there to keep me in line and focused. I know when I put my heart and soul into something, nothing can stop me.

During this period, I was also working (no joke) everyday of the week. I was saving my money for Hawaii, I had old debts to pay, college to pay (which I was also attending 3 times a week), whilst teaching one night a week, going to vocal coach training every Wednesday, doing Nickelodeon shows every so often, attending one-off rehearsals PLUS working at Box HQ.
Funny thing is, I love being busy. Too much- sometimes i purposely kept myself busy and I think it was so I didn't have time to think of other dramas. Every human being has life dramas, some more than others and in the years I have learned to deal with them quite effectively.

First few weeks I was hyped! Kate and I had so much energy because we were excited of our goals, we wanted to work hard, train hard, look good and above all motivate each other with everything.
Slowly in those 9 weeks you could see such a wave of change. I've learned in these 9 weeks that we are not super human. We are HUMAN- I was so eager to do everything in 9 weeks that I was slowly starting to fade away and turn into a emotional mess. I mean who wouldn't? Doing a million things without resting is nearly impossible.

I remember one morning, I was overcoming the flu, I had taken some pre workout stuff, a cold and flu tablet and was at the gym training. Th next thing that happened, i started to completely shake from head to toe, couldn't breathe and I was lying on the ground in fetal position. My body wasn't coping with being sick, stressed and doing too much.
Though on a positive note, I still stuck to my diet, I was capable juggling everything, week 4 and 5 became easy.
Then life dramas happen. In reality, I think everyone has their days. You have your moment of self-doubt, you start questioning yourself of everything and then you get into a complete low mind-set. I was convinced that in the 9 weeks, where I had worked my butt off, I had been exactly where I had started.

It came to one weekend, the week before Hawaii. I had adjudicated for 2 whole weekends. Each day was 10 hour days- I made very good money, I was exhausted yet, extremely happy that I was judging such talented kids in dancing. These little moments gave me a high- pushed me further. I was even listening to a lot of Eric Thomas Motivational Videos. This guy knew his shit. He was homeless for two years and changed his life around and decided to become a public speaker. He said there were nights where he had no sleep, no money, hardly ate, but his goal was there in front of him.
His words is what kept me going to push through all the hardships I had been doing.

People always ask me about my up bringing and what life was like for me as a kid and I am openly honest about it. I hardly had a good up bringing. Life for me as a kid was horrible. Family addictions of gambling, lots of financial problems and still to this day dealing with that. Do I let that bring me down? Sometimes yes- when I have my moments. It is when I have these moments, I know deep down that, that's the moment I need to: REFRESH, RECHARGE and RESTART.

3 days before I leave for Hawaii, my car breaks down and my dad had another relapse. It was the perfect time to go away.

I encourage everyone to seriously, for a week, just disappear. Because we are all human, we need rest. We need time to actually sit back and look at our life and go: 'Ok what do I need to change?'
We become so involved in the world. Social media especially!!! I am shocking for it, because i live by it.

Before I left for Hawaii, my vocal coach told me to truly think what is important for you when you leave. My voice was having it's moments, some days were good- most days, my vocal cords were just sounding off and it all came down to a few simple things. Lifestyle, Rest, Work, Stress.

Being away, I actually SLEPT. Sounds like nothing major, but before in Sydney, I was lucky to have 4-5 hours sleep. In Hawaii, I was having 8-10 hours a day rest.
I was still keeping active, I was enjoying myself and I thought about my life and what I wanted to do. Naturally, I started to feel myself again for once. I didn't have to worry if my meals were prepped, if my bag was packed the night before, If I had studied, invoiced my last 3 jobs I did that week. I was in complete peace.
I believe that travelling does that for you. You find yourself so relaxed, your enjoying the people around you, the culture, the atmosphere, the night sky was beautiful and you could soak up everything around you, without taking life for granted.

Free yourself from the world, let yourself go!

Now I am going to get a little fiery. STOP MAKING EXCUSES TO TREAT YOURSELF. I literally only had $1500 when I went to Hawaii. Because I paid off my debt, college fees, bills and rent just before I left.
I am probably more broke now, but I am feeling like a different person. I don't care that I have to sort out my completely wrecked car that is about to die on me. SHIT HAPPENS, but I am still standing, I am alive and healthy and everything eventually works itself out.
I have about 3 assessments due, a lot of catching up to do at college YET I know I can manage.
I have too many amazing people in my life who are supportive and are there for me.
I am aware life at home is not good, but I have to stay strong and keep moving forward.

I would rather own little and see the world than see little of it.

Take this as a sign please- If your finding yourself:
 1.Having random outbursts to strangers.
2. Punching walls for no reason
3. Getting angry at the coffee shop man for forgetting to make your coffee warm and not COLD
4. Forgetting to wear undies
 5. Misplacing your keys then finding them in odd spots.
6. Wearing odd socks
7. Having road rage for small mistakes
8. Crying over silly things that you would never cry about.
9. Punching a sibbling
10. Look like you have big fat puffy panda eyes.
Please...
TAKE
A
FRIKEN
VACATION

Reward yourself
Refresh yourself
Recharge your body, fuel it up with whatever you need to do.
Come back, kick open the front door, give life the finger and literally
RESTART.

Love Tam xx

Untitled

In the past few weeks, through various incidents that have happened in the media and in mutual friends life, I have been questioning a particular topic, that a lot of people steer away from. That or people find these topics too touchy, personal and upsetting. I couldn't agree more with them. I even struggled to put a title to my blog as I didn't know how to word it. Since the sudden death of Charlotte Dawson, an Australian Icon, who struggled for so long with depression in her life, who yet was so successful and many people looked up to, hung herself on the 23rd February 2014.

With much sadness to mention this as well, my brothers friend recently tried to kill himself too. He jumped off an apartment building, broke his back, all his limbs, legs and feet,  is now in a wheelchair and will never walk again. When I met my brothers friend in the past before, I thought this kid was the sweetest person ever. He was one of the few friends I liked of my brother. To hear this, I can't help to think; Why? The worst part was, he portrayed himself as someone who was happy yet quiet but I just wouldn't expect it.
A few of my family members suffer from Depression. It is a common thing. 1 in 4 Australians will or have suffered from Depression and still have it. The scary thought is, how far the mind can go, when someone reaches that lowness in their life, where they just can't go on with life anymore.
Research says that every year in the world, 1 MILLION people commit suicide.

I have never spoken about this to anyone, to be honest I am still coming to terms to why this person did this. A few years ago, when I was working at a clothing store, I had a good friend who worked with me there named Josh. Josh was your class clown, loud, confident, full of energy and he was everybody's friend. He was also a church boy. He went to youth group every Friday night religiously. Josh had one best friend. His best friend was Timmy. Timmy was probably the most caring, nicest human being on the planet. Words cannot explain how nice he was. I think I am a nice person but Timmy was someone that would do anything for anyone. Including me. The first time I met Timmy was when he was visiting Josh at work and you would know when Timmy was coming to visit. This energy would just automatically lift as soon as he came in. He was the happiest kid ever and when I was having a shocking day at work, he would come in and I would instantly feel better. He was one of those people that would just know how to make your day amazing.
Timmy would always persist me to come to Youth Group.
Timmy: Your coming this Friday aren't you Tam?
Me: No I can't I have .. something on (always made an excuse.)
Timmy: You HAVE to come one day, promise me you will, you will thank me the day you do come.

I had always been raised as a Christian, but over the years when my mum and dad got divorced when I was 15, the church disowned us because of this, and throughout my years I slowly disconnected myself with God, stopped going to church, stopped believing.
I only realised this now, but when I was 18 till about 21years old, I was not a happy person. I was quite miserable and I couldn't connect the dots as to why.
One day at work, Timmy brought in this guy who was a pastor of a church in Melbourne, who was preaching at their Youth group on Friday. Timmy tried asking me again about going to Youth Group.
His friend Ben then stepped in."Why can't you go?"
I felt myself, wanting to lie but I couldn't and i just said: "I am scared."
Ben: If I get up on that stage tonight and I don't see your face in the crowd, I will not preach.
Well, you can imagine the pressure I felt after he said that. I felt like saying FY(U#()*U$O to you, mr gorgeous Ben man, who I couldn't say no to.
In the end, I rocked up, i had the best time, Timmy and Josh were both there and from that incident, I found myself believing in God again.
But that's not the story I am trying to tell. Since that day, Timmy, every now and then started to call me, very randomly. Asking me to come to youth again, wanted to hang out. I even would get the odd phone calls in the middle of the night and it was as if he wanted to talk for hours, or say something in particular and I couldn't figure out at the time what it was. I was certain he wasn't drunk. He was training to be a Pastor. He was 110% Christian, read the bible every night, loved God, type of person. He literally in my eyes, was an angel, there was not one bad thing about him.

I noticed one week, Josh wasn't at work, I must've thought he was at Youth Camp or something. The week after when he was finally at work, I asked him where he had been and he said he was at a funeral.
Me: Who's funeral?
Josh: Timmy's.
Me: What!? how? What happened?
Josh: You see, Timmy was very sick and he decided to take his life.

I just didn't understand, I was so shocked, i nearly fell over. That's when all the phone calls had started to piece together to me. I didn't even see the signs. How can someone that was so loving, so dedicated to God, who beamed so much positivity and happiness, just decides to give their life up?
It made me realise that some people might be the most happiest people on the planet, or they want you to believe that, maybe they even want to believe that themselves, but deep down, their depression takes them to the lowest point until they give up on themselves and give up on life.
This blog, I wanted to dedicate it, to Timmy and to everyone that has experienced something as horrific as that. Josh from then on continued to work somewhere else, moved areas and last I heard he was still working somewhere near the beach and doing Personal training.
I take my hat off to anyone who knows someone close that had that happen to them. You are such strong individuals. I truly mean that from the bottom of my heart. I look up to my step dad who found his dad as a kid in the bathroom shower. He's someone who worked so hard in his life and is a successful person and has the best heart.
My point is, or what I am trying to get at is, a simple smile, a compliment, or a kind gesture can change someones life. It can make a bad day turn to good. I have been more weary now of what I say to people especially these days when you don't know what the individual is going through. This blog is just to make us more aware of how common suicides are in the world, even in Australia.

I will never forget Timmy, he changed me life, without him even knowing. I pray for him and his family everyday. I am always thinking of you and still see you in my dreams smiling. I know you are in a better place.

Tam xx