MY HUSBAND LEFT ME SO I LOST 60KG!
Opening her eyes and stumbling downstairs to the fridge, it was time for breakfast. Popping open a cold can of Coke, the now 37-year-old Nic Marnell chugged it down and was quickly alert and ready for a day of kid wrangling.
“I never ate breakfast or lunch,” she tells New Idea. “It was easier to drink Coke and energy drinks to get me through the day and then I’d cook a big meal in the evening.”
A mum of three young kids with a husband working away in the mines Nic’s unhealthy habit quickly locked her into a vicious cycle which saw her piling on the kilos.
“I’d always been on the big side,” Nic admits. “When I met my husband at 23 I was a size 20
and I remember getting to 101 kilos after my first pregnancy, but then I stopped looking.
I was comfortable and didn’t have anyone to impress.”
Her weight became more of an issue during her third pregnancy when at 129kg her doctor told Nic she must lose some weight or face a risky nine months.
“It was scary and I was very conscious about it, but I didn’t lose much. I’d tried diets before – the soup diet and [diet] pills – but nothing ever worked,” she says.
Then with three young children, Tahli, Punaika and Hikawera, Nic had even less time and incentive for herself.
“I sipped on seven cans of energy drink and Coke all day and then made chicken Kiev and a big cheesy potato bake for dinner,” she says. “We’d have huge portions of chocolate pudding and ice-cream for dessert and when the kids went to bed I’d devour a bag of Mexican Doritos and sour cream.”
But as Nic’s weight escalated to 146kg, something else was crumbling.
Her 12-year relationship with her husband Leonard, 36, was falling apart and in October 2017 he left Nic telling her he didn’t love her anymore.
“We were both unhappy. I was unhappy with myself but I still didn’t see it coming. For months I couldn’t function,” she says. “Then in January, my friend Jodie took me away for the
weekend – and she tells it like it is.”
After a bit of tough love, Nic knew she needed to pick herself up. She wanted to be healthy as the primary carer for her kids and, newly single, she wanted to feel desirable again.
Seeing an ad for the Healthy Mummy diet on Facebook, Nic decided to give some of the recipes a go. “Then I decided to try their smoothies for breakfast,” she says. “I knew I needed to quit the energy drinks so I started with the Coke. After a few weeks off that, I cut down the energy drinks and then went cold turkey. It was awful. I had headaches, the shakes and sweats but I did it.”
And with the new diet came the energy Nic had never had, even when drinking all that caffeine. The weight started falling off, too – five, 10, 20 kilos.
“When I reached 99.95 kilos, I cried and sent the photo of the scales to all my friends and family. I never thought I’d get under 100 kilos,” she smiles.
Alongside her healthy eating regime, she ran her first Parkrun, a volunteer-run 5km race held every weekend at various locations across Australia and the world.
“I hated running, but I stepped out of my comfort zone – and a year later I’m onto my 42nd Parkrun! I’m running a half marathon in October,” she says.
She’s also sporting a whole new body, having lost 60kg in the past 18 months.
“I got down to 86 kilos,” she smiles. “At a size 12-14, I’m smaller than I was as a teenager!”
And in what has topped off Nic’s fairytale, she and Leonard have found each other again.
“We stayed amicable throughout our split and he was very supportive of my weight loss,” she says. “Then we started talking properly and on our wedding anniversary in September last year we decided to give it another go.
“It felt like I was a whole new person going into the relationship again. I’ve changed as my body has changed and Leonard and I have fallen in love all over again.”
Their kids are over the moon about their new mum and about having Daddy back, and the whole family cheered Nic on recently when she was chosen to take part in a body-confidence shoot for Healthy Mummy.
“I had my picture taken in my bra and undies. I was very nervous beforehand, but I just did it and even thinking about it today makes me smile,” she says. “I’m so body confident now and the smile in those photos is real. It’s not just my face smiling either. My whole body!”
“I WAS UNHAPPY WITH MYSELF BUT I STILL DIDN’T SEE IT COMING”