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!
Tuesday: Peanut Butter Banana Overnight Oats
Every Tuesday whilst school is on I have school running club, which I am captain of. Oh and I just found out that I also got House Captain and Overall School Sports Captain for next year! For my final year at school. Anyway so last night I made my breakfast for this morning which is Honey Peanut Butter Banana overnight Oats in a not so empty peanut Butter Jar! This is so good, it is the only positive about finishing my peanut butter jar. I make my overnight oats with mashed banana, quick oats, coconut flour, almond milk, Greek yogurt and peanut butter! Pure cold perfection.
Wednesday: Vanilla Almond Crunch Oatmeal
Started the morning with a super bowl of one of my other favourite oatmeal creations. Vanilla and almond butter go so well together. The flavours just mix well. I used Barney Butters Crunchy Almond Butter. It is so creamy and the texture it perfect, I highly recommend it! My creamy oats cooked with vanilla and almond butter was so delicious, and was topped with banana, granola, sliced apple and more almond butter.
Thursday: Chocolate Brownie Batter Oatmeal
I had swimming again this morning, so an early start but when I got back I took my time and made myself a yummy bowl of Oatmeal. This Morning was chocolate brownie batter oatmeal which was inspired by Lauren the oatmeal artists herself. I used Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa from Costco. Costco is now in Australia and it had American products as well. I topped my oats with more banana, a white chopped white chocolate raspberry questbar and Peanut Butter & Co Mighty Maple Peanut Butter. Who needs chocolate when you have choco oatmeal!
Friday: Cappuccino Banana Oatmeal
It was my older brothers last day of year 12 today, so it was going to be a long and tiring day. So I made myself a wake me up energizing oatmeal. It was cappuccino banana oatmeal! I never used to like coffee but then I suddenly began to love it! Then due to this new love I had to try it with my other love which is obviously oatmeal! The coffee, milk and mashed banana make a creamy delicious combination that is amazing to the oatmeal. It really kicks off a day. I topped it with the usual banana and Justin’s Maple Almond Butter! Got both my coffee fix and oatmeal fix!
Saturday: Coconut Cashew Oatmeal
I have running training in the afternoons except on Saturdays in which I train In the morning. So to fuel my run I had a awesome bowl of Coconut Cashew Oatmeal! This is one of my favourite oatmeal creations, the flavour combination is unbelievable! I highly recommend it, it’s like peanut butter & jelly. I cooked it with coconut milk and topped it with desiccated coconut, coconut chips and You Fresh Naturals – White Chocolate Coco-nut Cashew Butter which is amazing! I can’t say enough how good this oatmeal is.
Sunday: Cinnamon Maca Oatmeal
My last day of a tasty week of delicious bowls of oatmeal has come to a end. To finish it off and fuel me for training today was Cinnamon Maca oatmeal! Maca is a superfood powder with 3x the energy than a banana and also contain amino acids and much more. I really love the taste but it takes some time to get used to, but now I am hooked on the taste. It works so well with oatmeal. I topped my yummy oatmeal with banana, apple, caramel syrup and Barney Butter’s Crunchy almond butter. Oatmeal always enlightens my day 🙂
To finish off I just would like to thank Lauren so much for choosing me as the Oatmeal Enthusiasts got the month of December, I can’t thank her enough as I and so honoured and appreciate this significantly.
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