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Home > Your Champions > Kim Sullivan
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Kim Sullivan |
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I had a heart attack nine years ago when I was 43 and the doctors have never really been able to tell me why. When I first started having chest pain, I just thought a vitamin I’d taken had gotten stuck, but when I was still experiencing discomfort in my chest a week later I decided to get it checked out and the rest is history.
I’ve been determined not to allow my heart attack to stop me living my life and also feel passionate about helping the Heart Foundation to raise awareness about heart disease in women.
In 2009 my friend Judi and I cycled on a tandem from Sydney to Melbourne and raised $14,000 for the Heart Foundation. The trip took around three weeks and we covered more than 1,000 kilometres. Everywhere we went, people stopped us to find out more about what we were doing and to donate, which was fantastic!
I know first hand how important it is for women to look after their hearts and am looking forward to taking part in the Healthy Heart Challenge – I hope you all join me and sign up!
Kim has chosen the 'Improve everyday nutrition' goal. |
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Week 3 update I chose to improve my nutrition and diet not only to help myself but it indirectly benefits my family as well. Whatever I eat they eat. Whatever I buy for the pantry is what they ultimately get to choose to eat from in the pantry. I have always been someone who reads the labels on products to make sure that I know whether I should choose that product or another one altogether. The Heart Tick has helped with this process.
As a working mum I always want to spend as little time as possible in the kitchen. So, my first step towards my Challenge has been to order some new recipe books that are healthy. This will mean some variety in the kitchen plus I am hoping to entice my children to do some of the cooking. At the same time we will all learn and benefit by choosing healthy/heart -smart alternatives. Apart from cooking better I have also set myself the challenge to cut out any "naughty" between meal snacks e.g. a biscuit with my morning coffee. This will be tricky as they are begging me to eat them when I make my coffee. I will just have to be strong. I will bring an alternative snack that is healthy. Let's see how I go. Week 6 update
Well, the new cook books have arrived and there has been a lot of interest from the rest of the family. Finally someone else might do the cooking! A lot of the cookbooks even provide a breakdown of calories, fat content etc. Very helpful in making sure that what we cook is going to be good for us.
Have also tried to change some of my shopping habits. There are now less chocolate and chips in the house. Not too many complaints from the rest of the family. Hopefully all of this will help to benefit not just me but all of us.
Week 9 update
Well, we are at the end of the 10 week Challenge. Has it helped or changed me. Yes, it has. In the middle of this Challenge my family went on holidays to Hawaii. This is where I was really challenged with my diet. America still has a long way to go. Having lived in San Francisco 13 years ago I thought things may have improved. Let me tell you, Australia is ahead by leaps and bounds. Everything is full of sugar and you rarely find items with reduced fat or calories. It made shopping very challenging but I stuck to the task and managed to feed myself and everyone else fairly healthily. Yes, I think this Challenge has helped me and after facing the obstacles of overseas, I am pretty confident that I will stick to the Challenge and continue to eat healthily and improve my diet and my families. |
