Nicole Talbot watched tears welling in her daughter’s eyes. It was Kaylee’s ninth birthday and the little girl wanted to go horse riding with her mum.
“But I was 100kg and couldn’t get on a horse. So I had to tell Kaylee that I was very sorry but I was too big to ride with her,” remembers Nicole, 36, from Melbourne.
“It broke my heart to see her cry.”
Kaylee instead went riding with Nicole’s partner, Danny, but Nicole vowed to lose weight and get fit so she could one day play and ride with her six children.
But then she discovered she was expecting a surprise seventh baby and the pregnancy was tricky.
Nicole’s uterus was paper-thin and doctors worried that it would rupture. So from 12 weeks Nicole had to stay in bed until her baby arrived.
“I was allowed out of bed for 30 minutes a day,” says Nicole.
“I’d started the pregnancy at size 16 to 18 and by the time Brielle was born in January last year I weighed 120 kilos and was a size 22.”
Nicole had to take breaks as she walked around the supermarket because she got out of breath.
“I’d worry about having a heart attack and someone telling my children that it could have been prevented if I’d lost weight,” says Nicole.
Nicole has dropped a whopping 46kgs!
So in June last year she began walking and shed 5kg before getting serious and joining her local Fernwood Fitness centre.
“While I was on bed rest I’d written a simple plan – get healthy, get fit and get happy. And it was time to take action for my kids,” says Nicole.
“I was crying in the car park the day I joined but I didn’t want to say ‘no’ again, like with the horse riding.”
For the next year Nicole thought about her children as she worked out for an hour or two every day on the treadmill and exercise bikes and with weights.
Her food coach transformed her daily diet. Potatoes, chocolate, big dinners and late night sandwiches were swapped for fruit, veggies, fish, chicken, smoothies and salads.
“I’d go to the gym at midnight or 1am, whenever Brielle went to sleep. I was on a mission,” laughs Nicole.
A year after she began her weight-loss journey Nicole weighs a trim 69kg and is a size 10.
At a recent family party, relatives who hadn’t seen Nicole for months didn’t recognise the attractive woman in the fitted black dress.
“And for the first time in a long time I actually felt pretty,” she says.
The family has enrolled in karate lessons together and that long-awaited horse ride with Kaylee has also finally been ticked off.
Now Nicole is studying to become a personal trainer to inspire other women to get fit.
“There was a time when I couldn’t play on a swing or slide with my children.
“That was a horrible way to live and I’m never going back there. I’ve changed my life and I’m loving it!”
Now the mum-of-six can have a fun time with her kids.
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