The Food and Life Clinic

27/04/2026

Grief can bowl you right over, can’t it. 🌬️

I’ve sadly lost people I love before, and in more tragic circumstances too, but this is my Dad. It hit hard.

I’m usually a person that keeps going. I’ve multi-tasked and grieved before but this time I’ve taken a different approach and I’ve been very unapologetic about it too (I think I’m growing up?)

For the first couple of weeks, I pulled right back on everything. I closed the clinic for two weeks. I let calls go to voicemail. I moved through my days so slowly, as slowly as I wanted. It wasn’t because I couldn’t get up. It’s because I didn’t want to fall down.

Mum and dad live in a beautiful coastal town and I made it work for me. I set up this little morning routine for myself:

I’d walk along the water to the main town.
I bought my coffee at the marina.
I walked along the water to where dad used to have Friday morning coffees with his best mate.
I sat. I reflected. I cried.
I walked back.
Sometimes I swam.
I did yoga.

It took a couple of hours. It was like running water on a burn.

The rest of the time was with close family. We hugged tight. We reminisced. We went through old photos, his music (he was a long time radio DJ. He had days and days of music). We drank his beloved red wine and sometimes his scotch (I’ll never be a fan, sorry dad!). I journalled. We fished. We swam.

I’m back in my crazy Melbourne life now. Things are stupid busy as always but I have kept protecting my space and time. It’s needed.

16/04/2026

It gets a little heartbreaking at times, as a dietitian, how often I hear people say they push through their own hunger. How acceptable that seems to be.

The right to adequate food is a human right in international law, included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and its unconditional.

When I share that little nugget of truth with clients, it hits home. You have a basic right to nourishment. The end.

13/04/2026

To be fair, they’re busy and have better things to do… 🤳💅

🤯🤯🤯🤯

In my house, this is abit of a task switching issue. Like, it’s mission accomplished once they got the snack they want. The next tasks in the sequence (taking the rubbish out of the fridge and putting it in the bin) drops off their radars. Fun, huh.

05/04/2026

24/03/2026

Let’s get comfortable with our lumps and bumps! 🍐🍎🍑

I have heard more times than I can count “I can’t wear that dress. You see my lumps and bumps” or “I love this top, it hides all my lumps and bumps”.

Have you ever said that?

I don’t know when I stopped giving a s**t about my lumps and bumps and just wore clothes I like, but somewhere along the line it became less of a risk and more of a liberation.

So, if you want to wear the dress, wear the dress (or pants or skirt or top or whatever). Wear it. Risk it. Get comfortable showing up as all of you.

20/03/2026

OMG 🤦‍♀️😳🫣🤭

I don’t know what to say…I think I’ve already said too much. 😶

18/03/2026

Bowel. Bowl. What’s the difference? 🤷‍♀️

Me writing an NDIS report today.

I wish this was the first time I’d made this typo…
Let’s just say it’s the first time I’ve picked it up before sending it out. 🤦‍♀️😂

18/03/2026

What time do you turn into a pumpkin?

Always excited to escape the midweek drudgery for some yummy eats in the city buuuuuuuuut my alarm will still go off in the morning and it’ll take me the week to recover if I don’t get to beddy-byes at a decent hour 😴

13/03/2026

Honestly though, where do all the socks go?? 🕵️‍♀️

Remember the days when your socks only belonged to you? And, like, you managed to keep the matching pairs because they went in the same place (like, the washing basket) together?

And now it’s a distant memory because your daughter has taken co-ownership of your socks…and while one might make it to the washing basket eventually, the other falls into an abyss between the bed and the wall, or the abyss in the bottom of the wardrobe or, let’s face it, the abyss that no one has found yet. 🤷‍♀️🕵️‍♀️

I’m just gonna have to roll with it.

09/03/2026

I love basketball. I am all in for my kids tournaments AND I will also be socially ☠️ for the next week.

Literally, this is me coming off a long weekend 🏀tournament. Hours in stadiums. Breakfast, lunch and dinner with nine other families (and then some). Reunions with folks I haven’t seen in aaaaaaages (every time). I love it at the time but I am overstimulated AF. Because I am an extrovert and an introvert. I LOVE my own space and time…but I love all the people too. 🤷‍♀️ No one talk to me tonight. There will be no music in my car for the next week. Sssshhhhhhhhh…

26/02/2026

OMG this is NOT the first time 🤦‍♀️

It was in the diary. Like, in there. I was feeling so organised. Sorted dinner early, got my work finished so I could relax in there, sorted sports training runs thinking I was gonna be luxxing at the hairdressers. 😭 Feeling like a boss. 🤩

Nope. No head massage for me tonight. No fresh hair colour and trim. 🥺 I walk in and they all look perplexed. They check the bookings and I’m two weeks early. I got the time right, just f**cked up the date. 🙃

I do this ALL the damn time. My struggle with dates and time is real. Scientists, do your thing. 🧠🔬

19/02/2026

🤔Why did I say and think that? 🤦‍♀️

My daily routines include lots of self care: I eat and exercise regularly. I have variety in my foods. I do yoga. I journal. I’m social. I’ve become really good at building boundaries. But, I suck at allowing myself to REST!

Now I do have to let you know that I have a bone “bruise”. An x-ray the next day ruled out a fracture. So pain but not for as long and no cast…my low mood rebounded immediately on hearing that one!

When I thought I had a fracture though, all I wanted to do was minimise it. All I could think about was the disruption and inconvenience to everyone else. Even when I am sick with a virus, “I’m ok”, “I’ll live”, “I’ll just march on”.

So, in the spirit of life being a journey of self discovery, it turns out I have a newly discovered direction of development…girl, learn to allow yourself to rest!

💭💭I wonder how many other mothers would go through the same thoughts…