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Moving house has got to be one of the most annoying, traumatic and anxiety inducing things you can do. Am I right? I don’t mean to brag but I think I may be somewhat of an expert in the pain and misery of moving house. I’m about to move for the 24th time in my lifetime.

The list of things to do is endless…removalists, packers, pet care, pantry clean out, fridge defrosting, laundry loads, a full garage than can no longer be ignored, gas and electricity and god forbid you have no internet on the first night in a new home…because that means no Netflix and then you’d actually have to talk to each other (because let’s face it, you’ll be ignoring all the unpacking that needs doing!).

This move is the first time that I’ve had to book not just removalists but a specialist treadmill relocation person! Can you believe it? I cannot move the thing on my own. I cannot pay the professionals to do it and I have had to find a strapping lad who specializes in just such a task. There are businesses that actually move gyms for you. Not that I have a whole gym. Just the treadmill.

So here’s my story of this, my 24th house move… which is happening in two weeks. So you can expect another moving post about the trauma I’ll experience then too…’moving post’…see what I did there? 🙂


You know that old adage about buying the worst house in the best street so you live amongst it and plan to fix it up? Well that’s kinda my life. Except we rent that house. And today that house was sold to developers – foreign investors if my naked eye isn’t jumping to too many stereotype assumptions.

For that last five years we have loved our home. Sure, it’s someone else’s house but it was our home. We made it that way. We put pictures on the wall, we hosted backyard BBQs and dinner parties on our lounge room floor and binge watched the latest Netflix anything and brought our new baby home to this house. Her first home. Where she learned to crawl, walk and talk. Where we baby-proofed to within an inch of its life, where we tackled the sleepless first year (or four!) and where we learned (pretty quickly) how to be parents.

This is the home where we started our business and where I had three pregnancies but got just one baby. This is the home that we returned to after trips overseas for holidays and to help ailing family and this is the home we took sanctuary in when life and other curve balls came flying too fast.

In five short years we’ve lived a lifetime in this house. This house, that was never ours but that we loved, warts and all.

With a child now nearing school age we decided it was time to tackle the next big issue…which school? So, with that in mind I broached the renter’s biggest fear. Maintenance. What of it for our warty old house that had a leaky roof and an outside laundry and a back door that exited onto a death trap. Would these things get fixed? Did the owner have long-term plans?

Well yes, they did want to fix them. That is until they saw the bill from the myriad of tradies who quoted on all the work that was required to make this house safe again. Then they didn’t. With developers circling it didn’t take much for the seed to be sown and before we knew it there was a ‘for sale’ sign at the front of our home.

Mercifully, as it was packaged for destruction we weren’t burdened with the endless weekends of having our home open for strangers to trundle through and look through our smalls. Sizing the place up for their own memory making. No, the people that came to look at our home while it was on sale just looked at the land and the proximity to the local street life and the train station neighbour and the rich looking lifestyle that would be afforded to those who lived in the soon to be imagined 10-apartment building that could be raised from the ashes of this clinker brick, two-story art deco house.

So we were spared our home and our life being open for inspection. Thankfully.

I’m sad that houses like our home are so readily destroyed for progress and to meet growing demand in suburbs like the one we accidentally called home. This house where the floors creak, the paint peels and the drains smell. Where the electrical wiring blinkers frequently and the drafts are constant with the windows that rattle incessantly and then inexplicably stick. This house that deserved some love and attention to make it whole again, but sadly, there’s no money to be made in sentimental real estate acquisitions.

And that’s OK because when the auctioneers gavel called “SOLD” it didn’t matter to us. We’ve made our memories and they belong to us. Not the house. We’ll take them with us, to our next home. Which, no doubt I’ll get just as sentimental about. But that OK. Memories are made of this.

And despite living in 24 homes in my 45 years, I’m still a sentimental homebody and I don’t plan on changing any time soon.

Living in the Upside Down: My Story About Depression

“When everything feels like the movies, you bleed just to know you’re alive.”
I used to think that line from the 1998 Goo Goo Dolls song Iris was just a cool lyric until I figured out what it actually meant.

Being in the world when you’re under a cloud of depression is like living in the upside down from the Netflix show, Stranger Things. The upside down is a parallel universe where everything looks the same as your real world but it’s not. It’s slow. It’s full of cobwebs. It’s dark. It has eerie light particles floating through the air and there are creatures lurking in every corner. Horrible. Loathsome. Creatures.

The worst thing is you can’t find the door to the right side up. You just have to wait. Wait for it to pass. And hope that it passes quickly. Because nothing is going to work until the world has righted itself again.

Outwardly I’m a pretty confident person. I’m the one that that leads a group. I’m the one that helps get shit done. I’m the one that puts her neck on the line – sometimes, in an unguarded moment, without fear of consequence. On my strong days I reckon this is a good thing. Live your life with zero fucks.

But on my weak days…man oh man. I wonder what the fuck I’ve done as I stumble down to my upside down. Since starting this blog I wrestle with how much to share and how much to say. I’ve surprised myself with how much I can write about! But there’s something I haven’t written about, and I need to. I need to because I know that there are probably a whole bunch of people out there just like me that may take solace from hearing about my upside down.

A long time ago I went to see a naturopath counsellor type person to try and sort out my diet and anxiety (although I didn’t know it was anxiety at the time). She talked. I talked. And then as the session was coming to an end I unloaded all of the things I thought were wrong with me and how I just couldn’t see a way through it all and basically that I was broken. Her response was (and I can remember it verbatim, almost 15 years later), “I think there’s an easier way for you to be in this world, Kim”. Which is how she ended our session and I never saw her again. I fled to my car and wept for about an hour before I could drive home. She was right, but she’d only fuelled my fears even further. I was an alien. A freak that just couldn’t be happy. I needed help for sure. But at that stage of my life I even needed help getting help.

I can’t recall exactly when I first started taking anti depressants but it was sometime in 2001, I think. I’d just learned, surprisingly, that both of my parents were treating depression and that it was a common thread on both sides of the family – mostly untreated in the previous generations. It got me thinking that maybe there was a solution to my upside down.

People who live with depression describe it in many different ways – I guess because it takes many different forms and has just as many triggers. For me it feels like I’m seeing the world in slow motion and through a fog, even though the sun is shining hard. And I hate that fucking sun. I find joy in almost nothing and feel like I’m walking in cement shoes with a heavy hat that pushes my brow over my eyes. Literally, that’s a physical feeling that I get.

I have a lot of physical symptoms. I’m tired. I get dizzy. I get light sensitive and wear my beloved ray bans indoors and out. I have headaches, neck aches and heartaches. When I’m depressed I just can’t handle any level of badness or sadness in the world. Everything is unfair and everything hurts.

I have a general lethargy and I just can’t get my shit together. And yet I do. I’m a mother to a three year old. I have to function. I’m lucky. I’m a functioning depressive, I guess. I can put one heavy foot in front of the other; I can complete basic tasks that require little thought. I just can’t plan for the future. I can’t see the sun rising tomorrow. I just want to sleep.

I’m unable to make the simplest of decisions or find words to hold intelligent conversations. My poor husband manages during my bouts with depression by not making me make sense. He gets it. He lets me fumble around. Bless him.

My intelligent head tells me it will pass – and the fact that I know this is even more frustrating. I want it gone now. I want to get on with life. When I’m depressed I can’t keep up with myself, which usually results in a breakdown of some sort.

The divine, hilarious and fabulously controversial Catherine Deveny, who has also written about her depression, says when you don’t know what to do just do anything. It doesn’t matter. As long as you can put your focus into one thing and just get moving. She’s right. So while decision making is tough, making a start on just one thing is far better than sitting on your couch staring out the window waiting for the upside down to become right side up.

Good diet, fresh air and exercise all help alleviate depression but they don’t solve it. They don’t make it disappear. Depression is not a mind over matter illness. Anyone who has suffered from it knows that just thinking positive thoughts doesn’t right the world. You can Namaste all the fuck you want, those little serotonin enhancers aren’t getting joyous any quicker (maybe they do for some, but not for me).

What I’ve come to learn is that the key to managing my depression is to have a simple point of focus that I can return to without having to question it too much. A simple eating plan. A simple form of exercise. A simple commitment to writing (whether I publish or not) Simple things that I don’t have to think about too much. Just do.

Sure, I’ve deviated off my simple plan a bit with a chemical imbalance that makes you just want to eat and eat and eat but at least my extra calorie intake has been good, clean food made from scratch and made by me. I’ve also lumped my way through any form of exercise like a baby elephant because I have zero lightness in me.

But the point is – I’m still here. And I actually think that’s amazing. To have a focus when you’re in the upside down, reminds you that the light will return. And the movie will end and it will be all right.


MY 3 TIPS FOR LIVING WITH A BLACK DOG

Let it in
If you are diagnosed or acknowledge that you live with depression then own it. Depression is not a weakness. Depression is not a crime. Depression is an illness that has every right to be treated like any other illness…with whatever approach works best for you.

Treat it
Once you have owned it then be prepared for it.

Jen Nicholson, created this totally awesome “feel good” inspiration board. A doodle she did to remind herself what to do when she forgets what to do. Genius.

Decide on your action plan and have it ready. Just like you keep panadol in the cupboard for headaches have your depression kit at the ready. Talk to your GP, your counselor, your partner, your best friend from kindergarten, whoever has a clue about this stuff. Do not work it out on your own. Anti-depressants may help you. They may not. Exercise may help you. It may not. Diet changes may help you. They may not. What definitely won’t help you is staying silent about it. Say something. Do something. Anything. Be prepared.

Accept it
Having lived with depression for more than 15 years I no longer fight it. As I’ve gotten older (and I care less about what people think) I’ve started to tell people when I’m feeling unwell. My close friends understand completely and just let me be while it passes (and it always does). My work colleagues and clients don’t need to know details but I do my best to reschedule important things if I think my professional self (and the work I deliver) will be impacted. It’s not always easy but you wouldn’t ask a person with a broken leg in plaster to run a foot race. You’d wait until they had healed, right? People will understand…unless you’re a surgeon saving lives or some such selfless miracle worker.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU LIVE, LIKE OR LOVE SOMEONE WITH DEPRESSION

Be Kind and Let Them Be
Make sure they are safe and that all the basics are covered (food, shelter and love). Do not think you need to ‘cheer them up’. Asking someone who is suffering from a depressive episode to simply “buck up” and to look on the bright side is like a slap in the face. We’re not morons. If we could buck up, we would.

Be Affirmative and Take Action
Make decisions and encourage them to do things. Simple uncomplicated things. Walk along a beach. Get into nature where there are less likely to be triggers (unless the bush is a trigger, then avoid the bush!). Go to a movie that you think they’ll like (not Schindler’s List, obviously). Cook them a favourite meal. Do the laundry. Do small tasks around them without expecting anything in return; small simple gestures to let them know that they are not suffering alone. Avoid too much melancholy or reminiscing. Keep them present and accepting the here and now.

Be Helpful and Don’t Judge
If you need to, get an education on the illness to understand some of the ways it can manifest itself. Being better informed means you’ll be better able to accept and roll with the illness. It’s hard but letting it run its course is sometimes the only way through. Don’t judge it or think you have to solve it. Your job is to be kind and affirmative.

REACH OUT
Resources from wise and educated people are here:

Sam Wood: The Wizard of Aus

When Dorothy and co. stumbled down the yellow brick road to find the Wizard and his magic, they lifted the curtain and found only an ordinary man telling them extraordinary things so they would believe in themselves …

I wanted to write a profile piece on Sam Wood because I thought it might help me to figure out what his magic power is. To find out why his online food and exercise program, 28 by Sam Wood, has inspired me to achieve so much more than other health and weight loss programs I’ve tried. I mean, essentially he’s not really presenting anything new to me. I’m 44. I’ve been around the diet and exercise block many, many times in the past 30 years. I’ve got the knowledge, the menu plans, and the exercise spreadsheets – yep, been there, done that, bought the t-shirt (XL, obviously). I’ve just never bloody done it for long enough to achieve sustainable results. I get bored, restless and complacent. I take umbrage with the trainer, the consultant, the food, the planning, the gym, the dollars I’m spending … any excuse to quit really. So I have quit. Everything. Until now.

Now I’m part of a program that feels like it’s setting me up for life. Other programs say they’ll give you the foundations for making the right decisions, and often they do – until you reach the end of the yellow brick road and your membership runs out and you sleep in one day and then throw the unused gym towel out the window. Sam’s program, on the other hand, is actually right there beside you when you decide to sleep in or take a month off or generally fuck up. Through the member-only 28 Facebook community, Sam’s coaching us, dishing out tough love right alongside the silly posts of him scoffing M&Ms, having a pedicure, hiding in McDonalds or sharing beers with his mates. He frequently makes himself the butt of his own jokes (literally, check this out ). In other words: he’s real. Just like you and me.

Given all this, I wanted to know more. I wanted to know why. And how. So I used my blog as an excuse to knock on his door and ask him some probing questions. I thought I’d get some dirt, peek behind the curtain, and see the wizard at work.

And you know what I discovered? Pretty much the exact same thing that Dorothy did.

That Samuel James Wood, born 21 May 1980 to Andrew and Wendy Wood in Hobart, Tasmania is a delightfully boring overachiever who’s been training people since that one day in primary school when he showed his schoolmates how to play marbles (a stunt he actually performed in front of a TV crew, which proves the showman started young).

So, if you too want to know how he’s done it, the path he’s travelled, and the pain he’s gone through, read on. But if you’re looking for skeletons and revelations of a secret love-child (that exists outside of my dreams), then I’m sorry, you’re shit out of luck. Sam Wood is just your average Mr Nice Guy, with a winning smile and a sponsorship from a Mercedes car dealership.

He’s an ordinary bloke doing extraordinary things. Just like the Wizard.


Sam Wood may be an imposing figure with soapie-star good looks and a charming personality but underneath that exterior is a man who gets the most from life when he’s helping others. Obviously, Sam’s come a long way from showing his friends how to play marbles, and following a 17-year career in the fitness industry, is now helping people transform their lives using 28 by Sam Wood.

The program has just hit its one-year anniversary and in that time Sam has created something of a cult following for his no-frills, real-life approach to health and fitness – a fact he says is also changing his own way of thinking and working.

“The program has completely transformed how I can help people, and work with them and influence them in a good way. I don’t know, I guess it’s my wildest dream realized,” he says.

He refers to us, his ‘28-ers’ and members of the program, as ‘family’. And just like real family, we reveal a lot to him: our fears, our dreams, and how much we want to bitch slap him when he sets a workout that’s just too damn hard!

“It’s true friendships, and the personalities shine through. I love that I can be absolutely real. No skeletons in the closet. What they get is me. Raw. Real. Everyday. No polished videos. I have the best job in the world, and it’s a dream come true.”

FOLLOW THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD

So how did he get here? How did that dream become a reality, and why do we choose and trust him over all the others in the flooded market of online health and fitness?

From his high school year book…Caption reads: “Samuel James Wood. Woody. Snagglepuss. Pud. Probable fate: Unsuccessful Comedian”

In 1998 when the world was introduced to Monica Lewinsky, Brittany Spears and the Good Will Hunting bro-mance of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, 17-year-old Sam Wood had just finished high school and applied to the University of Tasmania to study law.

“I was pretty hopeless at school. I was lost because I wasn’t a good academic and because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. At the time I was so confused. I applied to get into psychology law and I remember reading the acceptance letter going, ‘I’ve watched too many bloody John Grisham movies or something. What the fuck is this? I don’t even know’,” he reveals.

After a friendly but stern chat with a lawyer friend of his father’s, Sam conceded that law wasn’t the right fit for him and that he perhaps needed to rethink his path. So he put his decision on hold and headed off to America for a month to play basketball and coach kids in Chicago. According to his father, Sam was the “gawky, gangly-looking kid” who was obsessed with sports. Any sport. Cricket. Hockey. Football. Basketball. Marbles.

Sam returned from America with a renewed and more focused interest in fitness.He’d used a gym regimen to transform himself from a six-foot-three skinny kid to a strapping young man with the beginnings of killer abs and a clearer idea of what he wanted in life. He traded the law degree for one in human movement and headed off to Ballarat University in rural Victoria.

But after a year of university life, he was still restless. The academic way, with its guidelines, rigour and processes, didn’t sit well with Sam. He wanted to get busy working with what he was learning. So, in January 2000, he headed to Melbourne to take up work experience at Harper’s, a Bayside gym. He’d convinced the owner, Craig Harper (now one of Australia’s leading presenters, educators, coaches and commentators in health and fitness), to give him a go – despite the fact he was still living over two hours away in Ballarat.

The work experience gig turned into Sam’s first real job. So with nothing keeping him in Ballarat (he’d just split with his girlfriend and managed to transfer his studies to the Melbourne-based Australian Catholic University), he loaded up his Commodore station wagon and made Melbourne home.

A HEAD FOR BUSINESS
If I only had a brain

While getting a taste for the real world and real paid work at Harper’s, Sam says he managed to “dribble across the finish line” of his university qualifications, and could see his gamble of moving to the big city was starting to pay off. Literally. While his peers were lucky to crack $600 a week as a personal trainer, Sam was stashing away a lot more than that. Like a gaggle of girls on a hen’s night, the ladies lined up to throw money at him in return for a session of sweat and dumbbell lifting. What’s even more incredible is Sam achieved his success with zero self-promotion. Sure, he was charismatic which the ladies loved, but more than that, he was genuinely committed, he cared about his clients and he was getting results, and that powerful combination was selling itself.

But not one to rest on his laurels, Sam started looking for more to do while his clients were at their 9 to 5 jobs. And he found it in children’s health and wellbeing.

“Training kids was an eye opener. Little Johnnie’s parents would drop him off and then sort of dust their hands of their health and fitness responsibilities. Like getting a personal trainer was just ticking a box,” Sam recalls.

This meant Sam had to have some tough conversations and tackle the issues head-on.

“I’d have to have some pretty deep, confronting chats with parents about what really needed to be done and how it wasn’t going to work unless they made the commitment and some changes themselves.

“The whole ‘kids, parents, health and fitness’ thing really is cyclical. You can’t do one without the other successfully. There’s no point getting children in the right mindset if Mum then goes and buys a whole bunch of crap from the supermarket, and there’s no point Mum buying all this healthy food if the kids won’t eat it. It’s the same with fitness. Kids need to be taxied to sport events and gyms, so the parents have got to be signed up to that too,” he says.

The influence Sam has on people is not lost on him.

“I know I can be the difference in [these kids’] lives. And to be able to influence at such an early stage in someone’s life is really quite a privilege. I take that very seriously,” he says.

Sam’s interest in and passion for children’s health and fitness soon became his next business venture. In 2007 he again partnered with Craig Harper to start Gecko Sports, a sport and fitness program for children. He remained at its helm for a few years and it’s now a franchised operation run all over Australia.

Today, 17 years since his work experience at Harper’s, Sam owns The Woodshed, his own gym and personal training centre (complete with on-site café run by his younger brother Alex), on the original Bayside site. Sam moved in and set up shop in 2014 when Harper’s moved out, and he hasn’t looked back. The property is well known to many Melbournians – if only for the larger-than-life image of the man himself (and his naked torso!) beaming down at traffic on one of Melbourne’s busiest arterial roads (Pictured at right).

So there’s no denying Sam has a strong head for business, which is surprising since, by his own admission, he was a better athlete than academic. To understand his success and the positive mindset he brings to life, one only has to look at his upbringing.

Although they weren’t wealthy, Andrew and Wendy Wood managed to send Sam and Alex, and their younger sister Hannah, to private schools. The Woods felt that even if their kids didn’t excel academically, they’d be exposed to social infrastructure that could help to springboard them in their chosen directions. In other words, Sam’s parents let him and his siblings shape their own destinies. If that approach sounds familiar to 28ers, it’s because Sam applies the very same philosophy to us. He puts us in the driver’s seat and gives us all we need to make the right decisions for our own health and fitness.

At 15, when most young blokes are running amok on the football field, larking with their mates, and generally living a carefree teenage existence, Sam’s world shifted off its axis. His mother was diagnosed with non Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Within six months, she was gone and the family was understandably heartbroken. Sam gathered his courage and stepped up to help his father raise the two younger children, and found the added responsibility helped to fill the void and manage his grief.

“It was all pretty ordinary,” admits his father. “We were living in hope, but she just went downhill fast and Sam was incredibly strong, but I know he was also very scared. We all were. I know we’ll never get over it.”

The bond that Sam, the eldest of the three Wood children, had developed with his mother laid the foundation for his relationships with women going forward – a fact he doesn’t fail to recognize.

“I was pretty inseparable with her. I spent all day everyday with her until she passed away. So she was a big influence in how I relate to women,” Sam says.

RAISING HIS PROFILE
If I only had a heart

With both The Woodshed and Gecko Sports humming along, Sam was ready to tackle something new, and so he started fleshing out his idea for an online health and fitness program that clients could do anywhere, anytime.

Sam didn’t believe in applying the same restrictions he’d seen in other programs though; he wanted to offer a program that gave its members more freedom, not less.

“Other programs train you like it’s a punishment. They set you food guidelines like it’s a punishment. It’s all about taking things away, rather than giving you the skills or the tools or the recipes to actually enjoy a healthy life,” Sam asserts.

With the initial idea bubbling away in his mind, the only real roadblock Sam could see was his lack of profile. He told his father he’d need to build a following if he was to successfully launch an online success story.

And then came The Bachelor.

When encouraged by a Woodshed client to apply for season three of the hit reality TV show, Sam reluctantly agreed. He wanted something to change in his life: he had established businesses, but he was still single at 34.

After an arduous casting process that involved psych. tests, screen tests and kissing booths (okay, I made that last bit up), Sam James Wood won the role and became the third Australian bachelor.

Perhaps the biggest surprise to Sam at this time was that his hunch proved correct: something did indeed need to change in his life, but it wasn’t something external. It was Sam himself – and while filming the series, Sam admitted as much to Bachelor host, Osher Gunsberg.

Osher tells it like this: “I think with Sam, it was the most profound change that I’ve seen in someone. On the last night when he had chosen Snezana, I asked him, ‘So, what’s changed since you started?’, and he said, ‘Well, I’ve realised that all this time I was looking for the other person in the relationship to change, but I’ve realised it was me, I’m the one who has to.’ He had this incredible, insightful revelation that allowed him to finally, truly open his heart – which is required to really fall in love – and [it] was just beautiful to watch.”

Reality TV is notorious for exposing and exploiting the very worst of human traits. It puts its subjects under a microscope with a filter I like to call ‘unreality’. There is nowhere to hide when the cameras are on and the show’s producers are orchestrating every move and storyline for maximum viewer entertainment. To come through a reality TV show, not only as a success but also with your dignity and nice-guy status intact, takes more than luck. It takes more than charm and wily good looks. It takes authenticity. 

Authentic’ is a word that comes up time and time again when you talk to people about Sam Wood. His open, honest and entirely genuine approach to people made great TV. Well, that and his abs, because let’s face it, the man is no slouch.

In an industry that thrives on body image, competitiveness and narcissistic tendencies, Sam is a dichotomy of sorts. Sure, he’s a dead-set spunk and has the physique of someone who has made health and fitness their life’s goal, but what sets him apart from others in his position is the way he connects with people.

And by people, I mean women.

Sam is a man very much in touch with his feminine side. He frequently signs his Facebook posts with an ‘x’ (or several even), and a quick scan of his Instagram reveals evidence of man-scaping, beauty treatments and loads of downtime with his ‘girls’. He’s a woman’s man – a trait that was undoubtedly not lost on The Bachelor producers when they cast.

Australia learned a lot about Sam during his 12 weeks in front of the cameras, and from the ever hilarious ‘recaps’ from Mamamia writer, Rosie Waterland, who pulled no punches in both illuminating and entertaining her readers. Sam and his “bachie peen” were mocked and loved in equal measure.

Through all of this, Sam remained steady. Viewers could find very little to loathe about him. He hardly put a foot wrong, which was remarkable given he faced off with 21 women who were primped and preened to within an inch of their push-up bras. Treating these women as friends and seemingly agonizing over every rose he gave out (Heather anyone?), Sam endeared himself to everyone, from those of us in the cheap seats at home to the crews in front and behind the cameras.

Osher says Sam’s ability to communicate with people is his ‘super power’.

“I could see that he was quite skilled in communicating in such a way that would make everyone feel comfortable. I [saw that] when we did a group date with 30 kids. I got to see him in action, as he was communicating with a bunch of five- and six-year olds. I’ve seen him do it with people twice his age and I’ve seen him do it with highly stressed beautiful women on their first night meeting him. His superpower is making the person he’s speaking to feel very comfortable.”

As someone who has always been self-employed, Sam is the first to admit he finds it difficult to take direction from others, and concedes he’s not an easy person to manage. He frequently ignored the producer’s brief on The Bachelor which, as it turned out, meant Australia got authentic reality TV and Sam got his girl, Perth-based stunner Snezana (Snez) Markoski.

“I chose a girl from a completely different culture who lived on the other side of the country and we met on national television. I never shy away from just how crazy it is. It’s as crazy as it sounds I guess,” Sam laughs.

Snez (where the ‘Z’ is pronounced like a ‘ssh’, as in ‘Shut up, she’s gorgeous’) and Sam present the same in real life as they did on our TV screens. Watching them interact with each other as they go about their morning routine in their three-bedroom renovated home in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs is like watching a loosely choreographed dance. As clichéd as that sounds, they are in step with each other and appear to have a genuine and deep affection. It’s entirely sickening.

In the short time I spent with them while researching this article, they were annoyingly normal. Sam took out the garbage and asked Snez where a particular piece of clothing was as she tried to coax 11-year-old Eve to eat breakfast before going to school.

Eve was eight when her mother’s season of The Bachelor was filmed and, having encouraged her to head off to Sydney for the adventure, had to wait patiently in the comfort and privacy of her hometown in Perth. Bachelor viewers eventually got to meet the bright and spirited girl as Sam whittled the contenders down to his final few ladies. As we watched him and Snez fall for each other, the question on everyone’s lips was, “What about Eve?”

Choosing a single mother as a life partner in front of a nation of addicted television viewers only helped to cement Sam’s resolve – something the newly married Osher says he and Sam spoke about a few times during filming.

“He and I talked a lot, because I met my now wife [mother-of-one Audrey Griffen] on the set of The Bachelor the year before. Over the course of the series, Sam would occasionally come and talk to me about what it was like dating a woman with a kid. Yeah, he and I had quite a few conversations about that,” Osher recalls.

These days, Snez and Eve are Sam’s “girls”. He openly talks about his new ready-made family life and the changes it has brought to his once professional bachelor life. He’s now searching for that elusive work–life balance like the rest of us, even while he’s coaching us through our 28 days via Facebook. Sam’s been on the school run and posted shout-out videos of appreciation to all the 28er mothers, acknowledging the daily grind that is parenthood. Snez and Eve feature with Sam in many of his social media posts, and it’s clear he and Eve have developed an easy bond.

ALL ABOUT 28
The end of the rainbow

Sam had to give up his personal training clients at The Woodshed in order to film The Bachelor, so he was in something of a limbo during the eight extra weeks he and Snez had to hide out until the series finale aired and would finally reveal their love and new life together. It turned out to be the perfect downtime in which to plan and research what would become (in February 2016) 28 by Sam Wood.

One year on, Sam says next to meeting Snez, 28 is the best thing he’s ever done and he feels settled into his life calling.

“Before starting 28 I had been a personal trainer for nearly 17 years, and when I was launching an online program I hoped the influence and the power and the results and the engagement that I would get would be close to what you achieve in a face-to-face capacity, but I never actually thought it would get to the same height. I was so wrong. It beats it. I see my 28ers everyday, sometimes four or five times a day,” he says.

Did someone say “selfie video”?

By ‘seeing’ he is of course referring to the copious amounts of selfie videos of coaching and life tips he posts to his online community through the Facebook group.

There is no doubt that the force is strong within the online community. Some refer to it as a cult but are quick to clarify with “but in a good way”; others use the discussion to help keep themselves on track or to rouse and motivate others on their journey. Scrolling through the posts you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d just stepped into the most motivated and happiest place on the Internet!

Stephanie Kassis, a success story from the first year of the program, says the online community is unique:  “The Facebook group is where we all help each other out and keep ourselves accountable and get motivation to stay on track. It’s also where we get to talk to Sam every day. The level of interaction we have with Sam and his crew is incredible and it’s what sets this program apart from all the others.”

DOING THINGS HIS WAY
If I only had the nerve

There is no doubt Sam sets the tone and shapes the future of the 28 by Sam Wood program.

In stark contrast to the young adult who didn’t know which path to take, Sam now knows exactly what he wants and the way he wants things done – a fact that was tested late in 2016 when he parted ways with the web company he’d used from the start.

Sam established the framework, developed all the content, and partnered with a web company to help bring it to life. The first six months saw amazing growth, with membership growing by the thousands. Then, part-way through 2016, Sam learned his platform was about to be used to develop several other competing offers. Understandably this rattled him, so he gathered his courage and, with the help of some long-time business colleagues and mentors, leapt into running the web-based business on his own.

Turns out it was a good call: Sam says it’s given his program a new lease of life and put a raft of opportunities on the horizon.

“I knew we’d get some bumps along the way, but ultimately 28 is my baby and I’m very protective of it. Heading off on our own gave us more freedom. It gave us more flexibility and more room for growth and allowed the uniqueness that is 28 to remain unique.”

The uniqueness he’s talking about is of course the personal contact we, his 28ers, have with him and fact that every workout is different – a full 28 minutes recorded in his home and released each weekday of the 28-day program. He’s real and unrehearsed and we reciprocate his authenticity and passion, because it’s contagious.

I’ve been a member since August 2016 and it is as inspiring as it is overwhelming. Members share their highs and lows and all the challenges and life obstacles they face in their quest for a healthier and happier self.

One of the most endearing and successful members is Edinburgh-based Linda Wawrzyniak. As an original 28er, Linda has shared every step of her remarkable 54-kilogram weight loss journey with her fellow 28ers. Sam was so impressed with Linda’s results and the way she used her story to motivate others that he and Snez went all the way to Edinburgh to surprise Linda on her doorstep one Sunday morning last month. As you do.

Linda’s story and the impact it’s had on Sam and others of us in the 28 community is now the subject of a short documentary Sam has made to celebrate Linda’s results and to show others what can be achieved using his program. (RIGHT: That’s the three of them pictured last month during Sam and Snez’s surprise visit…click on the image to watch Linda’s inspiring story).

So it’s clear Sam is a man who is as passionate about helping others as he is headstrong about his desire to succeed. He says:

“My attitude to life is never tell me why I can’t, tell me how I can. People who tell me why I can’t piss me off to be honest.”

Craig Harper, Sam’s first boss and arguably the man who helped him find his footing in the fitness industry, says Sam has always had the right blend of know-how and people skills.

“The thing about coaching or teaching or mentoring or being a trainer is, it’s largely about the people. Of course you need knowledge, you need science and you need qualifications but at the end of the day if you have got all of that but you don’t have people skills, well then you don’t have a gig,” Harper says.

And that’s something it appears Sam understands when talking about his success over others in the market.

“You can look a million bucks, you can have the best ads in the world, you can have a great smile, you can be a good communicator, but if you don’t have high emotional intelligence, the other stuff doesn’t matter. You need to get what makes people tick.”

In a nutshell, you need brains, heart and courage.

In its first year, thousands of people have followed Sam down his yellow brick road into the land of fitter, healthier and happier lives. The 28 by Sam Wood Facebook feed reveals story after story of how people have worked at or adapted the program to suit their own needs; of how Sam and their fellow 28ers have inspired them to achieve more than they thought they could. And about how they’ve overcome obstacles to find their nerve and learnt to love themselves.

And, according to Sam, it’s only the beginning.

“I feel like we’re just getting started. I feel like with so many improvements happening to 28 every single month to make it better, to make it more engaging, to teach you more, to challenge you more and to create that change that you’re looking for – we really are only scratching the surface.”

So strap yourselves in darling 28ers, click your heels and follow your heart. Sam Wood will show you that somewhere over that rainbow is the best version of you.

Food Court Freak Out

So you’re at the shopping centre (a place I like to call “middle earth hell”) and it’s lunch time and you MUST EAT. You haven’t packed your lunch and there were no leftovers to grab and go. What do you do? Well…you could line up at Maccas and ask for their smallest kids meal and skip the toy ‘cos you just want the fries OR you could make some sensible food choices. Which believe it or not, you can still do in a food court brimming with processed foods and sugary goodness.

My advice (which is my opinion and in no way backed up by research or anythin’ official) is to have a few ideas of what you CAN eat that are good go-to-type foods. Otherwise you’ll look around and focus on what you can’t eat. So let’s start this challenge on a positive note shall we? To do this you’ll need to spend a bit of time researching options NOW…before you’re stuck the middle of hell wondering which food court line to join. Being prepared means you’ll make good choices. There’s nothing like the crazy town of a Westfield and the whingeing demands of your kids to have you steer off track and right into sugar central.

Top 3 Things to Survive a Food Court

  1. Be prepared and know your options in advance
  2. Protein + Veg and/or Salad (skips the carbs)
  3. Ignore that 98% Fat Free bullshit. We’re not about fats, we’re about sugar. Some fats are good.

Can I have Sushi?

Here are links to a few pretty common fast food places that have very helpfully placed their menus with nutritional info online so you and research and decide for yourself if that chicken wrap really is as nutritionally fabulous as the photo-shopped photo says it is!

So take a look and make your own decisions. You’re 100% in charge of your choices. Just arm yourself with info and make good choices. Or not..have a Maccas day if you want, no one really cares…except you.

Oh and by the way…I have zero affiliation with any of these businesses…but I do like
Roll’d cos PHO!

And finally…if you need a snack grab a HUGE veggie juice from Boost. Preferably one the size of your head that will fill you up to the very top!

So tell me, how do you survive food courts? Share your tips if you fancy. x