Nicole's Nutrition Journey- Small Changes, Big Results. | Coastal CrossFit Queensland | Sunshine Coast

By Nicole McKenzie

I’ve been training at Coastal CrossFit for almost 10 years, and during that time I’ve learned that improving your health isn’t always about training harder. Sometimes it’s about looking after yourself outside the gym.

Earlier this year, I decided it was time to take my nutrition more seriously. I have ankylosing spondylitis (AS), which is a chronic autoimmune condition that causes inflammation, mainly in my spine and joints. My flare-ups had started becoming more frequent, and I wanted to see whether improving my nutrition could help reduce inflammation, better manage my symptoms, and support my overall health.

Before making any changes, I was dealing with joint pain, digestive issues, poor sleep, low energy and gradual weight gain. I knew I needed to do something, but I also knew that trying to change everything overnight wasn’t going to work.

So I didn’t.

Instead, I started with a couple of simple habits. I increased my protein intake and reduced my portion sizes. Once those changes became normal, I gradually reduced processed foods and added sugars. I never cut out entire food groups or followed an extreme diet. I simply made one change at a time, and that made it much easier to stick with.

One of the biggest reasons I’ve been successful is that I haven’t changed the way my whole family eats.

Our son trains a lot during the week and takes homemade meals with him, so meal prepping has become a normal part of our routine. I cook meals that everyone enjoys rather than preparing separate meals for myself, and I always make enough so we have leftovers ready for busy days. Our meals are high in protein, include enough carbohydrates, and are simple enough to fit into everyday life.

I also don’t believe you have to miss out on the foods you love.

If we’re away on holidays or eating out, I still enjoy myself. I just keep my portions sensible and try to make balanced choices most of the time. If there’s something I really want, I’ll have it without feeling guilty. That flexibility has made healthy eating something I can maintain instead of something I eventually give up on.

The changes didn’t happen overnight.

For the first four months, I wasn’t seeing dramatic results, but I made a conscious effort to stay consistent. Then I started noticing I had more energy, I was sleeping better, my mood had improved, and I was gradually losing weight. Even more importantly, my joint inflammation had reduced.

What surprised me the most wasn’t the weight loss—it was how much better I felt.

I have more energy throughout the day, I’m sleeping better, I feel happier, and I’m much more organised.

Meal prepping means I spend less time worrying about what’s for dinner and more time with my family. With two children involved in sport and plenty happening every week, having meals prepared in advance has taken away so much daily stress.

One thing I’ve also learned is that healthy eating doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

In the past, I always thought I had to be on a strict diet or not bother at all. This time I took a completely different approach. If I have a meal that isn’t ideal, I simply get back into my normal routine at the next meal or the next day. If my back flares up and I can’t train for a week, I focus even more on my nutrition because I know that’s something I can still control.

That mindset has made all the difference.

If I could give one piece of advice to someone who’s been thinking about improving their nutrition, it would be this:

Just stick with it.

You don’t need to be perfect, and you don’t have to stop eating the foods you love. Small changes really do add up over time. I’ve simply made healthier versions of many of the meals our family already enjoys, and those small ingredient swaps have made a huge difference.

One tool that’s helped me is an app called ReciMe. Whenever I find a healthy recipe on Instagram or Facebook, I save it straight into the app. It stores the ingredients and cooking method, so I’ve built up a collection of high-protein meals that my whole family enjoys. It’s made meal prep much easier and keeps me inspired to try new recipes.

Looking back, I wish I’d known from the beginning that progress beats perfection.

Improving my nutrition hasn’t just helped me lose weight. It’s given me more energy, improved my sleep, reduced my inflammation, made me feel more organised, and had a positive impact on every part of my life.

For me, that’s what being better than yesterday is all about.

Better Than Yesterday- by Dr Bernard Tamba-Lebbie

Thank you, Bernie.Thank you for sharing your journey with such honesty and humility.Your story is a powerful reminder that lasting change doesn’t come from perfection—it comes from consistently choosing to be just a little better than yesterday.We’re incredibly grateful to have you as part of the Coastal CrossFit community and hope your story inspires others to take that first step towards better health.Sometimes, one person’s story is all it takes to change another person’s life. Better Than Yesterday: My CrossFit JourneyBy Dr Bernard Tamba-Lebbie In 2023, I reached a point where I knew something had to change. I weighed 120 kilograms. Around the same time, two of my fellow surgeons underwent coronary artery bypass surgery because of severe heart disease. Then, after returning from Sierra Leone, where I had celebrated the 75th anniversary of my high school, one of my closest friends—a mining company CEO with whom I had spent much of the reunion—collapsed at a roundabout in Freetown and died suddenly from a heart attack. Those events became a crossroads in my life. I had a choice: continue down the path I was on, or change direction before it was too late. Ironically, my first solution wasn’t exercise. As a surgeon, I looked for a surgical solution. I spoke to one of my colleagues who performs bariatric surgery and asked whether he would perform a gastric sleeve operation on me. He smiled and said he would happily do it, provided I obtained a referral from my GP. When I asked my GP for that referral, I fully expected him simply to write it. Instead, he refused. He told me he would only refer me if I first committed to six months at his gym and genuinely failed. Looking back, that refusal may have been one of the greatest gifts anyone has ever given me. My journey wasn’t completely straightforward. There came a time when I felt I wasn’t making the progress I had hoped for. I went back to my GP and asked whether medication might help. He agreed, and I started one of the newer weight-loss medications. Unfortunately, it simply wasn’t for me. I struggled with significant nausea and found the side effects difficult to tolerate. After giving it a genuine try, I decided to stop taking it. Rather than continuing to search for another shortcut, I went back to what I knew I could control—turning up at the gym, listening to my coach, and continuing to improve my eating habits one meal at a time. That decision became another turning point. For the first time in my life, I heard about CrossFit. When I told people at the hospital that I had joined CrossFit, most thought I was crazy. Some laughed. Others simply couldn’t imagine that someone weighing 120 kilograms would survive a CrossFit class. Then I met my coach, Marie Saliba. On the very first day, I told her that I had only one goal. I wasn’t there to be better than anyone else. I simply wanted to be better than my yesterday. That philosophy has guided me ever since. My journey certainly hasn’t been perfect. One of my biggest failures came when I ignored Marie’s advice. I tried to progress too quickly and attempted to jump from one pull-up bar to another before I was ready. I dislocated both shoulders and eventually required surgery on both of them. It was a painful lesson in patience, humility and listening to someone with more experience than me. But despite that setback, I never stopped. When I first arrived at CrossFit, Marie would often ask me to run only 50 metres because that was all I could comfortably manage. Today I regularly run 400 meters. I still don’t particularly enjoy running, and plenty of people run past me, but that doesn’t matter. I’m not competing with them. I’m competing with the man who walked through the CrossFit doors three years ago. The biggest transformation has probably been my relationship with food. Initially, I simply adopted intermittent fasting, eating only between midday and 9 p.m. I still follow that routine most days. Over time, my eating habits evolved naturally. I became much more intentional about the food I brought into my home. For many months, around 80% of my meals were seafood. Most weekends I would drive to Mooloolaba, buy fresh seafood straight from the trawlers, meal-prep it for the week and keep it in the fridge. Coming from Sierra Leone, rice was deeply embedded in my culture. In fact, if you ask someone back home whether they’ve eaten and they’ve only had bread or potatoes, they’ll often answer, “No.” What they really mean is they haven’t eaten rice. For most of my life, white rice was central to every meal. Today, I’ve largely replaced it with quinoa and, more recently, brown rice. I also became much more conscious about eating foods in their natural form. I steam vegetables instead of frying them, buy fresh fruit from the local farmers’ markets, and carefully read ingredient labels so that my soy sauce and fish sauce contain no preservatives. When I season food, I tend to use simple ingredients like black pepper, white pepper and Himalayan salt rather than highly processed seasoning mixes. There is no sugar in my house. If visitors ask for sugar in their tea or coffee, they’re usually disappointed because I simply don’t have any. Instead, I offer them honey. I actually have several different varieties, much of it generously supplied by one of my closest friends on the Sunshine Coast, Paul Secho, who has his own honey farm. It’s one of those little pleasures that reminds me how wonderful natural food can be. You’ll also never find soft drinks like Coke, Sprite or Fanta in my refrigerator. The only bread I normally keep is dark rye bread. I know it’s an acquired taste and not everyone enjoys it, so I also keep spelt bread for friends who visit. Over the years I’ve realised that what I…

Nicole’s Nutrition Journey- Small Changes, Big Results.

chris

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