When Heather and Aaron Freeman were runners-up in the 2014 finale of My Kitchen Rules New Zealand, they were absolutely shattered.
The Palmerston North couple have since been hard at work with a new catering company, but for Heather, the loss still weighed heavily and she felt there was something missing in her life.
After years of neglecting her health and never taking time for herself, this year, the mother-of-two, 34, decided to follow her teenage dream of entering a boxing tournament.
“It took me a week to have the courage to tell my husband, but he was so supportive,” explains Heather.
“So I registered for Fight to Make a Difference and that was the first step.”
Heather and her whanau (from left), Halle, Sanaa and Aaron, are her biggest fans.
As she slips into her boxing gloves for our Woman’s Day photo shoot, Heather is bursting with energy and it’s hard to believe she has recently struggled with her mental health. After starring on the TVNZ 2 cooking series, she weighed 97kg, but she lost 20kg in a year by changing her diet – yet she still felt broken.
“I wasn’t unhappy because of my weight, but I was unhappy with what I was doing with my life and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it,” she recalls.
“I wasn’t dealing too well with depression. It wasn’t until I got halfway through my boxing training that I realised how important it was for my mentality.”
Heather before and after her shape up.
Heather no longer sits at home “putting myself down”. Instead, boxing has given her a new zest for life, and she’s determined to make Aaron, 38, and their two daughters – Halle, seven, and Sanaa, five – proud.
“The girls didn’t really understand what the boxing meant until they saw me coming home with more energy,” smiles Heather.
“They saw me training in the garden and they even got their own little boxing mitts.”
Recently, after 14 weeks of daily training, Heather finally stepped into the ring, with her girls at the front of the crowd, yelling, “Go, Mama!” She ended up winning her bout.
“This was something that I wasn’t going to lose,” grins Heather.
“So when I walked out of that ring with a trophy, I just felt like it was the perfect ending for myself and the family.”
