Tessa – Māngere.
“When was the last time I felt proud? Ah, this morning, of my son, because he got picked to do speeches for his school by his English teacher.
I grew up right here in Māngere towards that way, local. So I was back and forth because my grandparents, my dad’s parents, live right here, just over in the back street, and so yeah growing up was really fun because I had all my family around me. Big-as families. I also grew up in town as well, in Ponsonby. My mum’s parents lived there, so it was back and forth all the time as we were growing up.
What makes me tick? Well, for the moment I’m doing a lot of exercise. I’m with a group called BBM, and it’s doing Zuu, a lot of Zuu movements, which is animal movements and I started it because I was a bit overweight and I wanted to get a bit more healthier for myself and my family.
Last year, I went to my doctor and he said I was pre-diabetic, and I was coming up on 40 and I was at 122kg. So I needed to lose some weight and my brother-in-law, he got into it. He met his friend through it; his girlfriend now. She started off at over 200kgs and her cousin, and her brother, asked her to come one day to a class up at Māngere Mountain with Brown Buttabean, and so she went up one day and she didn’t realise that we’re doing all these different types of movements, and then at the end of it he goes, “come on, we’re going to go up the mountain, and it’s not the walk-path”.
It’s straight up the middle, which is really hard for someone who’s over 200kg plus. So yeah, for him, he met her, and then he goes, “come along one day, we’ve got a group session going on at the domain over at Māngere Bridge, just over there a bit, that way” and from there I just decided to do it, two classes a week, changed my eating, cut back the sugar, cut back the carbs, and I’ve lost 22kgs now. So yeah, Zuu’s up, Brown Buttabean.
It was quite a shock but it runs in my family because we’re Pacific Islanders, and both my parents are overweight and don’t look after themselves. To hear it was quite a shock and to have all those emotions running through you at that time I just want to break down, but once you have all your family and the support around you, you just get up and go out there and do it. I would like to help more around the community and just get out there and help people get moving and doing something different around the area.”
