Author & Mother Kaz Dalton's Journey of Writing Her Sell Out Book, A Boy Named Bear

Felicity Cohen: Hello, I’m Felicity Cohen. I’m so excited to introduce you to my Wellness Warriors podcast. For over 20 years, I’ve been a passionate advocate for helping thousands of Australians find solutions to treating obesity and health-related complications through surgical intervention and holistic managed care.

My podcast is dedicated to all the

people past, present, and future who have helped shape my journey and continue to inspire me to work consistently to achieve a healthier Australia in both adults and future generations. I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to my Wellness Warriors podcast. Today I have the absolute pleasure of introducing you to Kaz Dalton.

Thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been an absolute, incredible opportunity to catch up with you, first of all, but also to have watched your journey since 2015, when I first met you, let’s go back to life as a young, one of three triplets. What was life like for you growing up and where do you think actually for you, some of those foundation behaviours may have resulted

in a way issue for you?

Kaz Dalton: Where did I first start getting fat? Well look as Felicity said, I am one of three triplets. So, I think there’s when you’re a triplet, there is always that sort of competitive nature to what you do, but there’s also the, I want to do the same as what my sisters are doing. So growing up, we grew up, I guess, fairly humbly, in that we would eat a lot of carbohydrates.

And we did come from the generation of finish what’s on your plate because there was no more, but we would also go, ‘Who’s got the biggest plate’ and hover over them to try and get the first meal and things like that. So, I think because my sisters finished their meals, I’m finishing my meal. I don’t want to miss out on anything.

They don’t want to miss out on anything. So you kind of end up doing whatever they’re doing and they do it a bit, you’re, you’re sort of doing, food was always comfort for us. We grew up for the first nine years without a father. And without a father figure, we were essentially the result of one nightstand.

So if that doesn’t teach you something, when you get triplets, nothing.

Felicity Cohen: Wow.

Kaz Dalton: I know. So, essentially we sort of didn’t have a father figure. Mum did the absolute best job with us as a single mother, but essentially it was whatever she can get her hands on that will fill us, that’s what we’ll have.

As we sort of got into our older years, where typically you start to get a, I guess, a little bit of, not bullying in school, but I guess people mentioning things about the way you look or, or your physical appearance. I think because we were triplets and we always had each other’s back, we would just tell each other, we were great all the time.

And so it can very easily get out of control and you still think you’re a legend. So it doesn’t matter what someone else says because these two best friends here think I’m great and they say, I look great, so that’s fine. So probably a little bit, easy to get out of control. Without, having someone to honestly say to you, ‘hey, your health is a problem.

And so from, I guess, probably from maybe grade four or five, we were always the overweight kids. We had nicknames at school, which was “fat triplet.” There was a song written about us, but again, having two sisters that kind of back you and, and they’re your best friends and you’ve always got each other.

I don’t think that side of the bullying affected this as much. If anything, it probably just made us want to eat more. We’re like, ‘yeah, whatever.’

Felicity Cohen: But in a

certain way, maybe that also might make you think a little bit about, you know, what would you want to see for your own child now? You know, if, if that was his story and he was an overweight child, for example, the last thing that you’d want was, would be any bullying at school.

Kaz Dalton: A hundred

percent, I think,

well, I think bullying has changed a lot nowadays, and they’ve got a better grasp on it. It’s still happening. So, the worst part about bullying is that there’s a lot of cyber bullying happening now. I actually have, do have a little boy who’s just about to turn four. He is on the spectrum so bullying is something I do worry about with him.

He is predisposed obviously from my genetics and from his father’s genetics to be a certain size and certain height, certain weight, which we will always make sure that he’s healthy and happy. But he is going to be prone to weight gain and things like that because so am I, that’s just my DNA makeup as well.

I think with him though, something that we’ve been really conscious of is, ‘buddy you don’t have to finish everything on your plate.’ You eat what makes you fall and that’s it. If you want to leave half a banana, that’s fine. We can wrap that up and save that for later. So, I think from an early age, it’s really important to not force feed children.

That’s probably something that’s always stuck with me. And I still struggle to think I have to venture it to my plate, which you don’t, don’t finish what’s on your plate, if you’re full and your satisfied stop.

Felicity Cohen: Absolutely.

And so if after grade four or five, when you were starting to notice that that was the way you were perceived in school, what happened from there on?

Kaz Dalton: So we sort

of just kept going through school, no dramas. We just kept getting bigger and bigger, and didn’t really care. Things that we excelled in was like English and, drama and music and literature and things like that. Whereas the school was very much focused on sports and athletics and mathematics and things like that.

I think we just had a, ‘I don’t care attitude.’ We would fail every fitness test and I’m like, ‘man, I don’t care’, because we were good at something else and we were better at it than everybody else as well. So we kind of had a, I don’t care attitude, weight sort of got out of control. It wasn’t probably until a year 11, that mum sort of see that personality wise,

we are getting lumped together too often. It’s not, Kaz or Mia, it’s the triplets. So she decided to split us up and put us all at different schools, which was great for us from a personality point of view because we got to sort of develop our own character a little bit more, but from a weight point of view, it was probably then that I realised, ‘hey, something’s not quite right here.’

I actually lost a lot of weight through year 11. I’d taken up ballet, I took up basketball, which ballet in year 11 when you’re quite old. If you can picture the hippos from Fantasia, it was very similar to that, but I did get the shape, so it was good. And then just changed eating habits a little bit as well.

So I would eat smaller meals and I would eat more frequently, and that was sustainable to a point. But then again, when I finished school and you start working all sorts of old habits of finish what’s on your plate, get something quick. My biggest problem, I guess, overall, and the reason I ended up coming to WeightLoss Solutions was,

not so much that I would eat bad food, but my portions were ridiculous. So it’d be like chicken and salad for lunch, why am I so fat? Yeah, you ate a bathtub of salad, like too much.

Felicity Cohen: So that’s

interesting because it’s one of the things that any weight loss surgical procedure deals with first is satiety.

So all of the procedures that we have on offer now, and there’s so much more than we can offer patients, but they deal with that one aspect first. And it’s, if you have a problem or you’re struggling with hunger, it’s the first thing that it will address and help you. And so if you feel like you just never satiated and you constantly got the issue with hunger, you know, weight loss, surgery works from that

perspective.

Kaz Dalton: Absolutely. So for me, I think the transition afterwards when I had surgery, probably the best, I think look, a lot of people hate this period, the best period of weight loss surgery for me was the two weeks post-op diet. Cause it just made me realize how much hunger is in my head. Day three, I burst into tears and cried.

I was like over it and day 11, I was, I was not happy. But I think I need 15 days altogether post-op, and lost seven kilos during that time, which was huge. I was like, this is great, but it just made me realise, man, I’m so often thinking about food, thinking about when my next meal is thinking about what I’m going to have and I love to cook and I love it to do all that type of stuff, but it was kind of all consuming and going,

all right, well, I need to buy this much chicken. No, you don’t. I, everything was like, I guess again, coming from a big family buying too much and getting too much and going well, that’s, what’s going to fill me. No, it’s not. It’s not about feeling full it’s about going I’ve had enough. And even now, I guess post-op, I’m sort of six years

post-op now, do I have days where I’m like, ‘I need to eat my feelings’ a hundred percent. I still have days where all I want is to go and eat a big meal. If I really push, I probably could try to, but I know I feel really sick afterwards. I think I was saying to you before even post-op, can you put on weight?

Yep, a hundred percent you can. I have a buffer though that I stick to, so it’s just the three or four kilo buffer. If I notice that I’m getting higher on that, I go back to the start. So I have to do pre-op again, because that was the thing for me. I can change what’s in here, but I can’t change what’s in here unless I actually work on it.

And it’s the thing that’s in here that I have to keep working on. I have to keep thinking about it. It doesn’t just fix itself. You can’t be a food addict for 30 years and then go, well, I had weight loss surgery and that fixes everything. No, it’ll fix what’s in here, it won’t fix what’s in here. So that’s something you do need to keep working on.

Felicity Cohen: Absolutely.

You know, changing a habit that’s been part of your everyday makeup for a long time. It’s very hard to change and it’s not the surgery alone that’s going to change any, anything. It’s been habit forming. Yeah, so that’s why, I mean, and I love that you say that because for me, I’m such a, an advocate for working with a team of people to get results.

That surgery is only part of a bigger, bigger picture or part of the puzzle. You’ve got to work with the rest of the team to really get those outcomes. So when you got to the point where you were ready to think about weight loss surgery, what were some of the most important things that you were looking to achieve?

Kaz Dalton: So,

I guess, some people that have had weight loss surgery, and friends of mine that I know have had weight loss surgery also. So for them, a lot of it was about confidence and a lot of it was about, how they look and what they wear. And, I guess very much how, how it’s going to make them feel.

For me, I think, I always had fairly decent confidence because I was, I always thought, well, personality and things can make up where I look and like, lack in looks, that’s fine. I didn’t specifically get weight loss surgery to do with anything to do with my physical appearance. For me, it was to do with the fact that I’d been trying to have a child for four years.

And it just wasn’t happening. So, I have polycystic ovaries anyway, for anyone that doesn’t know that makes it very difficult to conceive makes it very easy to put on weight, a lot of hormonal imbalances and things. We tried for four years and had no success and I had a look at it, and someone said to me, you know, you should probably look into IVF.

And I thought, well, I could spend the money on IVF or maybe still not have the result that I want and that’s to a child, or I could invest the money into my health. And then hope that by investing into health, it’s going to correct some of the issues that I’ve got. So, I was extremely strict and followed the guidelines that Dr.

Adib and the team he gave me and they, and their recommendation was, do not try for 18 months I said, ‘okay, yep’, that’s what I’m going to do. So, I lost, I think, from my highest weight to my lowest weight, I lost around 45 kilos. When I’d gotten down and I was stable for sort of five months, that’s when I went right now, I’m going to try and have a baby.

And first try, we, we got pregnant with Bear. So, and he’s nearly four now.

Felicity Cohen: That is

amazing and interesting because for so many people who I talk to and who come here, they have PCOS, they’ve got endometriosis, but they’ve also got the associated fertility issues. I remember seeing a patient once who’d spent something like $70,000 on IVF before.

Kaz Dalton: Yeah. Yeah.

It’s expensive. It’s really expensive. And there’s no

guarantees.

Felicity Cohen: Yeah. And then managed to not just fall pregnant, but carry to term a healthy pregnancy. I think the key message is not just being able to fall pregnant. It’s carrying to term a healthy pregnancy. And that’s why, you know, the wait, wait 12 months to 18 months because we want you to have the end result.

Kaz Dalton: Yeah. I just look, I do know people that have gotten pregnant very quickly as well. They’re like, ‘oh, oops.’ And I go, no, you know how that happened. I looked at it and gone, I’ve invested a considerable amount into my health, if I had a lung transplant and I was told not to do something, or if I’d had a kidney removed and it was told not to something, do something, I know that I’d stick to it.

So if I’ve had an extreme know portion of my stomach, which is one of my major organs removed, and I’m told, do not try and get pregnant until 18 months, then that’s the guideline I’m going to follow. I always have a huge question mark, about people that don’t follow guidelines, post surgery, because guess what? They actually know more than you do.

So the best advice would be if you want the most successful outcome. Please follow the guidelines that the specialists and the people that are experts in their field give you, so, yeah, that’s why I waited the 18 months, but I did ring your team and be like, ‘I’m pregnant!’

Felicity Cohen: How do you notice the difference in your day to day wellbeing now, you know, 44 kilos is a lot of weight changes.

Do you notice a big difference in how you feel

every day?

Kaz Dalton: Yeah. So what I didn’t realise is how badly it was affecting my knees. So I thought, oh yeah, this is normal, this is life. As I slowly lost weight, I just felt like a huge burden come off my knees. They don’t Creek anymore, when I bend down. I thought that was normal.

I thought that’s just part of ageing, which maybe it is, but they don’t do it anymore. Sleep for me was, there was a big change, so, I would wake up tired all the time. I couldn’t get up early. I would just be so sluggish in the mornings. Now, somewhat to do with having a child, but also to do with being in a much healthier position.

We’re up at 4:00 AM every morning. Like that’s just normal for us. So, and I get good sleep now. I don’t think, you know, what good sleep is until you’ve had it. And I didn’t realise I was like, oh no, I sleep fine. No, I was not, I was not breathing properly. I wasn’t sleeping well. Yeah, and it wasn’t until I started losing weight, I was like, ‘oh, this is what life’s supposed to be like.’

Felicity Cohen: Wow. And

so that’s huge. Maybe even also your nutritional intake would have changed at the same time. So you would have been consuming foods that are fuelling your body better?

Kaz Dalton: Yeah. So, I’m big on salads now. I’ve always liked salad, but I’m big on them now because I think probably going back to that whole, I need to have a full plate.

It needs to look like a big meal. Salads broke down to nothing. So for me, there’s that mind satisfaction of seeing a big salad, or, you know, not a dinner plate as aposed to a normal plate. There’s just a bit of sense of satisfaction from my mind, seeing a nice big salad, but then, because it’s all, lettuce, it’s breaking down to nothing and I go, yep, great.

I can eat this and I can feel satisfied and I’m full and yeah. That’s something that I’ve enjoyed. I have had to look at a few different supplements and things obviously with having the sleeve. So I kept a really close eye on, is my iron intake as well, just because my whole family is very prone to anemia.

That’s something that I did have to keep a close eye on and I have had an iron transfusion in the last six years as well, just to keep things nice and balanced.

Felicity Cohen: Perfect. That’s awesome.

We do the infusions here now, too. I love that. I think it’s really important to have that Ivy nutrient therapy available.

So I love that we can do that here too now. So your weight loss journey has been amazing. You’ve got a beautiful boy that I’m going to come back and talk to you a little bit more about Bear, but let’s talk a little bit about your career

journey.

Kaz Dalton: Right so, I worked in magazines for 10 years when I came and saw you guys, I was working in magazines.

And even then people were like, ‘you work in magazines, wouldn’t you be a bit obsessed with looks and things like that?’ I’m like, guys, I worked for boys, magazines. I worked for dirt bikes and I worked for crusty demons. So I mean, looks and weight was never really an issue because it was not your glamorous, women’s mags.

So, I worked at magazines for sort of 10 years, doing sales and marketing and loved every minute of it. Then I sort of had Bear and kept doing some contract work and things. Moved into doing some private, contractor with marketing and with writing and things like that, which I’m still doing now.

I do a little bit of design. I also like to fill my whole world up with things. So I’ve written two books as well, kids’ books. And then just, more recently in the last few weeks I had just launched it online homewares

store.

Felicity Cohen: Amazing. So let’s talk about the books. The first one I think was inspired by your beautiful dog?

Kaz Dalton: Yes.

Felicity Cohen: And was it called, I think “I Just Came to See Your Dog”?

Kaz Dalton: “I Just Came to See Your Dog” Yes

Felicity Cohen: Tell me about that one. How did that come about?

Kaz Dalton: I think just working in

publishing and magazines. I just was sitting when I thought, oh, I kind of can write a book. And then I thought, well, I’ll write something you know, and I had two French bulldogs at the time, which are still alive.

I still have them, and so I thought I’m just going to try, I’m just going to try and write a book. And so sat down one night, wrote a book. I was very much brought up on Dr Seuss, because it’s all a literation and rhyming and really helps kids to learn to read very quickly. So that’s kind of the route I went with with my books.

The first one “I Just Came to See Your Dog” is things like that, thank you for the kind invite to join you for a job, I’m not a fan of fitness, I just came to see your dog. So it’s very much written from my point of view. I’m still not a fan of fitness, but I will do it if I have to. So it’s all that type of thing to help kids to learn how to read that.

When I published, before my son was born, it’s sold about 900 copies, which is really good.

Felicity Cohen: Amazing, amazing. We should put it up on our, WLSA shop for our patients.

Kaz Dalton: Definitely.

Everyone loves dogs.

Felicity Cohen: Yeah, of

course. Of course. I’m a mad dog lover. And your second book inspired by your beautiful son.

Bear.

Tell me a little bit about that.

Kaz Dalton: So, when we had Bear, he was an amazing sleeper. He was like the most perfect child. People hated me because of how well behaved he was and how wonderful he would sleep and things like that. As he sort of got to about 16 or 17 months, we, we started to pick up on a few things like we would call his name and say Bear, and he just wouldn’t turn.

He wouldn’t look, he wouldn’t engage. He very much would engage if you went up and grabbed his hands, and there was a few little delays there, like he didn’t crawl until it was sort of 11 and a half months. He didn’t walk until 18 and a half months. And we sorta, we knew in our hearts that something wasn’t quite right, even though he was such a happy little child, but we’re just like, something’s not quite right here.

That’s when we sort of started investigating a little bit. And he was diagnosed with a global developmental delay at 18 months by 20 months, he was diagnosed as ASD, so autism spectrum disorder, in category two. So, a lot of people go, oh, ‘he must have meltdowns, he must, you know, flap his hands.

He must be aggressive.’ He doesn’t have any of that. That is why it’s called a spectrum. They’re all very, very different. Bear’s biggest struggles are communication and awareness. So he’s not always aware that people are around. He’s not always aware of things like we can’t just say to him, don’t go on the road

it’s dangerous. For him, it’s just an exciting texture to go and look at. So, when he was diagnosed, obviously that did break my heart a little bit, because you want, you don’t want things to be harder for kids than they should be, or then they have to be, in saying that he does have savant syndrome as well.

So he’s extremely intelligent and is spelling enormous words at the age of three. And so he won’t have problems with that area, but in terms of the social thing, I think because probably I’m quite a social person and I didn’t want it to be hard for him with that stuff. So, I remember sitting down one night and I just said to Jake, I said, I burst into tears.

I don’t want it to have to be hard for Bear, and he goes, I’m sorry. And he goes, maybe you should write about it. I said, okay. So I sat down and within an hour and a half, I’d written this whole book about Bear and about who he is and through the eyes of an autistic child. So, that was good therapy for me, but it’s actually sold out now.

So we’re, we’re reprinting it. And it’s called “A Boy Named Bear”. And it’s just about a little boy who sees the world differently to everybody else. And that’s okay. And, I wanted to write something as well, because when I looked for books for him about autism, they were all like, you know, my strange pet friend, John, and I’m like, no, they’re not strange.

They’re actually amazing. It’s just that they just see things differently. And so for him as well, growing up I did want to have something that was his, that if he comes home from school one day and he says, mommy, why am I different? I can say, well, pal, what does your book say? And he I’m hoping that he’ll say to me, well, it says that I’m perfectly fine

just the same. Yep, that’s right, because everybody’s different and you are perfect, just the way that you are. So that’s kind of why I wrote it for him, but it’s been very successful with, I guess early education and, daycare centers and things like that.

Felicity Cohen: So a great way to

communicate for kids to understand themselves a little bit more.

And I think for educators, especially to help them. Sounds amazing. I love it. And I think there’s, do you think, do you feel as though there’s a lot more diagnoses of children on the

spectrum? ષય Kaz Dalton: I do, I think, I think we know a lot more about it now. Like, there’s some great, pediatric urologists and things around now that just really, I mean, I don’t think we’ll ever understand autism.

I think it’s so varied and so different that we’re never fully going to understand it, but I think we’re going to keep discovering things about it. So, Jake’s dad, sorry, Bear’s dad jake has ADHD, which is classed as on the spectrum. So we, we’re not hugely surprised by Bear’s diagnosis. We were just kind of hoping that wouldn’t happen.

But again, he doesn’t have ADHD, it’s ASD, so it’s, it keeps changing. It keeps getting different, Aspergers it’s considered on the spectrum. So, I think we’re learning more about it. Something I loved is there’s this TV series called “Love on the Spectrum”, which you might’ve seen a documentary.

Felicity Cohen: Love it.

Kaz Dalton: I loved that series. I thought that was just, yeah. I mean, those are extreme cases of ASD and Aspergers and things like that, but it was a really humane, like, genuine way of looking at look, these people just want to be loved the same as everybody else. They’re looking for the same thing that you’re looking for.

They just see the world differently to the way you see it. So, I think that there’s more diagnosis because there’s more understanding from very mild to very extreme cases. We’re sort of discovering more and more and more. I mean, even, I, I really didn’t know a lot about, I’ve got a cousin who’s autistic.

I didn’t know a lot about autism before Bear, but now I’m really interested to find out as much information as I can. So yeah.

Felicity Cohen: Learning curve. And I think that’s such a gift that you can give to others in terms of supporting so many other people through, through this book alone and your own self-education.

Working as Bear grows up, you learn

more and more.

Kaz Dalton: Well, I do, I do say to Jake, I said, what if Bear was the perfect gift that our marriage needed? So something that I don’t know if you can tell, but I talk fairly fast Felicity, but something that I guess for Jake and I, something that we’ve always needed to make our relationship stronger is slow down, communicate better and engage better.

And the things that Bear’s not great at is slowing down engaging better. And there are things that we have to do now to get him to respond better and to actually set him up for a win. Those are the things we have to do. I said, what if this was actually a gift for us Jake, so that our relationship was stronger as well?

I said, wouldn’t that be incredible? So, I mean, even Jake has learned a lot about his own condition through bear because it’s not something that he was diagnosed with until much later in life. But he’s learned a lot about the fact that like behavioural modifications and things are actually really important to you as, as much as they are to Bear.

So it’s actually, some people go, oh, you poor thing. When I say, oh, my sons, autistic, oh I say, don’t feel sorry for me, he’s a genius. And we’ve actually learnt so much more about how to communicate within the family and how to communicate with each other than we ever would have without him. So it’s actually been a good thing.

Like it’s been really key, probably key to our relationship as much as it is, you know, even having a child. So.

Felicity Cohen: Amazing. And look, you, each of you have had your own personal challenges to deal with. You dealt with yours in a special, unique way, but it’s given you the opportunity to have this gorgeous, beautiful boy, which I love.

And I, you know, I talk to people, I talk about our WLSA babies, because there are so many people I think who are, who became inspired by you and by others a few years ago where it wasn’t actually so much known that having PCOS and having all these other conditions that were limiting potential for falling pregnant could actually be the surgical pathway for weight loss could actually get

you there./ Kaz Dalton: Yeah. Well, I looked at it as I said, like, I could easily spend 60 or 70 grand on IVF and it may not be successful, there are no guarantees. For me it was all about the health thing. I was actually on Metformin before I came to WLSA, which has for insulin resistance. That’s essentially the step before diabetes diagnosis.

And very common with PCOS. I don’t take that anymore. I was able to stop taking it literally six months after I had weight loss surgery. And I’ve never had to take it again, which is, I mean, even that not putting more chemicals in your body, yes, there is a need for certain chemicals and certain situations and things like that.

But for me, if I can work on the health thing and not have to take one more tablet. Yeah, that’s fantastic for me. I’d rather just focus on more on what can I put in my body to make it healthy without having to use medication all the time. So, I love not having to take Metformin every day.

Felicity Cohen: Beautiful. I love it.

What do your sisters think?

Kaz Dalton: Yes, one of them calls me the skinny b.i.t.c.h which is wonderful.

Felicity Cohen: I love that.

Kaz Dalton: Mate I love that too.. Yeah.

So they’ve all been on, I guess it’s really different journeys. One of them lives in America, and she works in the music industry for Sony. So she is very much under the spotlight, even though she’s a writer, she’s still very much in the spotlight with image and things.

So she, when we all sort of were split up in schools many years ago in year 11, she lost a lot of weight and sort of kept it in check from then. So she’s done really well, but again, it is something that even, you know, weekly, we’re speaking, she’s like, oh, I’m really worried I’ve put on weight. I’m just like, well, what are you doing?

And we had the conversations. My other sister, Donna, she’s been the thinnest of thin to the biggest of big. She’s explored weight loss surgery as well, but she’s like, no, I want to try and get back into the exercise routine and things like that. For her exercise is as much, I guess, nourishing for her mind that is for a body.

So, I mean, yeah, they think it was the best decision that I could have made. They do throw out snide little comments every now and then, but they’re allowed to, they’re my sisters. But they will also be the biggest champions of, you know, sticking up for me. So when people say them, oh, you’re sister took the easy way out.

They’re like, hang on a second. There was a significant investment and she didn’t eat for two and a half months. And so they’re like, oh, okay. And they back right down, which is, I guess, very much what it was like in school. We very much defended each other all the time. So they’re still doing that even about weight loss surgery.

Felicity Cohen: And I think that’s just a lot to do with breaking down the stigma because for a long time, people used to see this as the easy way

out and it’s not.

Kaz Dalton: It’s not , no. So if you think easy is having major surgery and having a man like a significant part of a major organ removed, like. I just laughed about it. I just go,

okay, cool. So if someone’s had a kidney removed, they’re taking the easy way out as well are they? And they’re just like, well, no, no, that’s a huge surgery. But yep, so is having weight loss surgery. That’s not the easy way out. There’s a significant investment, which I think, look for me, it made me respect it so much more because I’m like, this is something that I’m investing into.

This is something that has cost me something. I think if it costs you nothing, I don’t think I would have respected it as much. So I see a lot of people pushing for it like, Medicare should cover everything. I’m like, there’s a certain respect that you have for something that costs you, something.

Felicity Cohen: Totally agree,

that equation between, you know, your financial investment and, you know, that value that you place on

what you’ve chosen to do, I think is really interesting. And I think, you know, for so many people that financial equation is probably one of the biggest barriers. And so some people will say to me, oh my goodness, I can’t take that amount of money out of my superannuation, that’s a lot of money.

Kaz Dalton: That’s really not.

No. So yeah. I mean, look, I co-funded with my super as well. I would have been dead at 60, whereas I just go, I wouldn’t have been able to spend the money anyway. You can always make more money, you can’t always make more years on your life. So yeah, I sort of looked at it and go it’s, it’s real in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that big of an investment.

We happily go and waste 45, 50 grand on cars that essentially depreciate the second we leave the car lot. But we go, oh no, I would never, I would never spend my, you know, any sort of significant amount and money over a thousand dollars on myself. Well, that’s just silly because your body is a vehicle as well, instead of making it depreciate

why don’t you keep it in check, service it by making sure that your health is in check, make sure that you are rotating your tires. I guess whether that looks like going for a run or whatever. But I just go, we put so much value on houses and things, but not on ourselves. And like, well, if you’re not around to enjoy the things, then what’s the point.

Felicity Cohen: Hundred percent agree with you.

And it’s funny often it’s the people who are so concerned about that initial investment who will come back and say to me, you can’t give me a million dollars to reverse the situation now because I feel so amazing, and life’s

brilliant.

Kaz Dalton: Yeah. Well, I, I, someone had a conversation with me and they did ask me about the costs and I was very open with them like, oh, wow, that’s a lot of money.

They said, was it worth it? I said, I can tell you, in all honesty, if the girls at WLSA looked at me in the eye and said, it’s a hundred thousand dollars, I still would’ve got it done for the results that I’ve got for it. I can’t buy a child. I can’t buy my health. Even the, I guess the superficial things, I love

buying clothes online now because I know that they’re going to arrive and fit. There was nothing more horrific to my self esteem than buying things and going this doesn’t fit, I can’t get this over my hips. Okay. And I’m by no stretch skinny. I’ll never will be. That’s my, how family, are big boned, are big people and things like that.

But do I love jumping on a website and buying something that’s a 12 or 14? Yeah. That’s amazing. That’s an amazing feeling.

Felicity Cohen: Brilliant.

Kaz Dalton: So yeah.

Felicity Cohen: So back to career, you’ve now just launched this beautiful new, online shop. So that’s your creative personality coming out in home decor and things like that. Where did that idea come from?

Kaz Dalton: Well,

I sort of started curating for this store about six months ago. Cause I said to my husband said, well, I think eventually I would like to move into back into sort of, you know, design and styling and things like that. Cause I’ve done a little bit with the magazine world and I always really loved it.

I, I love my own home. I worked from home anyway, so when COVID hit, I was like, eh, no big deal for me. Cause I was used to being at home anyway, but I’ve also created a place that I love being. So I think there’s friends of mine that have said so often I’m like, oh, I love coming to your house. It’s just, it feels nice.

I’m like, yeah, great. But you can make your home like that as well. So I’d curated for about six months. One issue that we do have with my son is that, autistic kids, when it comes to sleep, some nights they sleep brilliantly and they sleep for like 12 hours and they’re incredible. And other nights they wake up at one o’clock and once they’re awake, they’re not going back to sleep.

People have said to me, they’re like, oh, have you tried sleep training? No, no, no sleep training does not work with an autistic child once they are awake. They’re ready to go for the day. So, over the last sort of 18 months Bear I was waking up probably three or four nights a week, at 1:00 AM, I was getting about 30 hours of sleep a week.

Which is terrible for your health. So, it was really starting to take its toll. And I eventually got to a point I’m like, I just can’t do this anymore. So we moved up the open date at the store and I resigned from the jobs that I was working, which all ended up retaining me on contract anyway. So now I just work the hours that I can, and I do the store as well.

Felicity Cohen: Amazing. I love it. And I’ve been, you know, such a fan of watching your journey and also, you know, watching Bear grow up through everything that you share is so beautiful. He is absolutely the most divine little thing I’ve ever seen. So I’m excited to watch, you know, his growth and where his little stroke of genius takes him because guaranteed, he’s going to do something

amazing in this world.

Kaz Dalton: And we always say, he’s either going to cure cancer, or be a cardiothoracic surgeon because he’s very intelligent, loves taking things apart. Yeah. Yeah, we’re excited.

Felicity Cohen: Beautiful

journey to watch. Please, thank Kaz Dalton for joining me. I have one question to ask you before we end. A question that I like to ask

all of my guests is what does wellness mean to you?

Kaz Dalton: For me, wellness is a state of being, and it’s asking for help. I think there’s too much stigma put on asking for help. If someone had diabetes, they ask a doctor for help. If someone has asthma, they ask a doctor for help. If someone has back issues, they ask a chiropractor for help, but when it comes to weight, we won’t ask for help.

We try and struggle and do it ourselves. When it comes to mental wellness, our mental wellness, we struggle and try and do it ourselves. If you are struggling in that area, whether it’s weight or, something that I love is that you guys offer a psychologist as well. Sometimes your weight loss journey starts in your mind.

And I think when it comes to wellness deal with in here while you’re dealing with everything else, because if you can’t get what’s right in here happening, you can change everything about your external appearance. You can have surgery, you can have plastic surgery, but you won’t change your mind. So for me, wellness is always about asking for help.

Felicity Cohen: I love

that. Thank you so much. Thank you joining the Wellness Warriors podcast. It’s been a pleasure to have you online with us. If you enjoyed the series, please leave your review, subscribe and follow, and we look forward to sharing many more stories with you in the future.