Guy Leech was 19 when he won Australia's first professional ironman race, a ''ridiculous'' 46-kilometre swim-run-paddle from Surfer's Paradise to Coolangatta and back, dubbed the Coolangatta Gold and manufactured entirely to shoot a movie of the same name, starring Grant Kenny. ''It was surreal,'' recalls Leech of his $50,000 win in 1984.
Leech went on to win the race several times and ruled the sport for a decade. Since then he's made health and fitness a career, working as an educator, fitness personality and personal trainer to a long list of names including Madonna and George Clooney. These days he lives in Curl Curl, on Sydney's northern beaches, with his wife, Helen, and daughters Paloma, 15, and Phoenix, 7.
My pantry: There's always an assortment of nuts and dried fruit. Some say dried fruit has too much sugar but being the active family that we are, it's good snacking food. And I've got lots of cereals. I bookend my day with cereals. I have cereals in the morning and the last thing I eat before I go to bed at night is cereal again - grains and different types of natural muesli in a bowl with some prunes, some almonds and sultanas mixed with coconut milk (over the years my body has tended not to do well with full-cream milk and dairy).
My fridge: There's always organic light milk in the fridge for the kids and vanilla yoghurt. We're big on the Thermomix machine so there's always leftover soup and Thermomix stock with its 15 different ingredients. We're big on Japanese so there's often leftovers - sashimi and that sort of thing. We're lucky that both our kids from the age of two have been able to eat raw salmon sashimi with soy. And we've always got barbecue and tomato sauce and mustard because we do barbecues once a week, Aussie-style.
My favourite thing in the morning is the DeLonghi Nespresso coffee machine, without a doubt. You get a decent coffee, and at weekends, particularly when I sleep in, you get out of bed and get a coffee - it's the kicker in the house.
Dark chocolate. I like the Lindt 70 per cent cocoa one, which gives it that rich, bitter taste. I'll take it with me on trips but I only have two or three pieces a day.
I love Mexican. Burritos and tacos at home are a simple way to have a meal that the whole family loves, and you've got plenty of options, whether it's chopped-up tomatoes, grated cheese, guacamole, hot sauce, mild sauce, beans or mince - it's probably my favourite meal of the week.
We've got a rule that we don't have soft drink in the house and we don't drink alcohol at home either. So, if we drink alcohol, it's outside of the home. There's always fresh orange juice in the fridge and the fridge has filtered water that you can get any time. When I'm out, I'm a lime caprioska boy: vodka, crushed ice, brown sugar and lime. I don't like the taste of wine and beer; never have.
The Thermomix not only provides meals but it also gives leftovers. Because I work from home and I'm on the run a lot, in and out of the house, for me to be able to just have soup or something leftover in the fridge is a bit of a winner. And we have a good set of sharp Global stainless steel knives. They're awesome.
Thermomix pumpkin soup. You throw pumpkin and onion in the machine and you throw the stock in - no cream or anything else - and it just comes out a treat.
Nobu at Crown in Melbourne. I eat out a bit and I've eaten at a lot of good restaurants over the years, but as far as the meals Helen and I have had there, we're quite amazed by just how good and fresh the food is.
Helen made a slow-roasted lamb shank pie the other day and it was more impressive than I thought it would be. She got it from the MasterChef website. I didn't think much of it before she cooked it but eating it, it was very impressive.
Last night was barbecue night. We came back from Phuket two days ago and had Japanese takeaway the first night, lamb chops, sausages, vegetables and mashed potatoes last night.
■ Guy Leech is an ambassador for Diabetes Australia. See diabetesaustralia.com.au
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