IT'S BEEN QUITE A YEAR!

Karin Kortjé is fizzing with energy – she’s recently turned 40, has lost a whopping 28kg and has reconnected with her birth mom

- Colin Hendricks

IT’S been a watershed year for her: tracking down her birth mother, hitting the big 4-0 and fundamentally changing her lifestyle – all of which has added up to her ringing in the festive season with a fresh zest for life.

Karin Kortjé has never looked or felt better. This has been the year she rediscovered herself, she says, and it started back in January when she took a long, hard look at herself and decided to take herself in hand.

“At the beginning of the year I weighed 105kg and I was tired of living so unhealthily. For years I was unsure of my appearance and I believed I wasn’t good enough.

“But I’d just had enough so I made the best decision of my life: to eat better and start exercising.”

And it’s paid off big time. In February the winner of Idols SA 2005 enrolled in a 90-day programme at a beauty and wellness clinic in Kuils River, Cape Town, and by the end of the three months she’d shed 18kg, thanks to the plant-based diet she followed religiously.

She stuck to the healthy regime afterwards and watched as the kilos continued to melt off.

“But I love my meat so I’m back to eating meat again,” she says.“And if I make stew for the family, I’ll have some with them sometimes.”

Karin now weighs 77kg and “I feel good. I have so much energy for performing and going out and doing things with my sons again.”

Fruit is her favourite snack, she says. “I love it – after all, I come from the Overberg apple-growing region! There are always apples in my fruit bowl.”

Karin was an apple picker on a farm in Grabouw before going on to win Idols – a rags-to-riches story that touched the hearts of millions of South Africans and put her on the music map.