One year on after making it to week six of the Great British Bake Off, Amanda Georgiou is still baking multiple delicious treats every week. As a mum of two, with daughters now 27 and 16, she had always been in the kitchen whipping up fairycakes for school bake sales and showstoppers for kids' birthdays.
But her passion for baking intensified when her father became severely ill, and sadly died after a two-year battle with lung cancer in February 2020. Baking for others was her coping mechanism and became something she could focus on.
She would create her dad's favourite desserts in a bid to get him to eat something. "Baking was my release really, just my time to be in my own headspace," Amanda tells The Mirror.
"I was baking because lots of people would come to visit him and my mom was getting stressed about always having things that she could offer people, so I took bakes around there on a daily basis.
"I was baking my dad's favourite things as well, just trying to get him to eat.
"My dad was Greek Cypriot and he loves a lot of Greek cakes. My dad had a very sweet tooth so in a bid to entice him into eating something I would bake his favourite things.
"That was my biggest motivation in the beginning."
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Despite his passing, Amanda continued to put her energy into baking and became a Great British Bake Off contestant in 2021.
The 57-year-old will now bake two or three nights a week, sometimes until the early hours.
And it's something her colleagues now expect of her, with Amanda providing weekly bakes in her training sessions for the Metropolitan Police.
She has been a part of the force for 30 years, working her way up to a detective specialising in cases dealing with sex offenders.
In previous years, she would be on her feet all day out and about on the beat, but since moving into a predominantly office-based position training others, she has noticed a change in her body.
From the moment Amanda wakes up, she has aches and pains, which she puts down to her size.
Now overweight and at a size 16, she has vowed to drop to a 'comfortable' size 12 to help alleviate her health struggles and will be making healthier swaps in her beloved baking.
"I was practising everything [for GBBO and obviously I was having to taste everything to make sure that once I got on the show, they tasted good," Amanda, who first noticed her increased weight once she began baking more for her dad, adds.
"But I'm kind of managing that now. I'll just make sure I'm not baking when I'm hungry. It's a bit like when you go shopping on an empty stomach."
As part of her job, the detective must partake in the 'dreaded' beep test - a fitness test that must be completed each year by police officers - however this year she found it more difficult than ever.
And as Amanda is approaching retirement, she plans to go travelling with her husband where she hopes to spend hours walking each day.
"The main thing for me was not so much how I looked because I'm 57 now, I'm quite comfortable in my skin, but the catalyst for me was just being stiff, joints hurting," Amanda explains.
"I feel like a creaky old bookcase with too many books on it. I think if I put any more books on it, then one of the shelves would just collapse.
"I did a fitness test just a few weeks back, and it wasn't easy by any stretch of the imagination.
"I managed to get through it, but it certainly wasn't as easy as when I did it a few years ago.
"I get up in the mornings, and my ankles would be hurting and I'd come down the stairs and I'd have to hold on to the bannister and I just thought to myself, 'you need to do something'."
She's decided to make healthier swaps and alternatives in her baking, and each week will be making a less calorific version of this season's GBBO technical challenges - which she has been sharing on her Instagram.
Amanda has also signed up for WeightWatchers for help with creating more substantial meals and to help cut her late-night snacking habits.
Just two weeks into the weight loss programme, she has noticed a difference in her sleep and feels fuller for longer.
Before, Amanda could go all day without eating but as soon as she got in from work, she'd start picking at food whilst cooking as she was so hungry.
She would then turn to biscuits and crisps later in the evening.
"By the time I've had my dinner at seven or eight o'clock, come 10 o'clock, I'm not feeling that urge to take out the biscuits or packet of crisps," Amanda reveals.
"I just have a cup of tea or something and that'll be enough.
"If I've had something that's satisfying, then I don't feel that need to pick afterwards."
Amanda continues: "There are so many things you can do that I've realised now - you can swap some sugars for applesauce and low fat spreads.
"Just scaling things down a little bit and there are so many bakes now where we bake things with fruits.
"I've got beetroot brownies, people are using courgettes in their cake that make it just as tasty. All the supermarkets are full of healthy options."
Amanda sees joining WW as a long-term solution after ditching 'fad diets' in the past that have been a quick fix to get into a particular dress for her holiday.
While she won't be jumping on the scales often, she is looking to feel comfortable in her clothing.
She adds: "The cravings have gone already. I'm training myself to not let myself get hungry but nothing is off the menu really.
"I'm not having that struggle so much when I get up in the morning on my ankles although I've still got quite a long way to go.
"I've found it so much easier as well than I thought it would be and it was just so exciting and uplifting to commit to doing something".
Like viewers at home, Amanda has been discussing with her former show contestants in their Whatsapp group who she thinks will be in this year's Bake Off final.
She points out that two days of filming is cut down to a 47-minute show, so it's much easier to see who is likely to leave the tent when you're actually in there.
"When I was in the tent, we kind of knew who was going because we just knew how each other's bakes had gone. You kind of had an idea who was in the danger zone," the former Bake Off star explains.
"But they are all so good. I've got a couple who I think will be in the final.
"I predict Janusz and Sandro for the final".
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