Mental Health Awareness Week 2021

How are you? How are you really? You may already be aware that it’s Mental Health Awareness Week this week. It has reminded me of how much my weight used to be tied up with my mental health. I would comfort eat from various emotional triggers, including diagnosed depression at times, which would cause me to feel guilty, hopeless and disgusted, which would only serve to make me comfort eat more.

It affected my confidence, as I was constantly thinking I was being judged for my weight, and that people would be noticing that I’d put my weight back on, yet again!It would make me feel like a failure, as I couldn’t control myself with food.

It caused me anxiety as I was worried at every slight pain that I might be having a heart attack, which would only make me feel more anxious, and I felt so unfit and tired. It made me bury my head in the sand, and not weigh myself, and to wear loose-fitting clothing, as I couldn’t bear to face up to what I was doing to myself. It made me withdraw from my husband as I felt so unattractive. I felt ashamed, and a terrible role model for my children. It made me desperately unhappy.

It doesn’t have to be like that

Eventually, I did face up to what I was doing to myself, took responsibility for it, and took effective action.

Since losing my excess weight and keeping it off for the last 10 years, I can’t tell you how much better my mental health has been. It’s immeasurable. I still have times where I suffer bouts of depression, and life’s inevitable ups and downs, but I have learned to not use food as a coping strategy, and not having the excess weight to deal with means I have more mental capacity to deal with the other issues that inevitably crop up. Being in better physical health helps a lot too.

So if your weight is getting you down, or you are overweight because you use food as a coping strategy for other things going on, I want you to know that it is not inevitable that you will always be overweight, that it is possible to lose weight, with the right approach and with the right help and support.

I know because I’ve been there, I’ve walked the walk, and I have succeeded. You can too. We only get one life. Don’t let your weight stop you from living it.

Tell me what it’s like for you. I’m listening.