TW: talk of mental illness, suicide and self harm
I’ve dealt with mental illness for 15 years. Been in hospital 5 times, tried to kill myself 8. I’ve gained over 100lbs in the last four years through a combination of medication and symptoms leading me to consistently overeat and never leave the house. Until two weeks ago I hadn’t left the house in 2020.
But, in the last month I’ve lost nearly 20lbs.
I’ve been at varying degrees of obese since I hit puberty, and have never managed to successfully lose weight and maintain that loss. I’ve been someone who hops onto diet trends, loses water weight but feels deprived and depressed so I go back to old habits. Anything to give me some serotonin.
There’s a couple of changes I managed to make over the last year. I stopped self harming, and I gave up smoking over 8 months ago. And I was able to stick to these changes because I looked at them as part of my recovery. I knew I was helping myself get better by doing these things.
So I started to do the same with food. Just calories in calories out. Paying attention to which foods make me feel good, and which don’t. Working through late-night hunger by asking myself if I was actually hungry or feeling an emotion that I associate with binging. And if I was genuinely hungry, having a snack that was nutritious and not a full blown binge.
I haven’t started an exercise regime yet, as I want to feel confident in my relationship with food before I start throwing in workout videos. However, I am more mobile around the house (cleaning sprees), and trying to go for a walk around my neighbourhood a few times a week.
I guess I just wanted to write this for anyone else who was on a recovery journey. Healing your relationship with food is a kindness, and necessary to your recovery.
TL;DR - reframing my weight loss journey as a recovery one is finally helping me lose weight and stop crash dieting.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/30ctZtJ
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