How My Weight Affects my Mental Health. And Vice Versa.

If you’ve visited my blog before, you’ll know that I’ve written a lot about my mental health and my weight quite a bit before. I don’t think I’ve written about the mental health and weight loss together though, and they’re definitely linked.

How My Weight Affects my Mental Health. And Vice Versa.

I am an emotional eater. I eat all my emotions. I’m not fussy. Happy? Eat. Sad? Eat. Angry? Eat. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. The problem is that my mental health affects my control over my emotional eating.

When I’m happy

I still want to eat all the time. I love food. I will always love food. And, unfortunately, I don’t really love exercise, so it’s very easy for me to gain weight. But when I’m happy, it’s a bit easier for me to control myself and avoid binges.

When I’m unhappy

I lose control. It’s the same whether I’m unhappy because of depression or anxiety or just because I’m having a bit of a down day, which happens to all of us, even if our mental health is generally OK.

How my weight is affected by my mental health

When I’m struggling with depression and/or anxiety, I just don’t care about my diet. In order to function as a mum (and as a human being), I have to prioritise. Losing weight doesn’t make it high enough on the list when I’m trying to be a good mum and work hard enough to maintain my income at the same time as not falling apart. Obviously, being a good mum is my most important job. It’s also my favourite job and the most difficult. Four year olds are hard work. I have two of them. One of them is much harder work than the average 4 year old, I think (no, I’m not telling you which one).

So I prioritise. And then I reward myself by eating whatever I want and promising myself that I will start dieting again “tomorrow” or when my mental health is better and I can rearrange the priority list a bit.

Of course, the result is that my weight goes up.

Separation and weight gain

When ex-Mr Becca moved out, everyone joked “at least you’ll lose weight! Heartbreak is the best diet!”. Pah! Challenge accepted!

Last year, I lost 4st. (Including 2st in 60 days, if you’d like to read about that). I wasn’t finished. I still wanted to lose more weight. I thought another 2st or so would be good, but I decided to maintain for a while first, since I felt pretty fab in my own skin for the first time in ages. Losing more weight didn’t feel as urgent as it did before and that’s fine.

Then my world was turned upside down. I feel pretty good about the whole thing now, but I didn’t at the time. I was scared and hurt and very sad. My mental health, understandably I think, really suffered.

Maintenance is actually the hardest part of weight loss. Anyone who disagrees with me… sorry, you’re wrong. Probably. It’s the hardest bit for me anyway, and for most of my clients. So when I took my eyes off the maintenance ball last year, to focus on being a good mum, building an income now that I was a single mum, and trying to take care of my mental health… the ball didn’t just roll away, it disappeared completely. I gained weight.

So much for the heartbreak diet.

I didn’t stay sad forever

When I’d had a bit of time to reflect on things (and not just the separation – 2019 was a pretty awful year for lots of reasons, most of which happened in the last half of the year), I managed to pick myself back up. I didn’t do it alone. I had counselling and medication, both of which I found very helpful. My mental health improved and it’s continued to do so. Since January, I’ve also had Muscles on my team and he’s been so supportive of everything I do, which has helped my mental health as well.

I’ve successfully increased my income by a fair amount in the last 6 months, which means that I’m relying more on my own income and less on Universal Credit, which feels amazing and has given me a bit of breathing space from the financial stress of being a single parent.

But not having to focus quite so hard on not falling apart and all that other stuff meant that I had more time to focus on other things that are important to me. Like my body and my weight.

I’m a lot heavier than I want to be

I haven’t gained all the weight back, but it’s enough to make me unhappy. Which leads me to…

How my mental health is affected by my weight

I don’t like being overweight. I don’t like being so unfit I can’t play with my children for more than a few minutes without needing to take a break. I don’t like looking in the mirror and being unhappy with how I look. Especially when I was so happy with my body this time last year. I’m disappointed in myself for falling back on old eating habits when I’d been maintaining so well until September.

When I’m overweight, my depression and my anxiety become harder to control. Just like my weight becomes harder to control when I’m depressed and/or anxious.

I’m really enjoying being happy. I don’t take this feeling for granted, because I know how unhappy I get sometimes and I don’t want to go back there. So now is the time to do something about my weight. Again.

Back on plan

The 1:1 Diet works for me. It just does. The results are quick, which keeps me motivated, and the rules are strict, so it’s easy to follow. Well, not “easy”, but I don’t have to weigh and measure stuff, I don’t have to spend lots of time cooking, and since all I can have is the meal replacements (I do Step 1 – this isn’t the case on all steps), there’s less temptation. It’s actually easier now that I don’t have another adult living with me. I just only buy food for the twins and then I have no choice but to eat my products!

I know that lots of parents struggle with not eating the kids’ leftovers, but that’s not really a problem for me.

I’ve set myself an achievable target

I want to lose 5st by February. This is easily achievable on The 1:1 Diet. In fact, I’m hoping to do it by Christmas. I’ve got a boudoir photoshoot booked for February – it was booked for this April, but coronavirus happened – so that’s an added incentive to lose the weight. 5st will take me lower than I went last time – it will take me to my weight loss goal. It’s a fairly large amount of weight to lose, but I know I’ll feel much better when it’s gone.

I think I’ve waffled on enough for today, but since I find both my weight loss plans and my mental health fairly easy to write about, I promise I’ll be back with an update on both soon!