In 2015 I did Veganuary. Controlling my food intake and restricting or cutting out certain foods contributed to a return of disordered eating problems. Food and eating – or not eating – took over my thoughts. Despite moving away from a completely vegan diet, I continued to restrict my food and purge through exercise. I…
Tag: Exercise addiction
Thoughts on mental health and parenting a newborn
Oaklan came on the 5th October. He’s almost eleven weeks now and things are slowly starting to feel a little easier. I’m still pretty tired – and I’m writing this with him feeding on my lap – so please excuse any typos, half-formed ideas or clumsy phrasing. I wanted to get down some thoughts about…
Signs of change and coping with cheese – how my eating disorder recovery looks now
Mental health problems have a way of taking over. I’m lucky enough never to have been hospitalised or signed off work. Life has always stumbled on. But moods and behaviours creep in and twist their tendrils around daily life. They trick you into thinking they’re normal, into nourishing them. It’s not until they start to…
Recovery is long, messy, uncomfortable and emotional – but i’ll keep trying (and talking)
Glad to have an eating disorder? Apparently Liz Jones is glad she has an eating disorder. In her latest piece for the Mail, she tells us that recovery is so hard that it’s easier not to try. She’s lived with an eating disorder for so long that she’d rather take refuge in behaviours that feel…
The next step in recovery – letting go of clothes that don’t fit
Too small I’m selling some of my favourite clothes. Some of them are definitely too small. I bought them when I was at my lowest weight last year. Fitting into a smaller size was an unhealthy but irresistible boost to a fragile self esteem that had narrowed to focus only on my weight and ability…
Please help me raise money for Mind
Update – I did it – thank you! I also blogged about it for Mind – Exercise, mental health and taking on Ride London.
What I’d tell my 2015 self about dieting, body positivity and accepting medication
Yesterday we celebrated our first wedding anniversary. Our wedding was a magical day but, in the two years since we got engaged, life has taken some unexpected turns. My mental and physical health has taken quite a bashing. I’m not fully recovered – and I’m working hard to challenge and change thought patterns and reactions that…
We need to talk about mental health and trying to conceive #takeoffthetape
Mind has been asking people to #TakeOffTheTape and share something that makes them anxious. Something they haven’t spoken about before. I thought I would use the opportunity to write about something that’s hardly spoken about at all. I’m finding it incredibly hard to balance trying to conceive with managing my mental health. We don’t talk about…
Coming off anti depressants – withdrawing from Citalopram and Sertraline
Day six in Foster’s brain and all is reasonably calm… As I write I’m on the sixth day without any form of SSRI at all. This is new territory for me. I’ve taken them every day for 15 years (with terrible healthcare making it much trickier). Three months ago I moved to Sertraline. Two months…
Exercise addiction and eating problems – good days, bad days and thought gremlins
It’s been a few months since I last wrote about the tangle of eating, exercise and emotions I have found myself in this year. I’m tired. More than anything I’m tired of thinking about food, eating, exercise and what I ‘should’ be doing. It’s just so tedious. Meditation, interesting work, DIY, time spent with friends and…
Exercise addiction – managing the tangle of anxiety, eating and exercise.
Last Sunday I spent all day exercising It started when I pressed snooze at 6am and cancelled my spinning class. I’d been in the gym at 6.30 all the previous week and had just returned from a busy couple of days running and walking in Cornwall. I was exhausted. But I didn’t get back to sleep. Anxiety…
How can exercise help depression?
Earlier this week, when the ‘exercise no help for depression’ stories were published on the BBC and the Guardian, I quickly pulled together some of my initial thoughts and frustrations with the way the research was reported. Since then, I’ve had a chance to think about it in a bit more depth. The debate on exercise…