My Body and Me

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live” – Jim Rohn

I’ve always loved my food, ever since I was a child. What I didn’t realise is that my relationship with food wasn’t a particularly healthy one. I would eat if I was happy, sad, angry, stressed or bored. I was an emotional eater, a term I jokingly used as I ate, continually.

Not only was I an emotional eater, but I was an obsessive dieter. I’ve tried every fad diet under the sun and would be so happy when I lost a few kg’s, which inevitably returned the moment I went back to my old habits. When I got married to my first husband, at the grand old age of 24, I went on a diet and then suddenly lost a lot more weight from wedding-planning stress. So much so that my wedding dress was actually too big for me!

Then a couple of years later, I started suffering from acid reflux problems and the doctor told me to not drink alcohol, and not eat pasta, cheese or bread. I lost so much weight in just a few weeks, but the person I saw in front of the mirror was unrecognisable and the moment I found out there was medicine available that helped it, I went straight back to my old comfortable, comfort-eating, fad dieting self.

About a month after my Mum died, I decided to stop drinking alcohol, mainly to help me through the grief journey and allow me to feel the emotions in a healthy way.

No more alcohol, lead to no more overeating, which lead to choosing healthier options (don’t get me wrong, I still have a sweet tooth that needs to be satisfied!). Around November 2019, I made the decision to eat mostly plant-based food, not long after finding out that I had very high cholesterol.

The combination of my change in eating and drinking habits, along with consistently moving, mainly through Yoga, Shake & Flow, and walking, lead to a slow, but quite dramatic body change.

I weighed 77kgs when I decided to change my lifestyle habits in May 2019. When I first shared this post in February 2020, I was 62kgs. A weight that I have maintained since, along with my chosen lifestyle.

Early last year I was chatting to my yoga teacher about weight loss and almost burst into tears, as I finally discovered the secret to it after so many years. I believe the secret is self-care. By caring for myself, I started listening to my body and to care for it.

The changes that I made in my life might not work for everybody, but even if small changes are made, little by little, the mindset starts to shift, we start listening to our bodies and taking care of them a bit more each and every day.

And maybe if we take care of our bodies, our bodies will take care of us.