Fitness, diet and mental health

Now, as it is apparently mental health awareness week I thought I would pipe up and join in. I have a lot of opinions on this subject, but, I want to keep this positive and relatively uncontroversial so I just thought I would write about the importance of daily exercise and eating healthy for people with mental health issues.

Personally, I've never been a believer in the separation between body and mind which is one of the reasons my fitness and health journey is so important to me. The two are, inextricably linked and separating the two is at best detrimental. If your mind is sick then your body is too and vice versa, I don't believe that anyone can heal one without the other, which is why fitness and health is so important.

If you put bad food and drink in your body and do no exercise, you cant expect to not suffer mentally. Fast food, take away, sweets etc are filled with carcinogens bad fats additives and high levels of sugar that are bodies have to struggle to process. Although we are tricked to believe that bad food like this is actually a 'treat' it is essentially poison in your body.

 WOHA that sounds extreme... no not really. When you eat strange food that we are not designed to eat of course this will have a massive effect on physical and mental health.

For me, it was this that fulled my desire to live a healthier lifestyle. If I was honest with myself (as I think a lot of people need to be) I spent years feeling poorly with aching joints sleepy, a bad stomach headaches panic attacks feeling low for periods of time while my eyesight deteriorated etc. I just thought people felt like that and so I excepted it. This might sound extreme but I think a lot of people experience similar things but just ignore it. The turning point for me was after much nagging from my mum while having to have an operation on my leg, I decided to change my lifestyle.

So in 2014, I stopped eating wheat and dairy and to be honest I've never looked back. It was at this time I also stopped smoking and going out drinking as much, while taking up going to the gym occasionally. This was such a lifestyle change for someone who used to sneak off in PE to smoke! Now this wasn't something I decided overnight and it took ages to actually get into the habit of doing these things but it really was worth it. Now, I'm not saying that I'm perfect or that all of my aches and pains are gone, but it really has changed my life for the better. I have only lost a couple of pounds over the years but that is not the reason I work out and stay active and eat healthy. I do it because it makes me happy and happiness is the best medicine of all.

If any of you follow me on Instagram I'm sure you have been plagued by my fitness posts and seen the changes and things I've tried over the years. Looking forward I'm hoping to cut out all inflammatory foods or as near as I can get to that and eat seasonally, but there really is no one size fits all approach. Your fitness and health journey is your journey and don't let people tell you otherwise or try and bring you down about it.

If anyone is struggling this week, with mental health issues whatever they may be I really think taking care of your physical health can be an amazing place to start. Good organic food, a cup of hot almond tea and a walk in the countryside can help anything. Nourishing your body and giving it the fuel and stability it needs to heal is so important.