Starting May (Mental Health Awareness Month) with a milestone celebration in my recovery, was the perfect opportunity to use this month as a springboard to the next chapter of The Fat.Ugly Blog. Not 100% sure what that looked like, but feeling a shift inside, Mental Health Awareness Week gave me an extra reason to connect with nature, go within, reflect and create a vision for this new chapter.
Mother Nature never disappoints and here are some key highlights from my discovery:
I’ll be posting monthly instead of weekly
When I started blogging weekly, my focus was to process my reflections and to stick to a schedule that had been working through my therapy treatment and led me to becoming binge and restriction free.
Although it was the level of accountability I needed at the time, I have to admit that it was challenging to be consistent and committed to posting weekly – I proved that I could, but for my continued mental health and to free up time to focus on developing the blog and other projects, I’ve decided to post monthly updates and reflections instead.
I’m sure there’ll be the additional post in between, when I have something to share, but for the most part I’ll be posting once a month.
I’m establishing an ‘I’ve recovered from Binge Eating Disorder mindset’
The eating disorder often whispers; “You can’t live without me” and attempts to raise the fear that I’ll ‘fall back’ to old habits when things get too hard. So I’m courageously facing that fear and walking right through it by establishing a new mindset that positions BED firmly in my past. Keeping my eyes fixed on creating the life that I desire – the one that BED convinced me I didn’t deserve, I’m striding away, making a fresh start and building the life that makes me happy and reflects who I really am.
That means you’ll be seeing and hearing more about my creative work and self-expression. I’ll be sharing how I continue to support and improve my mental health in that process too, because recovery from BED is not the end of my mental health struggle – the healing of my mind continues.
I’ll be actively adjusting to a weight loss phase of my recovery, in a non-diet way
A few months ago, I came across a free programme that focuses on weight loss skills, rather than a diet. I decided to try it with one of the skills, removing just one of my snacks from my daily eating schedule. I didn’t make it 100% in my first two week, which was fine, but next week will be three months since I introduced that skill and snack free mornings are now the norm.
I’ll be sharing more about my experience with the programme and building more of the skills in to my life, slowly but surely.
I’ll be finishing my book and continuing to speak and share about Binge Eating Disorder
The Fat.Ugly Blog is still about creating a space where Binge Eating Disorder can be spoken about without fear, judgment or shame. I’ll continue to do this through my books, social media and other content I produce – encouraging others who are struggling.
More than anything, I want others who feel trapped, stuck and overwhelmed by BED to look at my journey and believe that they can recover too, because recovery is possible, for everyone!
Also this month…
I had a chat with Denzel @mymentalhealth_uk about BED. You can watch the video here: Talks with Denz
I’ve been working on my new podcast – She Walks With God. You can listen to my 16 minute introduction here and the first episode will be released this Friday, 4th June, so make sure you’re on The Fat.Ugly Blog mailing list for ongoing updates about that.
I’ve redesigned my Officially Anny website to reflect a new, stronger ownership of my creativity and work as an Author.
And … as always, I faced emotions and won – so I’m proud of myself for no longer running away or hiding from them.
May has been peaceful, encouraging and I’ve come out feeling new!