My name is Elliott and this is my story. Five years ago, I woke up one morning and decided to make a change. I was desperately unhappy and I decided to turn my life around, it was as simple as that. There was no magic formula, no epiphany. I had reached a crossroads of sorts and there were two paths to lead. The easier path would’ve been to continue this pattern of self-inflicting destructive negligence, it would’ve been the easier option. Instead, I made the difficult choice. A choice which involved blood, sweat and tears and wholesale lifestyle changes.
Upon leaving uni, I forced myself out of my comfort zone. Prior I was shy, quiet and completely non-descript. Someone who faded into the background and made very little impression. With a change in body composition came a change in mindset. My relationship with many things including food evolved over time, it is something that I will discuss in much more detail at a later date.
For too long, at best I had been blissfully ignorant, at worst I was maliciously neglecting myself. In the past when it came to mental health and mental health issues, I was very much uneducated like many men up and down this country are and to this day, I continue to educate myself. Without meaning to sound too dramatic, it was a decision which allowed me to live rather than merely exist.
Five years ago, I was at the behest of a vicious cycle, a cocktail of various mental health issues. On reflection, the most significant was quite a severe form of body dysmorphia. I lived a reclusive lifestyle as I attempted to avoid any form of the limelight and/or attention. I avoided looking down or in the mirror when I could, I refused to be included in photos or in certain cases, I would delete photos. It was simply a case of my self-esteem and self-confidence was completely crippled.
The scar tissue of those issues remain, there are very few photos that I take of myself or have taken. There are still times where I have tussles with my perception of my own body image and with that I have to remind myself how far I have come.
Numbers on the scale are not the be all and end all, and it’s very easy to obsess with the number on the scale. However, it is my easiest and most quantifiable means of how showing how much I have changed. At my heaviest, I would have been well over a 100kg, on record, the heaviest I saw on the scales was 96.8kg. Now I am currently 66kg but I was my leanest during lockdown where I healthily and steadily dropped to 58kg. I was the leanest I’d been since I was a child.
To feel comfortable to show my body in such a way shows how far that I have come already and I still feel there is a long way to go. It would be false of me to profess self love and self care and claim that I’ve reached my end destination in my pursuit of comfort, when I still feel a long way from happy with how I look and how I feel, but this is just the beginning.
This blog isn’t meant to be inspirational or generate change, I just thought it would be beneficial for people to get an insight into my journey. There will undoubtedly be a smorgasbord of discussions around food and mental health, my experiences with dieting and an ever-changing relationship with food and of course, a sprinkling of my favourite vegetarian recipes throughout.