Right well, this is going to get hella deep.
This is less me talking about studies and benefits but more my actual journey with my mental health and it’s relationship with my fitness. I always want to be honest with people and I can’t exactly preach this and then not follow through so here we go.
I’ve really thought I struggled much with my mental health, I’ve always been a very anxious person. Never the centre of attention and very quiet, I just assumed it was more of being an INFJ than a mental health problem. Looking back it can explain a hell of a lot. But anyway in the past with my fitness I trained 3 days a week. I never did anything heavy but always a hell of a lot of reps and a lot of HIIT (never did legs either). I was under the illusion I just needed to do cardio to be lean and I didn’t want to be too bulky so never did deadlifts or lifted for strength. I also played football at the weekends, so I was fairly active but I was never in love with my training, I did it purely to keep healthy. Anyway well life didn’t exactly go well situations happened and bad events amplified my flaws.
It sent me into a spiral of being down, hurting people around me and hurting myself. I managed to keep going with weight training for a bit but after I while I stopped looking after myself. Eating either too much of the wrong stuff or starving myself and not eating at all. Things went from bad to worse and so on, till I didn’t want to be around anymore. It was just pure misery, I ended up getting ill on new years day because my body was shutting down and not fighting off common diseases. Which a fully functioning immune system has no problem doing. I hated life.
It took me a long time to get out of that rut. Honestly I have no idea how I got out of it, I think I just found something I wanted to aspire to be and work towards. During my time when I didn’t feel myself I think there was just no future I wanted or something that was worth putting the effort in. That’s the honest truth.
I started on the road to recovery, but I didn’t have the intention to start training again. So I was dragged back and oh my days, I could just feel myself missing it. I wrote myself a new plan that wasn’t just HIIT, I started training legs and wow, I never loved it more. I have to reiterate that I was by no means fine, I’m still working on my mental health. I can tell how much working out effects my mental health when I’m injured don’t come near me. I am a pain.
This is the part I can’t put enough emphasis on, physical health by no means solves your mental health problems. But it does you a world of good, the post workout glow. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve screamed when pushing a PB and breaking down in relief when I accomplish a goal. It’s the hard work paying off and me seeing and feeling the improvements.
Going through all this, I kinda feel I’ve had a reset on life, to start over again. Some of you may think that’s a fresh start to decide how I want my life to go and get rid of all the imperfections of the past. But let me tell you one thing, it ain’t rosey at all. To basically start again and build yourself back up is hardwork. You lose out on a lot of things because you’re working on yourself, people’s lives haven’t had to go back to go on monopoly. They’re already miles ahead of you, they’re not going to wait around for you to catch up. This mean’s you have to do a lot of things alone, I’ve learned to rely on myself a lot and to get myself through tough situations.
BUT NOT EVERYDAY IS A BAD DAY. This was a hard pill to swallow but it's true. It's perfectly ok to have your down days and to put on a hoodie and joggers and eat your favourite foods. For me I allow myself to do this, I allow myself to just shut everyone else off for a bit. But what I've learned is once I've done this I don't allow myself to continue to be miserable, I pick myself up shake the dust off and move forward.
Told you it would be more about my personal relationship with mental health and fitness. Hopefully it helps people realise how important physical health can be with mental health. Part of me feels I wouldn’t be around if I didn’t have my training. And I want to open up a bit more and be honest with people, live isn’t always perfect and social media can often make it seem like it is.
I’ve tried to be as honest as I can be at this moment in time, I still feel I’m being a bit vague but this is what I’m comfortable with putting out at the moment. I still hope you enjoyed it, my dm’s are always open on my Insta (@cmcg.fitness). Going through this has taught me a lot, and I feel I’ve grown throughout it. I’m going to leave it there for today. Maybe I’ll do a follow up later…when I’ve built up the courage again.
Thanks
Cameron