Healthy Grieving

jar_of_hope

Hello, I'm 23 and I've been on my journey for 3 months and I've lost 30+ pounds through healthy eating and exercise, but 3 1/2 weeks ago I hit a big bump in the road, my 64 year old father had a heart attack while I was swimming with him and died. So since then I have had a hard time staying on track, I'm grieving, so I'm just not motivated to exercise, and I'm wanting comfort food.
This is a fairly large group, so I was wondering if any of you have lost someone you love recently... How did you move forward with your journey to a healthy life?

ecka723

First of all, I want to say I am so sorry for your loss. My dad went through something similar with heart issues (a few times now) but he is lucky and is still around.

My father's condition was based solely on his 'health habits' and weight. He had an aortic dissection (where his aorta split in half from his carotid artery to his femoral artery), which was caused by uncontrolled high blood pressure.

Seeing my father like this made my sister and I re-evaluate our health and our lifestyles. Neither of us had a desire to end up where he was.

When I was grieving for my grandpa's loss. I thought a lot about what he would want me to do. He would want me to be happy and not to be so sad about his passing. He would want me to continue doing well and to get healthy.

I'm sorry. If you need to talk, feel free to message me.

TLC7613

I'm so sorry!!!! Although slightly different, I can relate. This last monday my sister-in-law suddenly died. Her liver erupted inside her and we had no idea until we took her to the hospital and she died hours later. I was a little on the "thick" side to begin with, then my husband and I suffered a miscarriage earlier this year, and my form of grief was eating the pain away. I was far along enough to have been gaining weight, but I added to it. It always adds insult to injury when people (we didnt publicize the pregnancy) walk up and put their hands on my belly and say "oh! What do we have here". I always have to smile and just say i've gained some weight when I really want to yell at them that there SHOULD be a baby in there if i hadn't miscarried. I want to get healthy for when we try again later on. I'll sent you a request!

sjaykay13

I am so so sorry for your loss. My weight issues are solely stemmed in emotional eating. Over the last 7 years, every time I made strides in my weight loss, I lost a close friend or family member and it sent me back into a spiral of gaining weight and being unhealthy. But by far, my worst loss was in Sept 2009 when my boyfriend died in a motorcycle accident. I was in the middle of my junior fall semester at college and had successfully lost 40 lbs during the summer. After he passed, I lost a lot of weight quickly because I wasn't eating. But once the fog settled, I gained over 80 lbs over 4 years.

I obviously didn't handle my grief properly but here are a few things that did help:
- seeing a grief counselor***** this is by far the most important advice I can give
- believing in whatever higher power you believe in and trusting that
- using exercise as a tool to help handle the feelings that come along with grief (anger, depression, helplessness)
- instead of seeking comfort foods, seek other things that are comforting like hot tea, a familiar smell, a warm bath, a good book, etc.

Please please feel free to message me if you ever need to talk!!!