How to Go From Addicted to Healthy Through Accountability with Alex Ferguson
Your mental health is immensely tied to how well you treat your physical body. The body is a tangible form we use to navigate life on Earth and often neglect to see how it connects to our spiritual well-being. In this episode, I’m interviewing Alex Ferguson on how she overcame body image issues and the changes she made to create healthy habits that help her thrive. We talk about finding hope in dark times, the importance of community, and being aware of what you consume. Take a listen and let me know what part resonates the most with you!
Who is Alex Ferguson?
Alex Ferguson is a professional model, health and wellness coach, mental health advocate, and public speaker living in New York City. She has been every size from a 0 to a 12 and has worked as both a curve model and now a straight size model over the last 12 years. She's overcome addiction, an eating disorder, and trauma.
Through her own personal health journey, she fosters breakthroughs and lifelong changes for those she works with. She works to empower others to love who they are, find what healthy looks like for them, discover their competence and learn to be comfortable in their own skin. Her hope is that by being authentic to her core values and her love for helping others, she will continue to inspire women worldwide.
Finding Hope in Dark Times
Alex understands what it feels like to be in a dark place and find her way back into the light. She says, “I’ve been every size from a zero to a 12 and went through a major health journey. I've overcome an eating disorder, addiction and trauma. And so through all of that and focusing on my mental health, I was able to kind of get to this healthy place where I now want to serve people and help people find what healthy, looks like for them.” I met Alex at a networking event before COVID and remember she asked me a really deep question which made us connect immediately. You hardly find that nowadays so it’s nice to meet people who are so real and compassionate.
Yo-yoing from a size zero to size 12 and having all those different life fluctuations would be tough for anyone to manage. Most people struggle to even find hope. So I asked Alex what helped her find hope through the battles she faced and what the turning point was for her. You may not be surprised that community played a major part.
She says, “I definitely struggled for years with body image and with my weight...I ended up being discovered young at a small size and then going out to L.A. and being promoted as a plus size model and being encouraged to eat more to get bigger so that I could make money. And through all of that I was just in a terrible place mentally and got really heavily into drugs and, and in the midst of it all suffering with binge eating disorder and I had to hit rock bottom in L.A. to help me move to Nashville where I kind of struggled with all of that same stuff but hit rock bottom again and realize I can't live like this anymore.
And so I really started to focus on my mental health and I found my faith again. And between those two things that's what gave me hope of just kind of getting all of the the garbage if you will, into the light out of the darkness, all the stuff that was isolating me and keeping me almost bound and between my mental health like therapy and then my going to church and finding that community that's what really started to give me hope that there could be something different and better.”
The Importance of Practicing Mindfulness
Since we’re all about mindfulness at The Good Space you know we had to ask how it played into Alex’s health and wellness coaching. She says,
“I mean, it completely ties in. Because if you're not mindful of what you're doing, you could really get off path. I think, especially when it comes to food, a lot of us cope with food. So we're not really in our thoughts and living our best life, you know, because we're in the thought of just always eating, are always coping with food. And so I look at that a lot with my clients of just like, Are you being mindful about what you're putting into your body? Are you being mindful of the fact that your body deserves the best or you know, your brain needs to function even better than before? So let's feed it good, nutritious food and exercise. So mindfulness is something I definitely teach and it's not an overnight thing that you learn. It's a practice and it takes time to develop that practice and, and it can always be getting better.”
She also talks about the triggers many of us face that cause us to continue eating.
“And a lot of people get it at the end of the day because it gives us that little bit of a high it's like oh, we just feel good after it and so every night we reach for it, what has gone on throughout the whole day that makes you want to grab that or let's say you're in a not so good work situation. And after work, you always go and you grab drinks and fries with friends. Why is that? You know, and so I think one identifying the emotions that you have when you are grabbing food is a huge thing. And then also with some of my clients I like I said I have them record it so they can really record what they eat all day and their exercise because it then shows you like wow, what have I done all day with my food and exercise.”
When someone’s struggling and comes to Alex for help here’s what she’ll ask you,
“I have people come to me for all sorts of things. I have clients who have had eating disorders and they just need to have that accountability to stay healthy. I have ones who are in the middle of an eating disorder. I have a lot of people come to me to lose weight. So it's really, it varies, you know, depending but I always assess where they are mentally, like, how do they see food? What is their intention when they eat? Are they mindful of what they're putting in their body? And are they mindful of their movement throughout the day? And so I focus more on the mental health aspects there and implementing healthy habits and replacing the bad habits with the healthy habits.”
Being More Present in Your Daily Life
When it comes to being more present in your day to day life, Alex always tells people, “be aware of what you consume, what you read, what you watch, how you spend your time, because that creates the mindset that creates the action that creates the habits and the beliefs, everything you consume, affects that.” She adds, “the more present we are I think the more we can give our body I know that a lot of Christians will say this, and I'm sure you've heard it, but our body is our temple, you know, and we only get one body. And I just think it's worth all of us treating it right and well and being able to live in a healthy way.”
To hear more tips and insights about being more mindful physically, mentally, and emotionally listen to our full conversation now.
Affirmation
I intend to attract all-encompassing health into my life. Physically, mentally, and emotionally I serve my highest and healthiest self so I can better serve those I love.
Resources
Follow Alex Ferguson on Instagram @thealexferguson.
Alex Ferguson's Official Site.
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