Kate Ferdinand has battled with her mental health and insecurity over her changing body during her pregnancy.
The former ‘TOWIE’ star is expecting her first child, a baby boy, with retired footballer Rio Ferdinand, and she’s opened up about how her anxiety has heightened since becoming pregnant as she’s "quite emotional" a lot of the time and she’s also struggling with how she looks.
The 29-year-old author usually conquers her anxiety by keeping active, and when she hasn’t been able to workout, it’s impacted on her mental health.
Kate – who is a stepmother to Rio’s kids Lorenz, 13, Tate, 11, and nine-year-old Tia – also admitted to feeling "guilty" when she’s relaxing.
In an interview with Women’s Health’s ‘Going for Goal’ podcast, she admitted: "I struggle with my mental health … being active helps me day-to-day with my anxiety … So when I can’t do things, I really struggle with it … I want to do everything. Rio says to me ‘Kate, just sit down. You just need to sit down and relax’. But I don’t know why, I just feel guilty when I do.
"[Anxiety is] something I’ve suffered with from when I can remember. It can start over the simplest thing, and it’s just my mind playing tricks on me and can get out of control. But I do find that when I exercise or go for a walk, I seem to feel better for the day."
On how her mental health has been during her pregnancy, she added: "I am quite emotional. I feel a little bit insecure … I feel like not like me, and I struggled with that for a little while…feeling insecure with just how I look and my changing body, and I know it sounds very superficial … but struggling how to dress for this … Everything that you know has changed."
However, Kate admitted she felt "a bit more normal" by the second trimester.
She added: "The first three months I really, really struggled. I’m normally really active and I run around like a lunatic, just doing everything constantly. And I just couldn’t … I couldn’t get my head around being tired and not having the energy to go to the gym … But as I’m in the second trimester, I feel a bit more normal … I feel a bit more like myself."
Listen to the full Kate Ferdinand interview on the Women’s Health ‘Going for Goal’ podcast, available now.