Nicola McLean has suffered a relapse in her eating disorder battle because of lockdown.
The 38-year-old former glamour model has battled anorexia and bulimia since she was just 11 years old and she’s been struggling in recent months, largely thanks to early panic buying leaving her unable to buy the foods she prefers to eat, which caused her to look for another form of control in her life
She said: "It just really threw a lot of my normality … Then trying to get food delivery slots and they brought you substitutes, which felt like a personal attack, but I’m very aware it wasn’t.
"I definitely limited [my food intake] and lost weight. You hear a lot of people saying, ‘If you can’t buy that, buy this’. But if I could control how I felt, do you think I would have lived like this for many years? It was the fear of eating things I wouldn’t normally eat.
"It’s mainly a control thing – feeling so out of control and then feeling like you’ve got to control and restrict."
While Nicola – who has sons Rocky, 14, and Striker, 10, with husband Tom Williams – is confident she’s beaten anorexia, bulimia is still her "go-to" when she’s feeling stressed.
In an interview with the latest issue of New! magazine, she said: "I managed to overcome anorexia a good few years ago when Striker was one, but my bulimia is my go-to if I’m stressed or have anxiety. I also withhold food or overeat. I’m the only person I know who has lost weight in lockdown.
"Where everyone’s baking, I’m like, ‘That’s just not happening’. I know if I bake the cake, I’d at that cake and then want to throw it up because it’s not something I usually eat. It becomes that whole personal battle."
While she takes medication, the former ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ star doesn’t have therapy because she isn’t convinced it can help her due to her inability to speak completely openly.
She said: "I don’t like therapy and I’d need to go into a clinic and stay there three years to work out my issues.
"I’m a very open book but when I’m in a therapy session I’ve never found it in me to be very open – so a therapist can’t really help me … I’m one of those people who if I’ve thrown up I’ll say to my husband, ‘I’ve just gone and thrown up my dinner.’ He looks at me like I’m absolutely mental."