Liana’s lengthy journey to self-discovery
Local fitness trainer Liana Fourie is a bright and bubbly person but very few people know about her personal struggles dealing with depression.
POLOKWANE – However, she has overcome a number of challenges and serves as motivation for others to persevere despite the odds being stacked against them. She shared her story with us.
“I can help people walk the road because I have been down it before,” Liana says.
She explains she never had an issue with her weight when she was younger. It was only after she gave birth that she started having trouble maintaining her weight and bad eating habits started to form. “I lost my baby weight as soon as I left the hospital, and then I became a depression eater. As the weight piled on, my depression got even worse, so bad I didn’t want to leave the house.”
For Liana, it was a struggle finding the strength to start going to the gym, saying: “It felt like all eyes were on me.”
She says at times she could hear what people were whispering about her, things such as “what is she trying to do, break the machine?” and she says she often caught people laughing at her. “That was terrible, but somehow I managed to get up every morning and go to gym.”
After a while she could shut out the negativity and she started seeing the results of her hard work.
“I felt more relaxed. The depression became determination to succeed. And after a while I even started to feel good in my own skin again. When I look back now, I think to myself, girl, why didn’t you do this earlier? My self-esteem skyrocketed,” she exclaims.
It is Liana’s mission to motivate others through her story and she says all she wants is for people to look at her and say: because of you, I didn’t give up, I didn’t give in to my depression.
“I want to motivate people and let them know how wonderful it is to feel free in your own body,” she concludes.
