Valerie Bertinelli Reveals Her Mental Health Improved After She Stopped Doing This

Valerie Bertinelli is prioritizing being kind to herself regardless of how much she weighs.

In an essay for New Beauty, the 61-year-old celebrity chef and author opened up about her struggles with body image and positivity and detailed the changes she's made in her daily routine as she works on her mental and emotional health.

"The big thing is my weight—it's the thing that holds me back," she explained. "But I want to start feeling the same about myself—no matter what weight I am. I don't have to wait until I've lost weight to be kind to myself and to be kind to others. It shouldn't matter what I look like. I'm trying to make that a reality in my life, and then, hopefully, my body will follow."

While she attempts to break that mindset and instead focus on living a healthier life, Bertinelli said she tries her best to not care about how much she weighs.

"I think that's important. I think many, many, many people live with a lie that we were told, that we're unlovable when we gain weight, and it's simply not true," she wrote.

The Food Network host admitted that she still thinks about being "the perfect weight" one day, but she said she's stopped weighing herself after realizing that the number on the scale will never be "low enough."

Bertinelli revealed that she hasn't gotten on a scale since she finished writing her book, "Enough Already: Learning to Love the Way I Am Today," and she found that "my clothes still fit; my jeans still zip up."

"I guess I was afraid that if I didn't see what number I was and if I wasn't able to keep an eye on it, that I would balloon up…but that hasn't happened," she explained.

The adjustment has since brought a positive change to her mental health, according to the actress.

"It's all a test and we’ll see how it works, but I do know that my mental health has improved immensely because I stopped looking at the scale every morning—and that's the first big step for me," she wrote.

Bertinelli also offered some advice to readers, which was to "let yourself feel the feeling."

She shared that after spending most of her life "trying to push down feelings that were uncomfortable" and using food to make herself feel better, she's learned to be "aware of why [I] do what [I] do."

Last year, Bertinelli also opened up about her weight loss and body image struggles in an emotional video on Instagram, where she admitted that she wasn't sure if she would ever get to a place where she is happy with her body.

The "Valerie's Home Cooking" star later told fans in another emotional clip that she made the "mistake" of reading comments and came across remarks that told her she "needed to lose weight." She slammed those trolls and got emotional as she insisted that if she could "lose the weight and keep it off," she would.

"You're not being helpful," she added. "Because when you see somebody who has put some weight on, my first thought is, 'That person is obviously going through some things.'"