HGTV's Galey Alix opens up about overcoming eating disorder and mental health issues

Galey Alix has a new outlook on life following a health battle that led to a painful breakup.

During a July 31 appearance on TODAY with Hoda and Jenna, the home renovation star opened up about the personal and medical challenges she's faced over the past few years and shared an inspiring message of hope.

Alix, whose show "Home in a Heartbeat" is currently streaming on Max, was on cloud nine when she found love in 2018 and her boyfriend proposed. But things got chaotic rather quickly when Alix began commuting from Florida to Connecticut every weekend to work on their new home.

“I was trying to be the perfect fiancée, the perfect homemaker, the perfect designer, and it was too much. It kind of culminated in a really, really, really severe eating disorder," she said.

Since everything around her felt so out of control, Alix began to control her eating habits.

"It was going to kill me if I didn't do something about it," she said.

However, Alix was nervous to tell her fiancé about the mental health struggles she was experiencing.

"You feel like if you tell anybody they’re not going to love you or want you anymore," she said.

When Alix did eventually tell her partner about her eating disorder, he wasn't thrilled that she had kept it a secret.

"The reason my fiancé left me was because I opened up about it and I said that I was struggling with it," she said. "I didn't blame him for leaving me right then and there on the spot because I had been dishonest, right? I'd been hiding something that I was doing to myself."

After the breakup, Alix sought therapy and deleted Instagram for several months. When she did go back on social media, she discovered that the posts about her home renovation had gone viral.

People also started reaching out to ask her if she could help with their own renovation projects.

"I just started saying 'yes' to people that were local instead of staying home and feeling sorry for myself. (I thought) 'I'm going to go and help somebody with their house,'" she said.

As she began to take on more projects, Alix gained more confidence and found the process to be very rewarding — and healing.

“I feel like by perfecting people’s homes it allowed me to stop focusing on perfecting myself and and my body and how I looked,” she said. “But when your fiancé leaves you right before your wedding unexpectedly, you kind of feel unwanted. And you guys wanted me here today, these homeowners want me in their homes, and it gave me a sense of self worth again.

"There's something so invigorating about knowing that something you just did made somebody's life better," she said.

Now, Alix has found love with a new man and she went into her relationship with full transparency this time around.

"I literally opened up our dinner (by) explaining (that) I went through this difficult breakup, my fiancé left me, I had an eating disorder. And his response wasn't to get up and walk away. Instead, he opened up," she said. "It's created the healthiest, happiest bond that I've ever had with another person."

While talking with Hoda and Jenna, Alix said she feels so lucky that her life has turned around.

"Gratitude is really easy when you've been in a really dark place. I think I needed to lose all those things in order for me to be reborn into the best version of myself and to get the life that I get to have now," she said.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com