Depression and Weight Gain: Break the Cycle!

September 17, 2009 by Jen Rendfrey
Filed under: Miscellaneous 

Depression and weight gain often go hand in hand. It’s a vicious cycle…you eat because you’re depressed and you’re depressed because you eat and you’ve gained weight…but there’s a way out.

When I’m feeling my depression, I want to eat and I don’t want to eat anything healthy, either. I don’t want broccoli, I don’t want a salad. I don’t want grilled chicken. I want macaroni and cheese. I want chocolate chip cookies. I want pizza.

When I’m feeling my depression, I want to feel better and at that moment, that very moment when the food hits my lips, when I have my first taste of it, I DO feel better.

But depression makes you forget. You forget:
1) how crummy you felt last time you tried on your favorite pair of jeans and had to take them off and throw them in the back of the closet.
2) how you wanted to melt into the floor of the grocery store when you saw someone who hadn’t seen you in a while, mortified that there was a pie in the cart rather than a bag of spinach.
3) that you passed up the class reunion or a birthday party…or whatever event you avoided…because you didn’t want anyone to see you and you didn’t have anything to wear anyway.

When you’re going for the comfort food, you forget how lousy you’re going to feel later, that you’re going to go into a food coma afterward and that you’re going to realize it wasn’t worth it.

I’ve learned that telling myself NOT to have those foods doesn’t work. I AM going to have them. But I’ve learned a couple tricks that help to minimize the damage.

Eating sugar and starches on their own sends your blood sugar plummeting, extending and renewing the ugly cycle of your depression. Allow yourself to have the thing you want but eat it with some protein. I keep hard boiled eggs on hand and when I’m feeling really out of control, I eat one. If I still want the sugar and starch, I’ll have it but I usually don’t want as much of it and the protein has stabilized my blood sugar so I don’t feel lethargic and let down afterward.

Also, try eating something with high fiber beforehand, an apple or a couple carrots, along with a big glass of water. Do you take a fiber supplement, the kind you mix in water and have to drink fast before it gets thick? Having it right before the comfort food is a perfect time for your daily dose!

Neither of these require much effort on your part. In both cases, you’re putting something INTO your mouth rather than trying to make yourself keep something OUT of your mouth.

This one habit can make the difference between a day that’s not bad and a day that spirals into Dante’s Inferno.

Tags: , , , ,

Comments

Comments are closed.