Depression – Anxiety; Weight Gain?

How many of you have bought a weight loss book or tried the new fad diet going around to lose a few pounds and then at the first sign of trouble in your life – gained it back? Honestly if I’ve had to list all of the bumps in the road (read I am having a speed bump now) in a graph – it would look like the stock market lately.

There is a correlation to depression and weight gain (or loss) in many people. Now depression can be mild and understandable, for instance if one loses a loved one, gets a divorce, or moves away from friends and family. With mild depression one might experience this for a few weeks or months and snap out of it. Now the reason I pointed out mild depressions is to point out that I consider this to be normal. So long as one can still function and come out of it in a reasonable time frame – things will start looking up soon.

Now I don’t have any recommendations (nor am I qualified to) as far as when to seek medical advice – I only can say when I would. If I was unable to function, had sucidal thoughts, or the depression dragged on too long – then yes I would seek medical advice.

I am going to focus on mild depressions that are seemingly linked to weight gain as this is what happens to me off and on. To set the stage check this motivational video out and then we will discuss how this might derail your weight loss plans and some mitigation steps.

Lou is a motivating guy! The depression can drag you down but exercise is one way to try and stay on track. He also made some points about holding back a bit by walking instead of running every time. I use that strategy a lot and just yesterday.

I was getting close to done with my two-hour run to the mountain and back when my right knee started hurting. I quickly stopped jogging and walked the rest of the way. Today I think I’ll either do bag work our bicycling to lessen the load on the knee.

I found an article about a study linking depression to weight gain entitled, “Depression, Anxiety Linked to Weight Gain; People With Mental Health Disorders More Likely to Become Obease.” The interesting thing to me is it validates why I tend to throw the diet out whenever I am going through depressing stuff.

The study found this to be true and by it very nature suggests a subtle change might help me in my life.

I cannot change life, meaning if something bad is going to happen – I cannot alter that. I cannot change how people around me feel about these changes. I cannot change the real effects of these changes. So what does that suggest?

To me I have to focus on changing how I react to these events. Sometimes one has to just go through the mild depression but try to hold on to some of you diet and exercise habits.

The thing I struggle with is it is so hard to stay on track when I just don’t care! I mean if everything else is going wrong – why not have that ding-dong? Whats a few ding-dongs between friends?

S0 the real question and solution becomes are you going to let life kick you around without any input? Life if going to happen regardless but the only thing you really have control of is yourself!

What I try to do is to not let things get me too far down in the dumps. I also try and keep to the diet or not go off the wagon too many times. I find exercise keeps me on an even keel and dealing with the cause of the mild depression is helpful (if you can deal with the cause directly). Sometimes just letting enough water pass under the bridge is going to be what it takes to make sense out of life again.

Me – I’m coming out of my funk. Getting my grove back. Found a funny video to close this post out. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods!