How many times do I have to learn this lesson?
I have battled depression to varying degrees my whole life. I have some success controlling it with exercise, but not always, and exercise is not always enough.
In January 2005 I started south beach diet. In spring of that year I went on a ski trip with my family and for that week I decided to forget the diet and just eat what was there. By the end of the week I had been hit with one of the hardest bits of depression ever. Not that it was really WORSE than before, but the suddenness and no cause I could blame it on. I mean when you are sitting on a ski lift on a gorgeous sunny day and bawling....there is a problem.
It wasnt until that moment that I realized that the depression that had plagued me since my baby was born the previous year had been so much better since starting south beach.
I was training hard that year and eventually let SB slide and again would cycle in and out of depression which got extremely bad when I injured my ankle and couldnt run. I got it together and followed a modified SBD as I was trying to conceive.
During my second pregnancy I continued to run and followed the diet loosely with some major exceptions (think SBD plus icecream!) and this time I did pretty good with depression. And the second my baby was born I was back exercising (ok 2 days and the first "exercise" was walk to the mail box and back so ~ 0.1 mile - but it was movement with purpose and to my limit of the time). Six weeks after ds was born I started my weightloss - mostly SBD without artificial sweeteners and a little more leeway on occasional refined stuff. And I was running by then. I had virtually no post-partum depression.
Enter June - July...by now I am full blown into marathon training and the diet starts to slide. After all I have lost A LOT, I weigh less than I ever did before in my life, I dont want to lose in the last part of marathon training because I want to be strong. And at 40+ miles a week you can eat A LOT and not gain.
First it was an occasional icecream, then an occasional hamburger after long runs.....until by august I was eating complete crap. The only thing keeping the demons at bay was the running and on rest days I was barely keeping my head above water.
Finish the marathon, injured a bit, and BAM depression sinks me hard.
Pull it together to do 3 days of SBD phase 1 hard core and already the depression is nearly gone. Day 6 of modified SBD and I feel better than I have in months.
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO LEARN that refined sugar, refined carbs contribute to my depression? At this point its not even about weight, its about LIVING.
OK this was really long...but I need to put it out there in words. Feel free to ignore!
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