Depression and Weight IssuesHave you been diagnosed with depression, are possibly on depression medication, and find it affects your weight loss efforts? Post here for support!
My strategies have been honed over 15+ years of depression and anxiety, and most times, keep me going (there are always those unavoidable times where you crash, but using my tools keeps me mostly on track...when I DON'T use my tools, that's another story).
1. Gratitude EVERY DAY. For me that means putting something down, in writing, that I am grateful for, every single day. Even when I'm really reaching for it and I have to write something like, "I'm grateful my pen isn't dead so I can get this gratitude crap over with", lol.
2. Exercise most days. For me, depression leads to insomnia, which makes depression worse, so exercise helps a lot with that. It also helps me feel better in general. I adjust the intensity and time I aim for depending on where I am. On a bad day, it might be "I will walk for 10 minutes, and if I want to stop, I can". I rarely want to, but giving myself permission gets me off the couch. One thing I do when I'm really anxious is picture the exercise actually burning off the anxious energy. It's less about "I have to do this for my weight/health/etc" and more "I have all this uncomfortable anxious energy. Exercising will burn some of it off and make me feel better".
3. Do something just for me, most days. I have a kind of busy life (work, a 2.5 year old, etc) and taking care of me gets pushed by the wayside, plus when I'm depressed the mindset is like, why would I take care of me when I don't really give a crap about me? So sometimes I force it, but I try to do small things. Take a bath. Put a mask on my face. Paint my toenails.
I track all of these things on a Habits app, because doing them regularly helps keep the depression in check, and then it's easier to manage. So every day I check off if I wrote my gratitude, if I got some exercise, if I did something for me. There's a certain motivating factor in ticking off that checkbox, so that helps me keep it up. And I make sure that app has things that are really easy and attainable on it (mine are "Brush Teeth" and "Clean Anything") so if I have a really bad day and don't get to anything else, I can still have some checkmarks before I go to bed.
Last edited by mandalinn82; 01-23-2015 at 12:46 PM.
exercise, exercise, exercise and dancing by myself to playlists I have made on my iPod and singing along to my favorite songs and being outside in the sunshine- and big time AVOIDING SUGAR at all costs
Sugar does nothing good for me at all. It makes me fat, depressed, sleepy and hungrier.
In response to the original poster: I feel for you! It's been extremely difficult for me to manage things like depression and anxiety and lose weight. Most of the meds contribute to weight gain, all I want to do is lay in bed and eat.
I have bipolar 2 and most mood stabilizers cause weight gain. I am on a couple of meds that don't. They don't work so well but my emotional state would worsen tremendously if I regained the weight.
Something that worked for me: I would allow myself those days to eat in bed and watch tv and just say screw it! But I never did it 2 days in a row. I would buy cherry tomatoes, berries, fruits like that that allowed to feel like I was snacking on chips in a bag by reaching in the bowl for the berry or tomato.
You are doing so well!! You have great coping skills. Keep on going! I lost 48lbs. It took me a year, I went slow too, but even with depression, anxiety, bipolar, and all the others......weight loss can be done!
Last edited by christine123; 02-22-2015 at 11:56 PM.
being depressed is not a fun thing, I have experienced it for other reasons than weightloss. I would say depression comes from you not being where you would like to be.
You know when you go on a roadtrip long/short doesnt matter and you get lost you know where you would like to be but you dont know how to get where you would like to go, often time as I would do I would just keep driving and see if I hit a spot I knew of.
That wasted a lot of time and gas, eventually as I matured I started stopping where I was and getting myself oriented so I knew exactly where I was, and from there I can use a map to follow and get myself where I desired to be.
The great part about doing that is that knowing where I was made me feel good because now I can get going to my destination.
I told that story because that is what goes on in our minds when we try to accomplish anything, we most likely dont know where we are as far as our mindset goes.
So its good to take a look at your thoughts on achieving your goals and write them down. See how you feel about where you are, how you feel about your current progress.
