Ok, I need to throw this out there:

A little background info: I haven't been diagnosed with bipolar, but I've had depression on and off since childhood and periods of hypomania in between. I learned to manage it, but a few years ago I went through a lot of stuff that made the depression unmanageable, and ended up at the doctor's with a depression diagnosis and a prescription for Citalopram, which I was on for about 6 months. Since then, things have returned to "normal" with depressed phases, hypomanic phases, and stable phases.

Here's the thing: I'm doing Intuitive Eating, and it's going well. Most of the time I just want to eat protein & vegetables, with a few whole grains thrown in. So far, so good. But, as soon as I get to either the seriously depressed or hypomanic ends of the spectrum, I just want to eat nothing but sugar. Not OVEReat it, just eat it when I normally wouldn't. So I do. About 500-1,000 calories' worth of sugar later it goes away and my eating returns to normal, even if my mood doesn't. I'm not looking at ways to "combat cravings" or anything. I'm just super curious...

Has anyone else experienced this? Does anyone know of any brain-chemistry, hormonal, physiological reason for this? I just want to understand why my body's telling me to eat something I don't normally want, when I'm at these extremes of moods?

Are you including enough good fats? I saw a documentary that talked about the link between cutting out too much fat and worsening depression. Our bodies require a certain amount of fat and carbs for proper functioning of nerves and brain function.

Yeah, definitely. I love salmon and eat it as much as I can afford to, along with other oily fish. That definitely helps the depression. I think it's a cycle my brain goes through anyway, all I can do is mitigate the damage it does. Weirdly enough, after I had the chocolate and the donuts, I got hungry for some salmon & prawns later that night, so had that too. The other donuts are still in the fridge and I just made 2 veggie samosas with tzatziki... My eating's gone back to normal, I'm not limiting or cutting back on any specific food... Still a bit hypomanic today, but I just don't want sugary food any more.

Though perhaps this is the reason I love oily fish so much, maybe somehow I know it helps with the depression?

Another sugar addict here! I have fewer cravings for extremely fatty salty foods now than I used to (I used to love putting mayo on sandwiches, and that has mostly gone away), but my sugar cravings are still bad. I don't often want something like straight up chocolate, but crave things like chips ahoy or other cookies/really processed foods. If it was just a chocolate craving, I think I could be satisfied with just a little bit, but the problem is that the foods I'm craving contain so much other junk in them.

Oh, I get this!! I watched a brilliant video (for which I have now lost the link... but I found it through a thread someone posted on this forum - it's a man called Dr Lustig talking about high fructose corn syrup, and the biochemistry of how your body metabolises it, it's 90mins long and really quite brilliant). All the things I thought I just had to live with, like heartburn, lethargy, "brain fog", spikes in blood sugar, excruciating periods (turns out excess sugar stimulates the release of prostaglandins which makes cramps 100x more painful), etc etc... All these problems were down to my junk diet!

The mayonnaise thing!! Yes, I used to put that stuff on EVERYTHING. The last time I ate it was a few days ago in an egg mayo sandwich after a workout, but now I just don't want it. I like to taste my food now If I need to cover up the taste of my food with sauce, I'm eating the wrong food.

I wish I could understand the link between depression, hypomania and sugar cravings but I'm still at a loss. Though it's not affecting me most of the time, and my overall sugar intake is quite low, so I'll keep experimenting and see if any answers make themselves apparent

I think I've seen somewhere that eating high sugar, high fat food - i.e. chocolate, donuts, cake...that sorta thing - produces a sense of euphoria in the brain and also triggers further cravings of those foods. It's why we can self-medicate with food. It DOES make us feel better for a while.

I suppose some of us are a) more sensitive to this euphoria or b) more in need of it because of depression, etc.

I'm trying to think if there's any food 'in the wild' that's really sweet and full of fat, but I can't think of any. There are clearly foods that are sweet and foods that are high fat - but both?? Anyway, maybe we aren't really evolved to handle those kinds of foods well.

Just talkin' off my head...

I can sympathize. I also get on kicks where I go off my healthier whole-foods-type diet, and get addicted to sweets and fried food. Usually it's when I'm really stressed out or have a deadline looming.

I'd also appreciate any tips people have for separating the mood/food connection. I can usually stop myself after only a few extra bites of chocolate/brownies etc, but like the earlier posters have said, when you're feeling depressed, the little extra 'boost' of junk food really does give some short-term comfort. The problem is afterwards!