Diets + Depression = Weight Gain

Just a Spoonful of Antidepressants

A while back, I found out that I was suffering from bouts of depression. I started on the typical SSRI’s and ended up gaining a significant amount of weight. Due to reversing my progress, I wanted to get off of them.

How could I diet if these pills were not giving me a fair chance?

I started to think about genes and the fat ones that I inherited from my family. Just because I was predisposed to becoming obese didn’t mean I had to be obese.

There must be a way to not suffer from negative side effects, especially for drugs that a lot of people depend on.

But I realized that when I started walking for exercise, my endorphins kicked in, making me feel great both mentally and physically. There was something that I could physically do to not only beat the side effects of weight gain, but make myself feel better as well.

Now I am taking a more proactive attitude of not letting things just beat me down.

I know what will happen if I go off the pills; I’ll emotionally eat.

Major weight gain. Major depression.

I can stay on the medication; I’ll just need to keep walking, one step at a time.

 

Isn’t It Too Hot To Exercise?

Too Hot To Handle?

As part of my workout routine-specifically for cardio-I have started walking. But lately, the temperature has been boiling hot. Walking outside is my favorite activity for keeping up with my healthy lifestyle and losing weight, but I am at a loss.

It’s way too hot to even get in the car and drive to a gym. There must be some exercises that I can do at home without spending money. I constantly hear about activities happening all around the area, the city, etc. but there are so many obstacles of actually having the will or strength to get out there.

I have so little time to exercise regardless and with the weather hindering my normal work out regime… I have to find a house workout. Even an office workout would suffice! Can I even do Tony Horton’s P90x in my computer room? Yoga? Zumba? Pilates? I’ve even heard of a “Yoga Booty Ballet” video…

It is frustrating to start something you can’t maintain. So if anyone has some great suggestions, I would love to hear them.

In the meantime, stay cool.

Emotional Eating

This is a guest post by Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., author of “The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person” and President of Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research.

Chronic dieters often have beliefs about emotional distress and eating that interfere with losing weight or keeping it off. They express the ideas in the following ways: “If I’m upset, the only way I can calm down is by eating.” “If I’m upset, I deserve to eat.”

Are you an emotional eater?

To address the first idea, I ask dieters about people they know who don’t have a weight problem. What do they do when they’re upset? Dieters frequently feel stymied–they simply don’t know. After polling hundreds of people, I’ve found that people who don’t struggle with their weight do lots of things when they’re upset: they try to solve the problem that is leading to distress, call a friend, take a walk, tolerate the feeling and return to whatever they were doing, practice relaxation or mindfulness exercises–or they distract themselves (surf the web, write emails, play a video game, do a puzzle, listen to soothing music). This group has a different idea about emotional distress: that it is temporary, normal, tolerable, and will diminish.

To address the second idea, “If I’m upset, I deserve to eat,” I get across the message that dieters deserve to feel better but that eating will only give them temporary relief. Once the food is gone, they’ll still have the initial problem that led to distress plus they’ll feel badly about having overeaten. I help them see that they have a choice: They can eat whenever they’re upset (and fail to lose weight or keep it off) or they can tolerate their distress or actively work toward reducing their distress in other ways (which greatly increases the probability that they will lose weight and maintain their weight loss).

I then work with dieters to create a list of compelling activities they can engage in when they’re upset and they quickly find out that they can self soothe in other ways. Many of these activities are described in the newsletters and blogs at www.beckdietsolution.org.

I Found The Secret To The Perfect Diet!

I can’t recall how many new diets every month that have come out promising losing twenty pounds in twenty days. Even magazine articles from the supermarket shelves carried the same claims and more.

And I’ve tried them all.

Needless to say, I would lose weight very quickly that I could keep off for a couple of months at the very most. Then of course, the weight returned even faster as I could not keep up with these crazy new methods.

If there really were a special diet that had long lasting effects, we would have heard about it.

But in truth, we have already.

For me it is two very important things.

First and foremost, don’t expect miracles in a day. Small advances every day leads to success in the long term. The second, for which I am finally discovering, is that you have to include fitness in your lifestyle somewhere. Eating right is only half the battle.

Getting out outside my sitting comfort zone and starting to walk and exercise was the missing link to making the difference I so longed for.

There are so many exercise programs, DVD’s, and techniques that some heavy people, like myself, have been afraid to pursue, thinking that we could never do it. The great thing is that these can all be modified to get you going at whatever size you are at.

So now when I want to emotionally eat, I can make better choices and go and walk it off.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have bad days but the will power is getting much better.

Less bad days and more exercise shows me that there is hope out there and I need not worry about the instant results as much as long term weight loss and keeping it off.

So if your thing is Weight Watchers, Jillian Michaels or Tony Horton’s intense workout, just know that these are all a success story in progress if you just take the time to commit. And commit yourself one day at a time.

The greatest success for me is to watch my choices and habits changing slowly but sticking so I don’t have to ever put this weight back on again.

The magic of dieting is not in a magic diet, but it’s in myself and my commitment… and that is where I need to turn first.

The iPod Saved My Life

When I was four hundred and fifty pounds, I couldn’t even walk ten feet without getting out of breath. I

tried exercising by walking outside but just couldn’thandle it. I just couldn’t have it in me.

One day I bought myself perhaps the greatest materialistic possession ever. It was the legendary iPod. Suddenly I was inspired. I was walking out a half a block in no time at all.

Now-years later- I have my iPhone and iPad and I am starting again. I had lost a ton of weight, was in a serious truck accident that took almost five years of my life and put a lot of weight back on.

To now have the chance to start walking outside again to help with the weight loss was so refreshing. I found myself walking longer then I thought I would. It would even help take my mind off the pain.

So as I find my way back, I just want to put out a personal thank you to the folks over at Apple for assisting me in taking off the weight and getting my health back.

An apple a day definitely keeps the doctor away.

 

The Great Excuses

I never like to speak ill of my mother but she did teach me some of the best excuses to use when it came to food.

 

First she claimed that she was too big to walk up the stairs to her bedroom in her home and needed to have an electronic chair to get to the second level. After all, she was sixty-five years. After the chair was put in she stated she had too many aches and pains so she could only use the chair to put food on to bring up and down to her. She couldn’t walk, she couldn’t sit, and the only thing that would be moving was her meals to her.

Next, she insisted on bringing the scooter that she bought for herself into the house so she would not have to walk to the car.

Her latest complaint is that she doesn’t want to go from the electronic chair to the couch or kitchen because it takes too much effort. It’s complete immobility.

When I ask I my mother why she won’t put fourth any effort, the excuses are everything from, a bad arm to a painful back, to a never-ending list of a myriad of other reasons.

The only change I have witnessed from my mother is seeing a woman that walked half of NYC only five years ago, to a person that refuses to walk three feet today.

 

Obesity scores another one.

 

To Wii or Not to Wii

Tonight, I will be picking up a belated birthday gift with my closest friend. It’s been getting colder lately, so I have been thinking about a better way to get my exercise done without suffering from frostbite.

I was told that a Wii Fit would be perfect for me. I heard great things about it. I am hoping it will help me exercise more since it will be right in my home office, a few steps away from my desk.

I don’t usually get a lot of time off (gotta get this documentary done) so this will be very convenient. Plus, I will finally get to try out Jillian Michaels’ game that she talked to me about during our last interview!

They have just released two other devices, one from Sony and one from Microsoft. I am not sure if the Wii is better, but I guess there will be plenty of opportunities for people like me to exercise from home. No more excuses!

Today, I went for a walk to try to burn off calories from the 2 pieces of carrot cake I had since my last blog. One of my doctors told me that I would have to walk at least 6 hours to burn anything off: not very encouraging, I tried anyway.

I finally gave the cake away to Claire, one of the producers I work with. Let somebody else get fat for a change…

Soon, I will be starting my Wii Fit training, I am very excited and I hope it helps me lose weight and get back in shape! I really wonder if this works though? I guess I will find out soon enough. If anybody had success with it, please let me know.