Depression and Weight Gain
In high school, my depression caused me to lose weight until my senior year. That's when I began to gain weight.
For some reason, in high school, my depression lowered my appetite, and sometimes I would not eat just because I was depressed and felt no one understood me - which is quite possibly true. Perhaps the pills I was taking for my depression also caused me to have no appetite. I was in a lot of sports as well, so I became skinnier than normal.
However, in my recent college years, I stopped working out as much and became more stressed. I began to eat a lot of sugar to help myself during stressful times and to keep myself awake during long nights. This, of course, caused me to gain weight. My schedule also didn't allow any real time for me to work out - walking to and from class was my main workout.
I was also on birth control and antidepressants at the time. Birth control is known to cause weight gain and some antidepressants are as well. However, the main reason for my weight gain was probably because I wasn't treating my body right and because my body was going through some changes naturally.
I'm not sure if I'll ever be at the point where depression will help me lose weight again, so I've been reading up on different ways to help lose weight.
Unfortunately, when I am really depressed at times, it is very hard for me to get the energy to exercise. Most of my energy is spent doing the necessities - work and school. However, health is a necessity too, as I've come to realize.
Here are some ways I've learned to cope with the weight gain from my depression and anxiety, and hopefully the following will help me lose weight eventually, since I just started this plan:
- Eat smaller portions of food slower. I've read that this will make the body feel fuller and stop the need to eat more unnecessary food. It would probably help to eat when I start to get hungry instead of when I'm ravenous as well.
More information: http://www.empowher.com/news/herarticle/2009/06/03/dr-friedman%E2%80%99s...
- Eat foods like grapes and salad and drink more water.
More information: http://www.womenfitness.net/foodhelps.htm
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- http://www.eloquentbooks.com/AloneInTheStorm.html
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Carla Cunningham
June 5, 2009 - 10:31amPublished Author of Alone in the Storm
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