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: https://www.empowher.com/news/herarticle/2009/06/03/dr-friedman%E2%80%99s-guide-weight-management
- Eat foods like grapes and salad and drink more water.
More information: http://www.womenfitness.net/foodhelps.htm
- Ride a bicycle to classes and/or work. I work from my father's office currently, which is about five minutes from my house by car. Therefore, I decided to ride my bicycle on most days to and from work in order to get exercise in some form.
- Hike a mountain. I haven't started this yet, but Lookout Mountain is close to my house, so I plan on using it. I will probably start out slow first and then increase the amount of time I hike. However, I need to make sure that my leg muscles don't get too bulky - I've always had the problem of gaining leg muscle too easily and then having a hard time fitting into my jeans.
- Don't drink soda. Although I have been drinking other sugary drinks, I have mostly cut soda out of my diet. I should eventually cut out other sugary drinks and just drink water, but that might take longer. Currently, I've been having tea with an apple flavor added, which is sugar-free.
I will report back later after finding out if the above plan works for weight loss. If so, maybe other depressed people like me can have some useful tips for losing weight. However, I'll have to force myself to be consistent with this plan - it's too easy to just give up.