Depression and Weight Loss – Do not Let Depression Keep Hinders Your Weight Loss Process
Depression can be identified as feeling helpless, sad, hopeless, and other related emotions and behaviors. Many dieters seem to have experienced this condition on various degree. How to recognize the signs of depression:
1. Cannot sleep well and experience unpleasant dreams.
2. Lose the will to eat properly.
3. Waking up from sleep too early and cannot go back to sleep.
4. Difficulty of concentrating during the work.
5. Anxious worrying.
6. Becoming emotional or upset for no reason.
7. Become short temper.
8. Weary when waking from sleep.
9. Can’t sleep well for long time.
There are two forms for this problem: the first one is being depressed for other reasons while trying to lose weight, the second is being depressed because the diet does not show any significant result for quite some time.
If you experienced either of these problems, you need to solve it fast or you will never achieve your ideal weight. If the reasons are your environment, people in your life, jobs, or other external factors you need to track the source and solve the problem; but sometimes without you realized, the problem may lie within your diet itself:
1. Proper antioxidant intake can prevents depression to a certain degree; read your meal plans again and make sure it is already contain adequate number of foods rich in antioxidant such as apple, cinnamon, barley cereal, chili pepper, red cabbage, parsley, and kiwi.
2. Depression also affected by Serotonin; a brain chemical which is used to regulate intestinal movements, control appetite, mood, and anger. A diet method involving high whole grain carbohydrates intake and low protein will increase serotonin by secreting insulin. So ,if your diet involving carbohydrates restricting, it may cause depression and you must rethink it. Just remember to control your insulin secreting since a long period will trigger insulin resistance.
3. The government recommends daily intake of selenium by 75mcg for men and 60mcg for women since low selenium levels in your food can cause irritability and depression. Foods that contain selenium include organ meats, muscle meats, dairy products, and cereals.
4. A healthy portion of exercise will reduces stress, anxiety, and depression. It will also boost self esteem and improve sleep, so make sure your diet is including exercise in its program. It does not have to be any advanced exercise; mild exercise such jogging or biking is sufficient, just make sure you do it in regular basis.
If your current diet already has all the criteria mentioned above, then the problem may be your own concept about diet, the process, and the result. There are people that expect too much from his weight loss program that when the time comes and the result is far from the expectation, they get depressed and drop the diet; this will pose some troubles since not only you waste time, but also didn’t get anything in return; so lets straight your concept about dieting first:
1. There are weight loss program that offers bombastic result within short time line and have many testimonials to prove it. Before you pull your credit card and making any purchase, remember that each body reacts differently to a weight loss program, so if it work for them doesn’t mean it will work for you too at the same speed. Aim for the final goal, not the process; so if you lose significant weight week after week on constant pace than it is good enough.
2. When you start a diet, it is not only you who have to get used with the new routine, meal plans, and all the exercise; your body need several adjustments too before it can receive the new behavior, so no need to panic if you feel unease and doesn’t get significant loss during the first one or two week. Just calm yourself, rearrange the diet plan, and start it again.
3. Aiming for perfection is dangerous thing; while it is true that a bad day when you eat too much will damage your entire week progress, there are no use in keep dwelling on what have happened. You are a human and you bound to make mistakes, just forget it and start anew on the next day.
Being depressed about your weight is totally normal, but in the end you need to control and eliminate it if you want to make progress. Check your diet composition, make sure it is already contain good exercise and food that you need to suppress depression, usually a diet which contains all food groups in its meal plans will sufficient; then set the right concept in your mind for the process ahead, this will makes a good start and hopefully in the end you will obtain a good finish too.