Depression and Weight Loss – How to Eliminate Depression from 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. Cannot eat well.
3. Waking too early and have the difficulty getting back to sleep.
4. Cannot concentrate when doing an assignment.
5. Anxious worrying.
6. Can’t control emotion; become upset for no reason.
7. Angry at every little thing that goes off track.
8. Exhaustion on waking from sleep.
9. Insomnia.
Depression on a dieter can be occurring in two forms: the first one is being depressed because other reasons while on a diet, which can hinders the weight loss process itself; the second is being depressed because the expected result from the diet does not happen quickly enough.
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. A study show that antioxidant can prevents depression, you should check your current diet and see if it is already contain enough food with antioxidant in it such as red bean, blueberry, blackberry, apple, strawberry, black plum, spinach, broccoli, asparagus, and papaya.
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 you have checked your diet and it has fulfilled all the above criteria, the problem may come from your own concept about a diet’s process. Some people will get depressed really quickly just with one glance of their overweight body at the mirror, they ended spend the rest of the day being upset and restless; so before you fall to the same situation lets straight your concept about dieting first:
1. Some weight loss program may offer fast result and have tons of testimonials to prove it; but remember that our bodies build different genetically, so what works for them is not guaranteed will works for you too. If you are on a diet and lose significant amount on regular basis, that is enough, no need to aim ten pounds in ten days or other spectacular result; the final result is the most important, not your speed in losing weight.
2. No matter how advanced a diet method can be, you cannot be 100% sure that it will work immediately on first try. Your body need to adapt with the new eating behavior, exercise schedule, and the lifestyle changing; so give your body some times to adapt while keep going on your diet routine, eventually it will show result.
3. Sometimes you will have a day when you cannot or will not follow the diet plan due to various circumstances such as party, eating out, getting sick, or just does not feel like doing it. If that happen, just let it go and start anew on the next day; discipline is needed but do not too strict with yourself, this is also the cause of depression.
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.