There are many steps to losing weight gained from depression symptoms, however a good place to start is to realize how much food your body actually needs.
Photo: Melissa Belanger
By Carol Rickard
One of the most harmful effects of depression weight gain is how it leaves you feeling even more demoralized than the depression does.
It doesn’t matter whether you gained the weight:
- Trying to self-medicate your depression away.
- An ‘out of control’ appetite was one of your symptoms.
- The medication created sweet cravings that you fed.
- Eating was one of your primary coping tools.
What DOES matter is that you take this critical first step to losing it…
But before I tell you what that is, I want to ask you a question:
What would happen if you tried putting 13 gallons of gasoline in to your car with its 10-gallon tank?
RIGHT!
The extra gas would spill out all over the place! It can only hold so much…
If there’s a 10-gallon tank—we can ONLY PUT IN 10 gallons.
Well, just as this law applies to cars, it also applies the same way to us human beings! We can only hold so much… (calories = gallons)
However, the DIFFERENCE with us—we will create ‘spare tanks’ to hold the excess!
In fact, if you’ve ever had to buy a bigger size, the way I see it is we are just buying a BIGGER TANK! How many extra “gas tanks” (sizes) do you have in your house?!
So, I hope you can see that the 1st step to losing depression weight gain is to start paying attention to HOW MUCH GAS you are putting in your tank!
There are a number of apps available to help you do this. I currently use a Weight Watchers app, however it has a monthly cost.
What I find is that the app keeps me right on target by helping me know how much food I take in during the course of my day. So I know when my gas tank is getting close to FULL!
It has also changed my eating habits. There is a scanner I can use to check foods while I am in the store! I’ve become aware of just how unhealthy some of my past food choices were!
No wonder I never lost the ‘depression pounds’ before!!
The 1st Step To Losing ‘Depression Weight Gain’: “Don’t Put More Gas In YOUR Tank Than It Can Hold!”
Keep an aye out for the other steps to come…
~ To Living Well TODAY! ~
via Esperanza – Hope To Cope
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