Can dieting cause depression?

blessedwith3boys

I'm trying to keep a certain set of calories per day and feeling pretty blue. Can losing weight or eating healthy cause depression? Does anyone else feel blue when trying to reduce?

easjer

It depends on how low your caloric intake is and what you are eating. Certainly huge changes in diet/nutrition and low caloric intake could impact your hormones in such a way that you feel depressed, and deprivation can certainly make you down emotionally. If you have quit addictive foods cold turkey, that can cause depressed feelings until you have it out of your system. But there can be any number of things at play - dieting alone won't cause severe chemical depression.

Lauren5280

Quite the opposite. Since cutting back the calories and working out regularly I am feeling wonderful. Maybe just give yourself some time to adjust to the changes. The endorphins will raise your spirits!

SezxyStef

Quite the opposite. Since cutting back the calories and working out regularly I am feeling wonderful. Maybe just give yourself some time to adjust to the changes. The endorphins will raise your spirits!

This...

actually when I was depressed (runs in the family) and I went to my family doctor her response was...

"No I wont perscribe any anti depressants...get up off your *kitten* and go for a walk"...

so I did and guess what...it worked.

Koldnomore

I'm trying to keep a certain set of calories per day and feeling pretty blue. Can losing weight or eating healthy cause depression? Does anyone else feel blue when trying to reduce?

I only get depressed if I try to cut too low. You have a lot to lose so there is no way you should be cutting enough to feel deprived/depressed. If you are I'd suggest re-evaluating your intake. Set your goal to 1 lb/ week and you will be much happier. Don't be in a hurry to cut your calories because when you get closer to your goal weight you will have nothing left TO cut and then you will really be depressed. At 220 lbs (5'6) I was losing weight eating 2300+ calories a day without having to work out at all! oh how I wish I could still do that!

AliceDark

Very low calorie diets and diets where your macros are very out-of-whack (like extreme low-fat diets) can exacerbate depression. If that's what you're doing and you're already prone to depression, you could be making it worse. If you're eating at a moderate deficit and have a reasonable macro distribution, and don't have a family or personal history of depression, it's likely not related.

easjer

There is a difference between caloric restriction and exercise. Exercise should not exacerbate or cause depression - the opposite is true. Exercise has been proven to help in fighting mild to moderate depression.

There is also a difference between mild, moderate and severe depression, situational or emotional depression and chemical depression.

If you are using food to try and mitigate or moderate depression, and you cut that out, it will have an impact on how you feel (chocolate is a food that stimulates pleasure centers in the brain. you stop eating it suddenly after relying on it for awhile and you may feel down for a bit). If you have a tendency towards depression, this can be a trigger, particularly if you are going to extremes, rather just moderating your portions.

And though this may be evident, exercise is not a replacement for anti-depressants when there is a chemical balance in the brain which requires correction for normal functioning. For mild to moderate or situational depression, exercise is a great tool to help combat depression. It is not a cure for someone with chemical or severe depression, because someone in that situation is likely to be unable to muster energy to work out and compound feelings of helplessness or uselessness because of their inability to work out, and a workout will not be enough to balance the brain chemicals that need to be balanced. I'm sorry to sound preachy, I just think it's important to note because I've dealt with depression (both personally and in my closest loved ones) and there is stigma that surrounds mental illness and a pervasive attitude towards that it is laziness and choosing to be unhappy and could be fixed with a little effort (not accusing anyone here of that attitude) and that is not true of severe chemical depression. /soapbox

WickedPineapple

I'm trying to keep a certain set of calories per day and feeling pretty blue. Can losing weight or eating healthy cause depression? Does anyone else feel blue when trying to reduce?

Losing weight and eating healthy cause depression? Probably not. Not eating enough and/or often enough can though. I tend to have low blood sugar , so I eat frequent, small meals/snacks. If I go 4 or more hours without eating or consume too low calories for the day, I get shaky, irritable, and easily confused (it really does feel similar to depression and/or anxiety, both of which I also suffer from).

what_lola_wants

When you are NOT EATING ENUFF!

KhatLady

Not to discount the many people who can exercise away the blues, but I felt I needed to comment for people who can't. Depression is already a very lonely and brutal thing to deal with - for me it's a lot like an abusive relationship, except your abuser is in your own brain. Depression doesn't need any more ammunition than it already has and sometimes "failure" to get the results that everyone claims you should get {IE - exercise cures depression, weight will drop off and that'll fix everything, etc} only feeds the idea that you are worthless or lazy or hopeless. Sorry ahead of time, I do tend to ramble but since I've been there, I hope that my story can help someone else going through it.


That's great that you could just go for a walk and cure your depression. If my dr. told me "no, get off your *** and walk" I probably would have gotten off my *** and walked right into traffic.

I had a major problem with diet and exercise when I first started working out because I expected that I would feel better if I worked out and lost the weight I'd put on. Everyone says exercise is great for depression, but it simply didn't work like that for me. I'd kill myself working out and eating better only to get to a point where I stalled {or not, sometimes you just wake up depressed} and my depression would tell me "Why are you bothering? You're not getting anywhere and you're still going to be the same person that nobody, including you, can stand, even if you are thinner." It pretty much became just another thing for my depression to use against me. Yeah, I lost 30lbs but my depression was starting to get scary.

Now, exercise helps, but not like some magic alternative to medication or proper treatment. It helps because I sat down with myself, looked at my life and learned to figure out what my soul wants - and it doesn't want to feed the depression anymore. Exercise became just one of those things I'd force myself to do every day, like showering or brushing my teeth. One of those things that was a struggle on those days when the first thing I did was cry. "**** it, do it anyway" became my motto. I'd throw on something that makes me smile and work myself to distraction. For a long time, that's all it was, a means of distracting myself so I wouldn't just sit on the floor and cry all day.

Eventually when my cycles of depression came around and started beating me up, it couldn't tell me I was a failure or lazy or kidding myself about making progress because it couldn't take away the fact that I had expended the effort. Even while depressed I couldn't deny that I was sticking with something that was hard and I hadn't caved in to the "weakness" that my depression always tried to point out. I'd still suffer the depression, but it couldn't get a deep enough hold on me to drag me down as far as it used to. Maybe I wasn't losing weight, maybe I was only giving 20%, but I wasn't quitting.

Diet and exercise was only one of the things I changed. It was just part of the picture and I took the same "**** it, do it anyway," to a lot of areas of my life. My depression is still there, I deal with it, but now I'm strong enough to resist it some so it can't keep spiraling me down deeper and deeper. I've got stuff to be proud of and I can't make myself feel bad about that. Now I'm confident enough that after my last stall I was able to say "I'm not hopeless, this will work and I want it to work. So what can I do better?" instead of just giving up and bawling into a pint or 3 of Ben and Jerry's and waiting to die. Being able to go to MFP and see that number dropping is just one more thing I can punch my depression in the face with every single day, and that helps.

Like they say, it's a lifestyle, not a quick fix. It goes for a lot of things in life.

meshashesha2012

low cal and low fat diets are depressing

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200304/the-risks-low-fat-diets

auntiebabs

Just don't go low-fat.... fat helps with brain & nerve function and it reduce depression.

If you have cholesterol issues track your saturated-fats.

But healthy plant and fish bases, MUFA, PUFA, OMEGA-3 are all healthy for your.

Also most vitamins are fat soluable. So if you body is actually absorbing the vitamins you feed it you'll feel better overall.

Also make sure you are getting enough magnesium.

Hope you feel better soon:flowerforyou:

neandermagnon

Very low calorie diets and diets where your macros are very out-of-whack (like extreme low-fat diets) can exacerbate depression. If that's what you're doing and you're already prone to depression, you could be making it worse. If you're eating at a moderate deficit and have a reasonable macro distribution, and don't have a family or personal history of depression, it's likely not related.

^^^ this


low calorie diets can make anyone feel really low, although it's not the same as clinical depression. Just another one of the potential problems from eating too little. Stick to a moderate deficit and make sure your macros are balanced, and don't deprive yourself of favourite foods, just adjust the portion sizes so they fit into your calorie goal.

drewsapien

I'm glad you asked this, because I'm running into this problem right now. I exercise at least 45 minutes a day 5 days a week and it keeps my mood up most of the time...until I cut calories, and then my mood goes through the floor. I never feel better than when I exercise a lot and eat a lot, but obviously then I don't lose any weight. I'm going to keep at it -- I HAVE to -- but it's really hard. Thanks to everyone who's responded.

neandermagnon

Not to discount the many people who can exercise away the blues, but I felt I needed to comment for people who can't. Depression is already a very lonely and brutal thing to deal with - for me it's a lot like an abusive relationship, except your abuser is in your own brain. Depression doesn't need any more ammunition than it already has and sometimes "failure" to get the results that everyone claims you should get {IE - exercise cures depression, weight will drop off and that'll fix everything, etc} only feeds the idea that you are worthless or lazy or hopeless. Sorry ahead of time, I do tend to ramble but since I've been there, I hope that my story can help someone else going through it.

^^^ this is important to understand, because depression comes in a range of different severities and has many difference causes, and in many cases it's a sign of something else (in my case it was caused by PTSD).... so while "do exercise" is good advice for one person, another person may not be able to exercise at all and may need medication or other treatments (e.g. therapy).

and exercise doesn't usually cure depression even when it helps..... curing something and relieving the symptoms are not the same thing. the best treatment i had for PTSD was therapy. The best thing for symptom management for me is exercise (especially heavy lifting) and getting enough sunlight. And even therapy doesn't cure everyone. So nothing is so simple as all that.

That shouldn't stop anyone from advising people suffering from depression to try to exercise... just be really careful how to word it, i.e. don't imply that it cures depression, and don't imply that everyone with depression is able to exercise without having some other kind of treatment first. And in some cases the cause of depression is purely a chemical imbalance in the brain (as opposed to being caused by extreme stress or another mental health issue underlying it) and in those cases only drugs help and therapy doesn't help at all, and in a lot of cases (no matter what the cause of depression) the drugs are needed for the person to be able to exercise to begin with.


ETA: I don't think anyone on the thread was saying that exercise will help everyone who has depression... just that it worked for them.

jenilla1

...actually when I was depressed (runs in the family) and I went to my family doctor her response was...

"No I wont perscribe any anti depressants...get up off your *kitten* and go for a walk"...

so I did and guess what...it worked.

Wow, really? Go for a walk? Way to brush a person off. You must not have been too severe a case if your doctor responded to your concerns so flippantly. How would your doctor explain severe depression in "healthy," physically active people? Exercise is very good at easing many people's symptoms, but in severe cases of chemical imbalance, exercise should be only a part of a treatment program that includes therapy, and sometimes medication. I wouldn't necessarily trust a family doctor to prescribe anti-depressants anyway, since they aren't really experts, but I would think a referral to a mental health professional might be in order just to CYA in case this patient really needs some help...:huh: Glad it worked for you, though! :flowerforyou:

*Edited typo.

EngineerPrincess

If you tie emotions to food and suddenly stop eating as much, of course that's natural. You need an activity of emotional support to replace what food used to fill. Some people use exercise, others tv, depends on the person!

thisonewillwork

Don't be too hard on yourself. Treat yourself with love and respect since you have been brave enough to tackle your weight problems. Be proud of your achievements thus far. Also, take a day off now and then to enjoy your favourite foods without guilt. Enjoy life and be happy. :flowerforyou: