stress, depression, anxiety and weight loss

It affects me in a big way... I eat a lot of "bad" foods when I have anxiety or depression... That is how I gained my extra weight.

But there was a time when I was younger that I didn't eat under those conditions. I think we all handle the hard times differently

Depression can absolutely affect weight loss- MDD tends to be associated with weight loss and loss of appetite; atypical depression with weight gain and carb cravings.

Major depressive disorder.

Everything effects everything... body, mind, environment everything works together at least somewhat. And for depression depends if you don't feel like getting out of bed in the morning, then you might not loss weight but I have depression but control but medications so I think it has little to no effect because I am controlled. As far as stress- everyone is stressed it's the truth no one has enough money or time, or a good relationship or at least something stresses them out. So it depends of what kind of stress it is because some stress is good. Try googling "GAS stress theory" there's three ages of stress stage 1- alarm, stage 2- resistance, stage 3- exhaustion, if you are in stage one then you are fine but if you are at three it can't be very bad. So not knowing you personally it is very hard to give you much of an answer. Best of luck to you!

I tend to bury my anxiety by comfort eating and ashamed to admit the amount of food I can consume without noticing if I am down or upset. For me depression and weight has been a life long battle but seems to get better when I exercise and eat right. I think that's mainly because I am not ramming down so much processed rubbish down my throat and my blood sugars are more level as my diabetes compounds the issue. I am a believer if you are being good you feel good. Of course, I am not being patronising, life events get in the way and that's when I am at most danger of going off track. I have such a long way to go with losing all the weight I need to so I tend to make small milestones with achieving certain levels of exercise and pounds off. For me any movement is good movement but I try to get at least 20 mins a day of high level (for me) excercise. Feel free to add me, I'm on MFP everyday x

Oh good lord yes it does lol. And it could either go one extreme or the other. I've had both, & probably everything in between haha.

I've had depression pretty much all my life (I was diagnosed at 12 before I even understood what it was. I thought I was just "that way.") I had anxiety disorder pop up on me in 2007. It got really bad at the end of 2009, and I really think everything snowballed through 2010. I could barely do anything & I was getting a bunch of heart issues. All those psychological disorders can really manifest themselves in crazy physical ways. I was on a bunch of meds & trying to get off & they wanted to put me on more because of my heart & I finally had to say STOP! That was not the way I wanted to live my life. That's not a way to live ANY life. I had already been mindful of food & nutrition for a couple years, & although I was active my whole life from being a professional dancer, I hadn't been able to be very active at all the previous couple years due to my health/ heart.

In 2011 I decided to stop listening to the doctors that were telling me to eat 800 calories a day & trying to shove horrible crappy pills down my throat at every turn.
I spent practically ALL of 2012 getting off pills, trying to manage my anxiety naturally, getting my heart under control naturally... Pretty much all with getting my mind in the right place & being mindful of what I eat. No really - food IS medicine - you ARE what you eat.
I used to be hospitalized with a resting heart rate between 140-150. Rarely was it below 100. Within a year I dropped by BP from around 103/148 to now it's like 78/124. I'm so freakin happy.

So when 2013 came around I finally felt ready to be able to start being active again, & I have been. I worked my butt off all last year just to be able to do the simplest thing like working out for half hour, when I couldn't even WALK for 10 minutes.

The reason why I explained all this was just to show that psychological issues can REALLY have an impact on your physical health, and it's important to try every avenue you can to try & fix it. I'm a huge advocate for doing things naturally (no drugs, more real food, etc) but I understand people do need medication to help them sometimes.

AND people should never be afraid or think they are weak when they do have a psychological issue such as anxiety or depression. Society treats these things almost like taboo, but it's common, & serious, & important, and the people that go through it are anything but weak.

Eat well & exercise - best medicine out there. oh, & music

Well, if you exercise plenty, you need to eat plenty. Not eating will affect your mood and make you grumpy and depressed, can also slow metabolism which does not help at all. And if you don’t rest enough, that to can multiply your weight gain and depression through fatigue.