Too depressed to start

There is nothing worse than trying and being unsuccessful. Success is motivating. I started a year ago eating low carb high fat and have lost 120 pounds without exercise and without being hungry or having cravings. You will see results quickly if you give it a try. research it and one great website is dietdoctor.com nothing to buy just read

Depression is an illness. If that's what you mean, get treated for it.

If you mean that you are too unhappy to start, then take some advice from someone who waited way too long to learn this lesson: If you are so unhappy about it, do something about it. Nobody else is going to do it for you. Take responsibility for the problem and address it.

It's not that hard, you just have to do it. You have already taken one big step by being here. The next step is to log your meals religiously and to aim for modest calorie deficits daily. If you do that, and you stick with it, you will lose weight. Some regular physical activity helps, too. Doing those things, I have lost 43 pounds this year, on my way to my goal of 50 (hopefully by my birthday next month, we'll see). You can do this!

If you aren't willing to do those things, then you don't really want to lose weight.

First let me begin by saying, Go Badgers! (I grew up in WI and moved at age 24). A few years ago I lost about 18 pounds and felt great. Those 18 have come back slowly over time and it does not seem to be as easy as I thought it was to get rid of. Then I realized that I forgot about what I did over that 3-4 month period of time to lose the weight. Key idea there was the 3-4 months. I feel like I want it instantly now to happen. As you are thinking about getting back on track, think of the things you would like to change: eating habits, activity level etc. Then pick one of them to focus on for a few weeks. Let it develop into a habit, then when ready, start another small change and continue until that becomes a habit. Work towards some small victories.

This past week I was not perfect with my eating and activity levels. I probably had some form of chocolate every night and had two pieces of very delicious beer bread with some soup last night. Over the course of the week however, I was able to lose 1.8 pounds. I didn't have to be perfect this week, I just had to be better than last week. Best of luck to you, you can do this.

You already have the motivation because you are depressed about your weight. Now get this.

Share a thought or two that motivated me, and I mean this to motivate, not to discourage you.... Your desire to change must be greater than your desire to remain the same & If you are not ready to change, then perhaps you are not yet in enough pain.

There is a theory I learned in psych class long ago and that is people do what they do to either gain pleasure or to avoid pain. (Motivation guru Tony Robbins also teaches this) Example: I dont want to exercise today because it will hurt, and it will take too much time, and I would rather lay on the couch and watch TV. But you have to flip it somehow in your head. Associate massive pain to laying around on the couch, eating garbage and being depressed. Associate pain because the food you eat causes weight gain, diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and its going to shorten your life! AND you already said that you are depressed about your weight! Again - associate MASSIVE pain to your weight, to eating garbage, and to the feeling of depression. So much pain that you can NOT bear to live like that one minute more. Than associate pleasure to thriving in life by eating healthy, and exercising!

When you can get your head in that place, you will be unfreakingstoppable.

It worked for me. 100 pounds. From being called "fatboy" to running marathons and becoming a vegan.

One thing that might help is to just commit to tracking your food everyday and see what it's telling you and where you might make small tweaks in a way where you don't feel deprived or totally overwhelmed.

"There is something to be said for keeping at a thing, isn't there?"
~ Frank Sinatra

"Every great cause is born from repeated failures and from imperfect achievements."
~ Maria Montessori

"Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune;
but great minds rise above them."
~ Washington Irving

"No matter how hard you work for success, if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavors and make success impossible."
~ Baudjuin

"I don't believe I have special talents, I have persistence … After the first failure, second failure, third failure, I kept trying."
~ Carlo Rubbia, Nobel Prize winning Physicist

"Flops are a part of life's menu
and I've never been a girl to miss out on any of the courses."
~ Rosalind Russell

"Our achievements speak for themselves.
What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts.
We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping.
We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust,
and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay."
~ Eric Hoffer

"I never learned a thing from a tournament I won."
~ Bobby Jones

"Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly."
~ Robert F. Kennedy

"Great success is built on failure, frustration, even catastrophy."
~ Sumner Redstone

"Failing is one of the greatest arts in the world. One fails toward success." ~ Charles Kettering
"Failure provides the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently." ~ Henry Ford
"The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate." ~ Thomas Watson Sr.


"Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall."
~ Confucius


Name 10 successful or famous people who got to where they are by having never failed. You cant. Cause everyone fails. Its those who get back up that eventually succeed. There is a professor at MIT who offers a course on failure. He does that, he says, because failure is a far more common experience than success. An interviewer once asked him if anybody ever failed the course on failure. He thought a moment and replied, "No, but there were two Incompletes."

-Pajaras.. on failing

I have been on this road many many times. Each time I have dropped around 40-80 pounds and gained it all back and then some each and every time. I used to beat myself up, but then I thought...how many people can say they lost 50 pounds 6 times over...that's 300 pounds haha. Just try your hardest and don't give up!

I have been fighting my weight my entire life. I have a hormone balance that makes it REALLY easy to gain weight and VERY difficult to lose it. I've tried and quit and restarted COUNTLESS times because I just didn't know what to do.

In April 2011, I could barely walk from the parking lot of my daughters school to the cafeteria. That was my "defining moment" which got me moving: I went to see a bariatric surgeon as my all-time-last-resort. He wanted me to lose 90 pounds before he'd do surgery. I was really discouraged by that number because I thought if I could've done that I would have already. He had me set appointments with a bariatric dietician, and go see a therapist. I ended up losing 115 pounds on my own, and decided not to have the surgery. He told me most people would only lose about 30 pounds and stall out. He told me I'd be a perfect candidate for the surgery because I'd shown discipline. I didn't listen.

Life happened next - my dad was diagnosed with multiple myeloma (a bad @ss cancer) and passed away within a couple years, I fought for (and won) my job back when my employer came after me for making .02% error rate when entering data for membership, and ended up resigning when their plan of improvement would have required at least 3 people to perform. After having lost 143 pounds overall, I ended up gaining about 100 of it back.

I've been back on track for about a month now and lost about 9 pounds so far, but still 48 pounds from my "all time high". This time, I've just gotten tired and frustrated for not having finished the job the first time. I'm tired of having excess skin on my thighs. I'm tired of having to lay the seat back in my car enough so that my belly doesn't rub the steering wheel. I don't want to be embarrassed going swimming. I want to be able to swim with my kids, and be able to keep up with them.

Find something that is worth it. Worth the effort to make changes to your lifestyle. It'll be scary, BUT you can do it. If I can do this with a husband and 2 kids, you can do it. Find comfort in other things. Long, hot bubble baths. Take up knitting or quilting. Maybe do genealogical research on your family. Make sure you monitor your input - try to lessen the negative and increase the positive. No bashing yourself for poor choices or because the food addict in you got loose.

My dad said that when you get cancer, all they can try to do is cage the beast so it doesn't get worse. I feel like that with my food addiction. I've never ever started losing weight and gotten to my goal weight. Not in 35-ish years of trying. This time is different - hoping/praying for it to continue to be different.

You can do this. You can commit to this. It is worth it. YOU are worth it. Make the decision and let's finish it!

I deal with debilitating depression at times, I have to say working on my diet has made it a lot better. Having stable blood sugar might have something to do with it, but doing something good for myself and seeing successes are definitely helping.

About six weeks ago I went to the doctor and found out that I had put on forty plus pounds in a year. I was already overweight and it just got worse. A few days later I cried about it, and then I decided to look for calorie counting websites and stumbled upon MFP.

So far it's been relatively little effort and I'm rarely hungry. I have done calorie counting in the past, sticking to 1200 calories a day and writing everything in a notebook. I was hungry all the time. It was successful but not at all easy.

MFP is so much easier. I just make up my menu in the morning and stick to it. Sometimes I tweak it during the day if I need to. The hardest part has been to make sure I do my grocery shopping before I run out of decent food. I'm not eating any "diet" food other than a Skinny Cow at night as a treat. I enjoy full fat foods like whole milk greek yogurt, eggs and avocados daily. I eat steak twice a week! You can make anything that you like fit into your meal plan easily.

Good luck with starting out. It doesn't have to be hard. You got this!

Just keep starting over. If you find you can't then don't beat yourself up. The important thing is that you just keep going. I'm on day 4 of my most recent return to MFP, there have been several others before including one in which I lost 75 pounds on another account.

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LL5lifts wrote: »

Talk to a doctor if you have not yet done so. Depression certainly can make it seem like its going to be an impossible task to lose weight...like its just too much of a task to take on. Don't let the depression win. Talk to a professional. As far as nutrition and exercise....take it one day at a time. Log a day honestly to see where you are at. Or, log an entire week. After that sit down and review your meals and snacks and look to see where you can make a healthier choice....perhaps a "good carb" as opposed to a twinkie, should you add more protein instead of that donut? why aren't there any vegetable listed here?...... Make notes of the changes you think you could make for the next day....the next week....and plan ahead. Then log honestly and review again. You'll get it.

Another thing I would recommend is not to demonize food. ANY food. All of it - whether it is perceived as 'good' or 'bad' is merely fuel for your body. Nothing more and nothing less. If the OP loves donuts, for example, there's no reason for her to forbid herself from having one. The trick is in making that donut fit into her calorie goal for that day.

Now I'm not for a second saying that nutrition isn't important, because it is.

But for a lot of people, especially those just starting out, there's this belief that in order to be successful, you have to give up the foods that you love. I'm living proof that that's not the case. The option that I used (and lost 75 lbs in a year several years ago and have been maintaining ever since) was to chose moderation over elimination. Because I knew myself well enough that if I put any foods on a Forbidden List, I would simply want them even more.

It's all about balance.

Eating satisfying, nutritionally dense and calorically appropriate food is the way to go. But leaving room for a treat or two in order to keep yourself from falling off the wagon and bingeing is a very important tactic for many, too.

Omg I feel ya girl ! I saw my body change following an injury. I couldn't exercise which was a double whammy cuz not only do I love to exercise and use it as a stress relief, I have body image issues.
You would think that I'd just keep my food intake in check but I got super depressed, ate anything in sight, drank rather regularly and picked smoking back up after 8 years on the wagon.
I had been there before so I thought it was just a matter of time before my motivation would come back, but I too was just too depressed and low to do anything (sometimes just getting out the door was a victory). Ironically, I study in psychology so on top of that I have all this fancy knowledge that's supposed to help, but the shame of it all made it worse.
Some people say motivation precedes action. In my experience I have not found this to be true. Accepting and self-compassion are what allowed me to get back up on my feet. If I just ate a muffin, a cinnamon bun and a creamy processed soup with overly buttered ultra refined bread: "ok, that happened, it's ok. Every next meal and days are fresh starts". If I talk trash to myself about what I should be or shouldn't be doing: I ask myself if it's actually helping me to do that. I also think about what I would say to someone I love (or even a stranger!) and I say it to myself. I tried looking for one thing that was common to all my woes : lack of self-compassion. Then I tried doing one thing that I liked and that would make me feel good not because I should or had to, but because I wanted to be kinder to myself.
I took up my physio exercises again. I gradually increased the difficulty. I could feel my muscles again, which was really a nice feeling. I felt a bit stronger and more importantly I was proud. Soon after I picked up my running very progressively (the first runs were 2-3 intervals of 1min run/1min walks). I noticed that was going well. I was still eating pretty badly, but I told myself it was ok not to be perfect. I was doing a few things right.
Then kinda naturally I started eating in a way that made me feel good without really thinking about it. Almost like I was conditioning myself to lean towards things that I find pleasurable and away from the excesses that make me feel badly both mentally and physically.
That was in October. Now, I'm back in the gym, doing very basic functional training. I do short easy runs. I can still scarf down on a cinnamon bun and a giant cookie, but I also eat lotsa greens and good sources of protein. I'm working on being more patient with the process (not my forte!). I feel like I'm reaping benefits from that as well.
I believe everyone is different, therefore our solutions will all vary as well. It sounds to me like you're already doing something good for you : you're reaching out for support. So, congrats for that!
This post was way more long-winded than I intended!! I guess I just want to say that it is possible to get back up, no matter how low you have to get up from.

Feel free to friend me. Hang in there !