Too depressed to start

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.

Lots of good advice here, but I know what you mean. If you think all you've experienced before is failure that would make it harder for you to believe you will succeed this time. A few years ago I was in the same place, (only with many more years of failing than you!), but the thing that changed it for me was finally focusing on the behavior that made the most difference--tracking every single thing that I ate. I'd seen a success story about a guy who tracked for 18 months or something like that and I wanted to be able to say I could do that, too. For the first time I started to see success as not solely dependent on the scale, but on the sticking-with-it part. That really helped me refocus on figuring out what I needed to do to make the process enjoyable too because everywhere you see "lose weight in 30 days!" etc. and that just sets us up for feelings of failure. Do not despair. You can definitely do this. Read all you can here (in the community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10300331/most-helpful-posts-getting-started-must-reads#latest section of the boards), and do the daily work and the rest will come. If you can join a challenge group or some other group of like-minded people here that will also help enormously!

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 !

I struggled with depression and my lifestyle of overeating made it worse. I started seeing a therapist, who helped me focus on the positive things I have and the support systems that I neglected to appreciate.
Realizing all of this helped me make a change and ultimately choosing a better life for myself has helped me remove antidepressants and therapy from my life all together.
I've never been happier than I am now so take it from my experience, you'll be so happy that you made a positive decision from yourself.

It's gonna suck and be so hard in the beginning but always choose yourself, be kind to yourself and appreciate yourself for the ability you have to keep pushing forward through every obstacle. Find strength in that. The time is going to pass anyway so spend it doing something right for you.

Best of luck - you have the strength and power to choose the right things for yourself, even if you don't realize it now!!

snickerscharlie wrote: »

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.

This was me. I stayed fat for far too long because I thought in order to lose weight I'd have to be hungry and miserable and spend hours in the gym, and I wasn't prepared to do that! I love chocolate and sweet things too much, and every "diet" I saw required me to cut out something I didn't want to. (And I, too, would crave things even more if they were forbidden.)

I lost some weight a few years ago using a meal replacement plan, but I gave it up because although I was seeing results the plan was very expensive and rather dull, and I wanted to eat food rather than drink shakes. And because it had taught me nothing about portion control, I gained all the weight back and a whole lot more over the next few years.

A good friend recommended MFP to me some time ago, but it wasn't until last January that I was finally ready to give it a try. It's been like a miracle for me, to learn that I can still eat what I want to - I just can't always eat as much of it, or as often, as I want to! I'm certainly not perfect, and I go over my calorie allotment at least a couple of times a week, but not usually over my maintenance calories. I'm not "on a diet", I'm just trying to eat like a person of a healthy weight rather than a baby elephant... My losses have been slow but relatively steady, and although there are many fluctuations and temporary stalls (as Jerome mentioned upthread) I've managed to lose nearly 50lbs in the last year.

OP, are you having trouble staying committed because you're trying different "diets" that want you to restrict too many things or to be too perfect? If so, then give up that idea and follow the advice others have given you here. Just start by logging your food every day, regardless of what it is. (And don't forget drinks, condiments, oils, etc.) You can keep your diary private if that helps you, but you need to be honest with yourself about what you're eating now. (I used to believe that I didn't really eat much, and I must be eating "the wrong foods". Let me tell you, weighing your food and counting the calories is eye-opening! There are no "wrong foods", just too much food!) Then start trying to find ways to cut down. Take it slowly, don't try to change everything at once or you'll be overwhelmed. Don't expect to lose weight every single week (some people do, many don't), but take measurements and photos regularly and take note of how your clothes fit, so that you have other ways to gauge success.

Also let go of the idea (if you have it) that you need to be perfect, and that if you eat a donut one day you've failed and might as well give up. Realise that one bad meal, bad day or bad week doesn't ruin everything, and pick yourself up and start over. Don't let your past failures define you or limit your potential for eventual success. Failure is a great way to learn what doesn't work and to try something different!

If you are truly unhappy with your weight then you do need to commit to doing something about it, and like someone else mentioned it's best to deal with it now while you're young. But you don't need to be starving and miserable while you deal with it. Read the stickied threads in these forums and just make a start... you've taken a great first step by joining this site and reaching out, now take another one. And another one. Keep putting one foot in front of the other, and if you fall remember that even if you're just crawling you're still moving forward.