I have a few clients who tell me they hate to go clothes shopping – it simply gets them depressed. While they are mostly women, some men complain of this as well.
Upon deeper examination, one learns that it’s hard to tell where the depression starts. Am I depressed because I’ve gained weight and my clothes don’t fit or have I gained weight and my clothes don’t fit because I’m depressed.
As you probably already guessed, it’s a cycle involving both. One can’t just label depression as “one size fits all.” There are many components to depression and different severity levels. Just as diverse are the triggers which can set it off.
For example, there are those who feel “down” all the time, there seems to be no hope of anything better and to make things worse, there is no actual reason they can pinpoint. This is a chemical imbalance in the brain for which one needs to seek the advice of a professional.
For most, though, depression can be associated with actual events such as death of a loved one, stress at work, or the end of a relationship. The symptoms can still be quite serious and a bit of a paradox when describing them – insomnia, extreme tiredness, hopelessness, weight gain, weight loss, lack of an emotional response to stimuli and mood swings.
What’s the toll of prolonged depression? The toll on one’s health can be extreme. For today’s article, let’s focus on weight issues.
Oftentimes, when depressed, we have difficulty sleeping. In order for the body to replenish lost energy and oxygen from sleep, it will rely on whatever it can find. The body will tell the mind that it’s hungry to replace the energy somehow.
Additionally, continual stress can summon the release of cortisol in the brain which, in turn, increases one’s appetite.
Also compounding depression and keeping a healthy lifestyle is the fatigue oftentimes associated. One simply doesn’t have the energy to get out and exercise like he/she used to do.
Hence, weight gain, sometimes rapidly. This is not good for the heart and other major organs. Upon seeing the effect of weight gain on our body image, we can become even more depressed and so the cycle begins. Over time, conditions such as high blood pressure and/or diabetes can occur.
That’s when many will turn to extreme dieting to shed extra pounds. This will often involve some sort of fasting which is in essence starvation dieting. Taken to extremes one can develop certain life-threatening food disorders such as anorexia nervosa (deliberately starving the body) or bulimia (bingin on food then vomiting afterwards).
Even if these extreme disorders don’t occur, the body is not meant to gain and lose weight rapidly. Just as it’s not good to gain weight too quickly, rapid weight loss makes the body think it’s in essence, starving and it takes steps to slow down metabolism to compensate for the shortage in food.
Key ingredients to living a healthier lifestyle when subjected to depression triggers are to try to get plenty of rest, try to continue to eat healthy, get regular exercise and avoid stress when possible. When not possible, breathing and relaxation exercises can show amazing results in achieving a stress/depression-free life.
This is why my all natural programs have seen such amazing results. If weight loss is your concern, I highly encourage you to try my Weight Loss Breeze program. As mentioned before, the results are incredible!
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