How do you keep from being depressed?

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kathar

New member
I've followed my calorie intake all week, and I've exercised regularly. I'm absolutely depressed and I hate life because of it.

I keep hearing people say this is supposed to be a lifestyle change, but I hate the lifestyle I'm supposed to be changing to. I hate the life this is going to mean I have to live until the day I die.

Let's start with diet. I'm short, so I can't eat much of anything even for maintenance. I can't eat the foods I enjoy because they either have too many calories, too little protein, contain high fructose corn syrup, contain too much sugar, etc.

Even on my diet, I'm failing. I eat too much sugar. I eat things with corn syrup. I don't get enough protein, which means my body is atrophying as I speak. I don't know how the hell I can get enough protein. Last time I weighed myself, I was 145. That means I'd need to eat 145 grams of protein since I read here that a good guideline is 1 gram per pound of body weight. That seems IMPOSSIBLE. A 200-calorie piece of salmon at lunch is only 20 grams. The chicken was about the same. I'd need to eat nothing but meat the entire day and I just can't do that. I don't have the means to get it, and I'd hate doing it.

I'm not sure I'm eating enough calories. I'm 5'2 with a small frame. I'm aiming for 1200-1500. It usually comes out around 1300 unless my estimates are off. I don't know if I'm counting correctly. If I'm eating too many I won't lose weight. If I'm eating too few my metabolism will slow down and I'll have to eat even less. Every day, I learn another way that I'm screwing up. I read posts here and I find out more things I'm doing wrong. I hate doing things wrong and I'm scared to death of the consequences.

Now let's go to exercise. I hate exercise. I hate *moving*. I hate sweating and I hate cramping and I hate being out of breath and tired. I'd be perfectly happy to lie in bed for the rest of my life. I hate going to the gym with people who look so much better than I do. I hate not knowing what I'm doing. I hate not being able to run or lift weights. I feel incompetent.

I've been given two choices. Choice one is to look horrible and be unhealthy. Choice two is to lead a joyless life where I voluntarily punish my body at the gym and deprive myself of decent food. I don't think it's fair. The worst part is knowing I have decades of this to go.

I'm not hungry. That isn't the problem. I just hate what my life is going to have to be.
 
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I read here that a good guideline is 1 gram per pound of body weight.
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1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass is a good guideline. For example, if your body is composed of 32% fat and you weigh 145, you have 46.4lbs of body fat and thus, 98.6lbs of lean body mass. So you might shoot for around 99g of protein. This isn't an exact science though, so don't fret if you miss your target above or under by 10-20 grams.
 
It's more than 10-20 grams though. Today, I ate as much protein as it's probably possible to eat until I come home on Friday. If I figure 20 for the chicken at lunch, and 20 for the tofu at dinner, that's only 40. My other food has assorted trace amounts, but nowhere near enough to make it close to 98.

And that's just one aspect of it. I'm doing so many things wrong. I don't know how the hell I'm only 145 (although, since I managed to have 32% body fat, I guess it means I managed to destroy almost everything else in my body except fat and water.)

I just don't know what to do. It's so much to think about. I wish I didn't have to overanalyze everything. My gut feeling tells me that humans lived just fine without overanalyzing everything, but I know that's wrong because they didn't have cars and desk jobs. I just hate disliking my days, and this isn't helping. This lifestyle. I hate this lifestyle.
 
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You're really going to have to find some way to make it work for you or, like you said, you're not going to stick with it. For example, I LOVE wheat pasta with vegetable marinara sauce, and I love veggie egg white omelettes, both "good for you" things. Experiment until you find things you like. Same thing with exercise. It doesn't have to be sweating at the gym, definitely look into other classes and sports you could try. But also, just because something has too much sugar in it, doesn't mean you can't factor those calories into your day, and it doesn't mean you're "failing" at dieting. You have to give yourself some room to breathe, you don't have to be perfect all the time and completely cut those foods out, just eat them in moderation less frequently than you used to and it will help. Basically you have to find a way to make it fun and feasible for your life or it's not going to last.
 
I like fruit. I like grilled vegetables. I like fish and chicken. I like all of these things, but I can't eat them at college. I can eat them at home, but I have to fill the day out with snacks. That's where the problem lies. Just about every snack I like has sugar in it, or is otherwise empty. Fruit is made of sugar. Bars of any sort are made with sugar, or fruit. Crackers and bread usually have corn syrup. Cheese is incredibly unsatisfying at the portions you need for a diet. (One ounce of cheese is so tiny!) Ditto peanut butter - and the "Easiest Fat Loss Tip" says that I'll probably eat more of it than I think I am.) I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I'm not eating potato chips or cookies, but now I apparently can't eat the "healthier" things I prefer.

For an example, here's what I'd eat at home on my diet:

Breakfast - Normally, at home, I wouldn't eat breakfast because I wake up at 12 PM. That's already time for lunch.
Lunch - A wrap, with lettuce, possibly sprouts or tomatoes, and some sort of filling - chicken, or hummus, or baba ganoush, or cheese of some sort.
Snacks - Fruit, or crackers, or a granola bar, or pita chips (one of my vices).
Dinner - Whatever gets cooked, or if we go out, whatever I feel like.
Dessert - A diet dessert of some sort. I can't have any of these anymore, since most of them have bloody corn syrup.

There are so many problems with that. Not enough protein. Way too much sugar. Presence of corn syrup. It makes me feel horrible.

And for exercise, everything I've read on this board says exercise has to be sweating at the gym, and you have to work harder and harder each time, eventually getting into the HIIT workouts that make you want to throw up after you do them. That doesn't sound fun at all. That sounds horrific. That sounds like something to be used as a torture method. Yet this is a lifestyle change, and I have to make this my lifestyle already. This is like someone telling me that I have to cut off my feet or I'll die, but don't worry, it's a LIFESTYLE CHANGE, and I'll just have to live with decades of having no feet and being constantly in pain. It sounds like an exaggeration, but to be honest, they sound about equal to me.
 
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Well, gee, I'm sorry to be honest. I find that comment both offensive and invalidating. Oh, and completely unnecessary.
 
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And for exercise, everything I've read on this board says exercise has to be sweating at the gym, and you have to work harder and harder each time, eventually getting into the HIIT workouts that make you want to throw up after you do them.
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that's not true at all -

You want to be progressing - but not everyone needs to do HIIT... you don't want to stay stagnant because your body adapts to what is being done to it.

What forms of movement do you enjoy? dancing? bike riding? walking? hiking? Find something that you enjoy.

Instead of looking at all the can'ts and shouldn'ts - look at the things you can do...

No one is forcing you to lose weight or get healthy -this is a choice that you make for yourself... you can do it or not - it's really up to you and it's as difficult or as easy as you choose to make it
 
I just don't know. The only sport I really enjoy is volleyball, which involves comparatively little movement. That's probably why I enjoy it.

I'm a bit better today, but it's still so much to think about every day, and so many ways to go wrong.
 
Sometimes it can be overwhelming to do to much at once -and it just leads to beating your head against a brick wall -

Pick one change you want to make...

it's said that it takes 28 days to build a habit... so work on the habits...

whether it be getting in 25 minutes of movement a day... or drinking xx amount of water... or eating within a reasonable calorie range.. and don't sweat anything else - jsut focus on that one change and do it for 28 days... each day you follow thru, give yourself a check mark on a calendar, a dollar bill in a jar, a link in a paper chain (remeber those paper chains that everyone madein kindergarden to hang in the christmas tree - make one of those) and once you've reached 28 days... then work on the next habit.

Go in small steps.. and then look behind you and see how far those small steps have taken you.
 
So you've laid out your two choices. Choose one.

It sounds to me like you are making this needlessly hard. Seriously. Eat fruit. Close to 25% of my daily calories come from fruit: 2 apples, 2 bananas, 2 oz blueberries, 2 oz blackberries, 7 oz strawberries.

Stop flipping out. You don't need nearly the protein as uyis11 said. You don't need to sweat a gallon and throw up. Go for a walk. Walk to the store. Walk to school. Take the long route to your class. It's not hard. Anything is better than nothing.

No offense, but all I've seen you do is complain about this. Are you setting yourself up for failure? Are you creating all the conditions needed to give you a clean 'out' when you want it?

Listen, here's a little bit about me:

About a year ago I ate practically NO vegetables. NO salad. I hated both with a passion. I liked fruit but I never ate it. Here was a typical day for me:

8:00am 3 McDonald's breakfast burritos or 2 bagels
11:00am 2 slices Godfather's pizza or footlong Spicy Italian @ Subway
7:00pm Something my wife made or another sub or pizza (3 slices) & wings (1 lb)
fluid: 0L water. 6-8L pop. That's not a typo.

I drove *EVERYWHERE*. My perfect day was me laying my ass down on the couch and leaving it there for the entire day. I drove to the liquor store that I could see out my window. I drove to the mall practically across the street. I drove to poker which was just down the road.

Then we got a dog. I had to walk him because he's a giant ass when we don't. I promise you I have never broke a sweat from walking unless I chose to pick the pace up myself. At first the dog walk was 10 minutes. Then without even noticing I started taking longer routes. 15 minutes. 20 minutes. Now I look forward to that walk. Even alone. I just grab my iPod, hit the tunes and start walking. I repeat -- prior to February you couldn't get me to walk 5 minutes to save my life. I can't even put into words how lazy I was. Now if I don't get in at least 30 minutes I almost get depressed about it. You don't want to move because that's what you know. It's comfortable. That's it. Get over it.

My highest weight that I know of was 223. I stopped weighing myself after that. I was too embarrassed. So I started making changes slowly but surely. I started adding vegetables to subs. I started eating vegetables (small amounts) with my meals (still not great meals, but improving). I didn't enjoy any of it at the time. It was just me trying to cram something healthy into my body. Now I will eat just about anything (other than mushrooms) and I love it. Vegetable soup, peppers, onions, cucumbers... my mom nearly fell over when she saw me eating raw cucumbers at the last family event.

If you had told me a year ago that I'd be walking at least 30 minutes a day and showed me one of my FitDay printouts and told me that was my diet I would have laughed in your face. That lifestyle, to me at that time, was torture.

You've already got that part down. You enjoy healthy food. So EAT IT! And if you don't want to go for a walk, figure out how to walk more in your regular day. If not, there's no point in bothering. You can do it, you just need to stop over-thinking it and making it more complicated than it is.

And no offense, but perhaps you could complain less and ask more questions. There's a big difference between seeking clarification and sounding like a whiny child. Re-read your post (and some others) and you have a very sour, negative tone that is not conducive to anyone here or yourself.

We are all on this forum because we had poor habits. And we've all got to break those poor habits. You aren't the first to struggle like this. Your defeatist attitude will be your downfall. Eating right and walking a little more is not the end of the world.

That said, good luck getting answers and getting over your negativity.
 
I try to think of it as gently coaxing the fat to melt off my body by moving a bit more and eating a bit less. I count calories, I don't overthink the nutritional value of everything I put into my mouth. I don't belong to a gym, I consider any movement to be exercise. I watch the fitness network and follow along with some of the shows like Gilad, Sharon Mann.. sometimes I just listen to music and dance around with hand weights. I walk around the block. Really, anything that has you moving is exercise. It doesn't have to be planned out and organized....

Take it easy on yourself, you don't need to give up all of the junkfood that you love, just eat less of it. It's all about balance.

 
I'm sorry my posts are so negative. Really, I am. I'll try not to make negative posts in the future.

On the bright side, if I really did have about 8 ounces of tofu at lunch, that's 40 grams of protein. (It sounds like a lot but it really wasn't.)
 
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kathar said:
I've been given two choices. Choice one is to look horrible and be unhealthy. Choice two is to lead a joyless life where I voluntarily punish my body at the gym and deprive myself of decent food. I don't think it's fair. The worst part is knowing I have decades of this to go.

I'm not hungry. That isn't the problem. I just hate what my life is going to have to be.
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Well if you look at excersise as punishment then you'll never be happy! LOL!
I don't enjoy waking up at 4:30 in the morning and pumping iron or running around like a hamster on a wheel, but one has to mentally prepare themselves for this change. If you 'hate' doing these things then you are not ready to make the change. You have to think, I AM going to do this, and it will be OK, I will look and feel better.

And you will not always be out of breath or crampy. Maybe the first week or two, but your body becomes conditioned to the 'abuse' and workouts become easier, you even start to look foward to them and miss them when you don't do them.

Eating is easier too over time. If I were you I wouldn't obssess over protien grams and such, you'll drive yourself nuts. Just eat healthy and worry about getting what your body needs.

It really isn't that horrible. I'm sure many people here felt the same way you did when they started but are singing a different tune today.
 
kathar said:
I'm sorry my posts are so negative. Really, I am. I'll try not to make negative posts in the future.
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You do not need to stop making negative posts. We all have bad days and you need to be honest with yourself from time to time. But you do need to realize that you are over analyzing the heck out of this.

Sugar is a fact of life, you are going to eat it.
Getting 1g of protein per lb of lean body mass is not a requirement to live or maintain the average person.
Exercise does not have to be an hours of sweating and vomiting in a gym.

Losing weight and getting healthy is simply a matter of moving around more and eating the right foods. It sounds like you generally eat well but need to move around more. Exercise comes in many forms.

Just relax a bit and figure out some goals and what you need to get there. You will be fine if you want to be fine.
Ask questions around the board. Start a diary if you haven't.
 
kathar said:
I'm not sure I'm eating enough calories. I'm 5'2 with a small frame. I'm aiming for 1200-1500. It usually comes out around 1300 unless my estimates are off. I don't know if I'm counting correctly. If I'm eating too many I won't lose weight. If I'm eating too few my metabolism will slow down and I'll have to eat even less.
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I am 4'9" and I can lose weight on more than 1200 calories per day. I bet you can too. You should be eating as much as you can while still losing. You don't have to drop large amounts at one time. From the sound of it, if that is your goal, you aren't going to make it. You would do much better with losing a little bit at a time and allowing yourself to eat the foods you want in moderation and not kill yourself at the gym. What are some of the foods you want to eat but you feel you can't? As far as protein, if I try I can get in 100 grams or more in a day and I'm not a big fan of meat. You said something about chicken having 20g. That means you ate like 2oz. You could have much more than that in the course of a day. Also, tuna has a good amount of protein without having a ton of calories.
 
burneeed said:
where is the violin? You need myspace/live journal etc... take the emo there man!
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haha


yeah your attitude doesn't seem in line with positive results. Exercising is just part of it...... On a better note... this site is amazing for helping track calories, activity, measurements etc.... I've been using it for a few weeks now and its helping me monitor a lot

 
getting happy

Hey Kathar

Sorry you were feeling depressed. I've been suicidally depressed too. I am also 5 2 tall and so even being a little overweight shows terribly. At the moment I'm like a ball. l am reading The Butterfly Plan by Leda Fox..it talks about balance and I think that's what I need. It's also a very funny read...a bit like that woman Susan Powter...I'm so obsessed with what I put in my mouth and I think the stress of that is screwing with my metabolism...I feel like my depression is also making me fat...my relationships have suffered,,,It's good that you are talking about how you feel though. That's what's great about these forums...cause we all understand...it's really hard to open up to people without a weight problem...I was good all day yesterday but went out to dinner and blew it...I make so many crappy excuses...I was stressed because my son is in Thailand and there's all that drama there so I had to pig out! I have to start taking a bit more responsibility and stop blaming everything except myself.

Cheers
gracie
 
Wow, this post made me feel bad.

I only eat 60 grams of protein on average, per day. My muscle is eating itself??

I dunno, I feel pretty healthy... I've always said screw the protein guidelines. Being vegan for 5 years and vegetarian since then, I've learned that you can still be healthy without eating meat or massive amounts of protein.

I'm not doctor, but I like to think I'm pretty healthy and pretty fit...

Don't let recommendations get you down!
 
Kathar -- I completely understand!

I think the same things as you do.

But, believe it or not, your mind and the things that you like/dislike do change over time.

There used to be a time when I couldn't imagine going a day without a candy bar -- I think I had some M&Ms a couple of a weeks ago. I remember just a year ago not eating very many vegetables or fruits. I eat at least two fruits a day and I'm still struggling with the vegetables, but I'm also getting better at it.

But yeah -- I wonder if the "lifestyle" I'm choosing is really worth it. I can tell you that it is 100% worth it... it's just my mind that's playing tricks on me.

I've discovered that I can't let my mind overthink things. I cut up the fruit and the veggies (or buy precut) so that I don't have an excuse not to eat it.

There is cheese that is less calories -- string cheese for example. Eat that with a fruit for your snack in the morning and you've got down the protein and the fruit. Add a bag of baby carrots to that, and you've got the veggie down too. Easy, nothing to cut, and you're probably not hungry anymore.

Also, 1 oz of protein is equal to 30 grams (approximately). If you eat a chicken (recommended portion size of 4 oz) you have already consumed 120 grams of protein! You eat that string cheese, and you've probably reached your goal protein.

And I completely understand the overanalyzing -- I also started this whole process very gung-ho, I'm going to lose weight, only to realize it's not as easy as everyone makes it out to be. It's not just calories in and calories out. There's a lot of psychological stuff that goes into it -- and I don't mean the "as-I-child-I-was-beat-up-therefore-I'm-fat".

I mean stuff like not wanting to spend my life using a food scale. Not wanting have to reject people's offer of food. Not wanting to cook for myself, it's easier if I just order out or eat out.

The process that I'm in right now is less about losing weight and more about changing my mindset about food and health. The same way that I stopped eating those candy bars or started eating fruit, I have to continue with all the other negative thoughts that I have about losing weight. Because I know that counting calories and exercising isn't going to be enough for me. I need to change the way that I think first.
 
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