Weight and depression - time for a healthy diet

I am munching my way through my last packet of crisps before the Healthy Eating weight loss diet starts in 2 days on 1^st August.  Getting breathless walking Gabi this summer has got me worried.  I have been on blood pressure meds for 2 years already, and I’m only 41.   My BMI is no longer in the overweight category but I have crossed the line into obese.   I need to lose 20% of my current weight to reach the top end of the healthy range for my height.  

This is partly linked to my mental health.  A lot of mental health medication can encourage weight gain, mostly I think from giving us the major munchies, though some may affect metabolism too.  I also spent time on one that has a side effect on blood pressure.   But it is not all the medication.

Depression can be exhausting, acting ‘normal’ in the big wide world means coming home and flopping out. For me that puts meal prep way way down the ‘to do’ list, whilst duvet time is right at the top.  Of course at some stage my body demands input, and Now!  

That means quick calories and no effort.  So surface from duvet and reach the kitchen, problem is that making a decision is as much of an effort as anything else and I am left standing in the middle of a supply of food but paralysed by the decision process.  Default kicks in and I reach for the instant calories of a packet of oaty biscuits, or crisps, or anything instant, and retreat with the packet back to the duvet and munch, and munch, through the whole packet.

That isn’t every meal, or every day – but far too frequently, and in between are the ready meals or that sole meal of the day turns into eating both portions of the meal for two.  Basically my eating is rubbish and all over the place, and that’s before alcohol calories.

So 1^st Aug is the new beginning, I have been researching, I have produced a 4 week menu plan so that the effort of choice is taken away, and I have been shopping – with a strict list!   I had a trolley full of veg and fresh fish, some chicken and not much else – no biscuits, no doughnuts, no multipacks of crisps.

The discipline will be to eat at 3 specific points each day, the diet is low in carb and limited calories but full of healthy nutrients.  Yes it is a low calorie – quick impact diet but not in a faddish cabbage soup diet way.   I know my stickability to a new project is not great once the novelty wears off, so something that feels like it is getting somewhere is better for me.   And to start with a mild obsessio

n about the healthy eating project is good for getting off the blocks well.

So enjoying the last pack of crisps and last glass of wine for a while, and the church faith lunch tomorrow – then Monday morning I will rediscover proper breakfast.  I will let you know how I do.

The ups and downs...

On Monday my scales announced that I had reached 15st (down from a high of a bit over 16). I checked again at the end of the day before I dared report this to others. Tuesday I stepped on again to celebrate, and suddenly I was 15st 2. The general grumps, plus this, plus having proclaimed confidently the achievement which wasn’t – together sent me to the sugar fix and I’m told 5st 4 and severe munchies. Some of the munchies may be hormonal but that doesn’t help the diet.

Thursday night we held an event at church – a falconry visit and talk. We weren’t overrun but it was a presentable small group. Some visited church hall for the first time, which was part of the point. But having slept too little all week, the grumps and a litany on the search for a door lock *(‘A lock, a lock, my kingdom for a lock’) I crashed emotionally. Didn’t have any more social reserves left and was, still am, overwhelmed with a sense of pointlessness. Technically apart from last night I have had leave this week, which was just as well as my functioning has been next to useless.

I like the way Hyperbole comments on the experience of depression on social interaction when you feel too disconnected to read or respond to people

“However, I could no longer rely on genuine emotion to generate facial expressions, and when you have to spend every social interaction consciously manipulating your face into shapes that are only approximately the right ones, alienating people is inevitable.”

It is the first thing I have read which captures how and why people stuff seems so hard in depression – it is because it is like suddenly trying to use a second language that you bungled through at school and haven’t used for years. Doable but exhausting.

I am officially on an Interruption in my depression and faith studies – I had an enquiry about my plans, to return or not. I want to do this – as much as I can want when emotionless – but is it fair when I’m already dropping balls domestically, pastorally?

For now I just need to get dressed and take the dog out...

* It all began with the simple aim of cutting a spare key for Gabi’s occasional dog walker, 3 keys and several tweaks later it is concluded that my original is a poor copy and impossible to get a useable key from it.  No problem, the cylinder locks are straightforward to remove and fit new, but needed a friend to tackle the first screw as I couldn’t get it to turn. That done the lock was temp back in place whilst I went down the road to the hardware shop to buy a new one having checked the size. Except it is an odd size, don’t have any, okay going to the big lights will check there – no, not even the big orange shed can help, though a couple of the helpful folk tried.  So home to t’internet and then hard to find my size...  Delivery imminent, hope it works, or it will be the whole door next!

‘For want of a key the lock was lost, for want of a lock the door was lost???’