Maria's Last Diet

Women’s Weight Loss and Depression

by Maria's Last Diet

You know, looking back, I didn’t know how just how depressed I really felt. You couldn’t tell from my everyday demeanor. It was daily business as usual, as far as I was concerned. My family couldn’t tell, and my friends couldn’t tell either. My job performance didn’t suffer. I was just me all the way.

Then a strange thing happened. One day, after losing A LOT of weight and keeping the weight off for months and months, I realized that I no longer felt depressed. No one could tell there was this different me. But I could tell. Pardon the stupid pun, but I felt lighter, A LOT lighter.

What must have been the case when I was carrying around all that additional weight is that I, and everyone who knew me, knew me and accepted me as I was. We all shifted the norm for me so that no one could see my pain, not even me.

I was surprised that when I dropped all the weight no one, not even I, saw how much better I felt. It only dawned on me after months and months of good weight-loss management.

While my friends, family, and co-workers didn’t notice that my depression had lifted, they certainly noticed that I lost all that weight.

And here’s the strangest thing of all. They all seemed A LOT happier, and less depressed around me.

 

A Pattern of Eating That’s Hard to Break

by Maria's Last Diet

Sheila got right to it. The kids had left for school and her husband was well out the door headed for work. She sat down at the kitchen table like she had done so many times before, and she began her second breakfast.

Only she knew how hungry she got. No one was the wiser about this second breakfast. It was Sheila’s time for herself, and she indulged herself royally, but feverishly. Lots of English muffins or bagels or bread or rolls, with lots of butter. Plenty of coffee. And always some sweets for dessert—leftover cake, doughnuts, even cookies—especially cookies.

Sheila was aware that she had no control over herself at these second breakfasts. And she had no control over the waves of guilt and distress she felt afterwards.

Binge eating is an emotional disorder that occurs with almost twice the frequency of bulimia and anorexia combined.

 

One of the Problems Being Overweight is You Have a Greater Chance of Being Bulimic

by Maria's Last Diet

The disorder bulimia includes recurring episodes of binge eating with compensatory weight-regulating behaviors like self-induced vomiting, laxative overuse, diuretics, and enemas, fasting, and excessive exercise. What you might not know about bulimia is that many women who overweight are also bulimic. Recent research showed that overweight bulimic women showed less restraint in their eating pattern and a greater frequency of depression than bulimic women who were of normal weight.

 

When It Comes to Weight-Loss Strategies, Don’t Put Compassion on the Back Burner.

by Maria's Last Diet

So you’re straining and restricting, and by doing it this way, you hope you’ll lose a lot of weight. Keep yourself at bay. Don’t go wild. Be super-vigilant.  Be extra special careful. Or you’ll run amuck. And eat what’s forbidden. Oh, no, not the forbidden food. Do you think this way? Do you say such things to yourself? Do you have to be so in control so you don’t go out of control?

Think of all the pressure you put on yourself by being so restrictive.  Depriving yourself can only leave you wanting more. And that’s how it happens. You want MORE, and you eat off your favorite diet. Your slip becomes a serious violation--according to you and your restrictive thinking.

Can you take a less pressured, less restrictive approach to dieting and trying to lose unwanted weight? Can you be more compassionate, even forgiving in the way you approach the weight-loss process?

Compassion for yourself can turn a restrictive, unforgiving, self-critical you into someone who is understanding with herself. Then a slip or a cheat is just that, nothing more. You have some regret, but your forgiving attitude makes it easier for you to hop back on your personal diet plan. You don’t have to deal with the restrictive you, the one who, after depriving herself, makes up for it by overeating or eating some ‘forbidden’ food, and then tears herself down for doing this. You should know that the consequence of tearing yourself down could very well be compensatory eating to make you feel better?

Got it? Being so restricting is bad for you when it comes to the weight-loss process. Being compassionate with yourself is good for you, especially when you make a mistake. And who hasn’t made lots of mistakes on her weight-loss journey?

Do You Have Symptoms of Binge Eating?

by Maria's Last Diet

Is this you?

You just sat down yesterday late morning and had to have a snack. You had already eaten a big enough breakfast, yet there you were craving all the breakfast foods again; and it was only two-and-a-half hours after you’d eaten.

You decided against having a second breakfast, and almost without knowing it, you headed for the snack cabinet. Got out some of your daughter’s favorite chocolate chips—not the cookies, the chips themselves. You quickly shoveled as many as you could into your mouth, all the while realizing how embarrassed you’d feel if your husband saw you. You definitely had him in mind when you gulped down those chips.

The chips weren’t enough, and so—even though you knew you shouldn’t be doing it—you started on another kind of chip. Not chocolate this time. Potato. Potato chips. And again, same procedure. Eat as if you had never eaten before, as if you were starving. Eat a lot. Eat quickly.

Only afterward do you come to your senses. Or perhaps it’s better to say you come to your sensations. Because the first thing you feel is uncomfortably full. And this sensation starts you on a string of thoughts and feelings, all of them terribly self-critical, remorseful, and definitely unpleasant. You know once again that you’ve lost control and done what you promised yourself you would never do again. But you knew you’d never keep that promise to yourself. You just knew it. And here you proved it—yet once again.

There’s a name for what you’ve just done, and you know what it is, but you can’t bring yourself to say it. Your regrets go deep, but they do nothing to help you lose some weight. And you have to lose a lot of weight if you’re ever going to regain your figure—and your self-respect.

Binge eating is a scourge, isn’t it?  

Look, A Terrible Weight Loss Issue: Out of Control Eating—Eating So Much at One Time—Episode After Episode

by Maria's Last Diet

Having a significant number of episodes over time where you lose your control over your eating behavior and eat a larger amount of food than normal within a two-hour period.

It makes you preoccupied with the excessive consumption of food.

It won't let you fight the urge to stuff yourself full of food all at once.

It’s a reaction to feelings you don’t like.

It shifts your attention away from negative feelings.

Because of it, you expect relief and satisfaction.

    Binge eater, It's BINGE EATING to the rescue.

 

On the Surface—Diet Problem, Weight Loss Failure, Cannot Lose weight

by Maria's Last Diet

On the surface…

Woman #1: I’ve been fat since I was in third grade.

Woman #2: I know it’s a long time, but I haven’t lost my baby weight yet.

Woman #3: Those freshmen fifteen did me in, and I’ve been gaining ever since.

Woman #4: I started putting weight on it on in the third year of my so-so marriage.

Woman #5: Feeding my kids all their favorites was my downfall.

Below the surface…

Woman #1: My mother overfed me then, and I overfeed me now.

Woman #2: I can’t seem to let go of anything.

Woman #3: I felt stupid and out-of-it socially when I started college.

Woman #4: I had to eat over my feelings so I’d stay married.

Woman #5: I don’t have self-control.

 

Way below the surface…

Woman #1: I’ve never been able to separate from my mother, and overfeeding myself is just one example.

Woman #2: I hold on to anything good about myself. I’m afraid of what will happen if I don’t.

Woman #3: I overcompensate for being down on myself by being the jolly fat woman.

Woman #4: I have all these shoulds and shouldn’ts to live up to. My marriage was one of them.

Woman #5:  Other people have always overly influenced me. Now it’s even my kids. I don’t have a self of my own.

 

Way, way below the surface…

Well, you get the idea.

Diets Fail and Weight Issues Prevail, But Don’t Put the Blame on Me

by Maria's Last Diet

Not thin and hating it?

Blame it on the snowstorm, or the week of rain, or Christmas. Blame it on your husband, or your best friend, or your acting-up kid. Blame it on Ben & Jerry’s, or a party. Blame it on your mother-in-law, or your stressed-out life, or Dunkin Donuts.

Blame it on your job, or your tiredness, or your lifestyle. Blame it on having no time, or too many obligations, or how hard life gets sometimes. Blame it on doing everything for everyone else, and not having enough energy left over to take care of yourself. Blame it on the cold, or the heat, or the long winter that kept you cooped up inside.

OR: Don’t blame it on anyone or anything. If you couldn’t stick to a diet, if you couldn’t get to where you want to be in terms of weight, forget about assigning blame. Figure it out. Discover what went wrong.

THEN: Plan, strategize, and create a way to do it differently next time, so you can achieve your weight-loss goal.

Think positively. Don’t be negative. The answers are there for the looking.

No blame, please! Instead, assign yourself responsibility for how it will turn out. Because it’s you—and you alone—who has the power to stay the course and reach that comfortable place, where you no longer need to battle with your eating issues.

 

Getting Thin. See the Shape I’m In. What Do You Think of Me Now?

by Maria's Last Diet

What do you think of yourself and what do others think of you when it comes to what you should weigh? If you weigh too much, how stigmatized are you—by you and by others?

What happens as you begin to lose excess weight? Does this change the way others perceive you? Does it change how you see yourself?

Old realities die hard. With weight-loss progress comes the almost constant reminder of how overweight you were. Fitting into smaller sizes, seeing the newer you in the mirror: You can’t help comparing the new with the old. People too see you have lost weight and they inadvertently compare your new look with your old look. The statement, “You’ve lost some weight”, is a prime example of such comparison.

The newer-looking you is making changes on the inside as well. Less weight—perhaps less shame, less self-consciousness, more self-confidence, improved self-esteem, greater sense of personal accomplishment, higher self-evaluation, and so forth. You feel these things, and other people notice these changes too.  

When you finally reach normal body weight, your weight continues to be a defining feature. But it is now one among many defining features, and it is no longer the salient, devaluing feature it once was. The stigma of looking fat and being a heavy woman is disappearing. You’re gradually but steadily doing away with it. There are lots of other features of yours that you are replacing it with, and these features are taking center stage.

This is what’s supposed to happen when you lose weight and keep it off. You lose unwanted weight and you lose the unwanted stigma too.

 

A Weight Problem Myth On Its Weigh Out: The Fruit Theory

by Maria's Last Diet

What kind of fruit you are is no longer relevant to greater risk for heart disease. Prior to a recent review of the research, it was believed that being an “apple” shape—having excess weight around the middle—was a more likely risk factor for heart disease than being a “pear”—having excess weight distributed on the thigh and hip.

This review of 58 previous research studies showed that the location of your excess weight didn’t make a difference. What made a difference was whether or not you are obese.

As you can see, it’s important not to jump to conclusions. (This goes for physicians too.)