Serious question about depression from mr not-serious.

OK, so I was initially diagnosed with SAD in 2009. By 2010 I was diagnosed with mild clinical depression. Psychiatrist and all, found the right methods of coping combined with the right dosage of the right medicine to compensate for the chemical imbalance by late 2010. Turned 40 last december, threw myself a big blow out. Guns, booze, food the whole works.

This summer, Wife and I have packed on the pounds over the last year. Her mother had been on a sure fire diet that worked wonders. Diet completely eliminates all sugars, carbs and dairy for 2 weeks, after that you can have limited amounts of dairy. WE started this just shy of 2 weeks ago.

4 days in, I'm on the verge of an emotional break down. Emotions are all over the place. I'm testy, I can't shut down the brain and everything feels like pre-2009. Basically... complete E36 M3. Yesterday lunch was bought for us and for the first time in almost 2 weeks I had sugars, carbs and dairy. I felt great. Absolutely on top of hte world. Today, I again had the same "bad foods" and I got to tell you... I feel like I could tackle the world.

So, knowing hte vast wealth of information in here and hte wide range of people and experiences here... my question is: Can foods (or in this case, lack of) really affect my depression that much? Or is this something that I'm makin up to get off her diet? I know it seems odd, but man.... eating E36 M3 food MENTALLY feels great.

Topics that we are NOT discussing:

Taking meds for depression are bad.

Excercise cures all depression (wrong)

Korean cars are the root cause of my depression. (possible)

I was a pharmaceutical rep (antidepressants) for a few years and in moderation, and the right use case, they are great.

Foods can affect the body in a couple ways I can think of... 1) foods can increase/decrease the body's ability to absorb and clear medications. This would be a physician discussion, but the long and short of it is your change in diet may be impacting your medications. 2) for some people, foods and the subsequent satisfaction, can cause a release of serotonin and norepinephrine greater than some pharmaceuticals.

I'd strongly recommend you speak to a physician to troubleshoot.

I think its pretty well know the sugar is among one of the most addictive substances in our diet. Our ancestors celebrated sugars because they were an incredibly compact source of calories.

I know that for me personally, when I avoid sugar for a few days having it again is like ultimate comfort food.

Having done the low-carb thing, and cheated (by eating delicious donuts) I'd say that food and satisfaction can effect people differently. I tended to enjoy the tastes and feeling then beat myself for making a poor decision about it. Plus, I didn't like the weird overfull feeling and rushing heart rate/high BP that excess carbs would cause. For you, having carbs makes you feel great!

Separate from me beating myself up mentally, the addiction to carbs for me was definitely clear. I was pissy and generally in a bad mood until ~2 weeks after fully cutting out carbs. Then I was mostly back to normal. This may play a part - my fiancé tried the low carb thing with me for a week, but she couldn't do it. For her, eating carbs is a necessity. I think it's cause she didn't really try hard enough, but I'm certainly not going to take that stance and fight about it

Not a doctor, didn't stay at a Holiday Inn, etc.

I wondered too if this wasn't an addiction withdrawal... but I'm not sure I want to go through it again to be honest. The sucky thing is I am down 7.2lbs and 2" off the waist so the diet was doing what it was supposed to do. Just the bad side effect.

Just curious, are you diabetic?

Tactical Penguin wrote: Just curious, are you diabetic?

Nope. At least not at the last checkup in May. Not even pre-diabetic. blood sugar levels have always been good.

Your brain isn't getting enough carbs to be happy. End of story. Find a new diet.

(Will have a dietitian with experience with depression confirm this, but I'd put good money on that being the case)

Oh, and did I read everything right? You're down over 7 pounds in less than two weeks? Unless you're morbidly obese--and I mean 400 pounds--that E36 M3 ain't healthy and is not a good way to lose weight. Unless you want to do it again every 8 months or so.

that's 3.5 lbs per week. and Yes, I'm about 35lbs over where my doc would like to see me and almost 70 to the mystical BMI chart (shich is hilarious with my body type/bone structure).

Bob, same E36 M3 happened to me when I did the Beach Body 3-Day refresh. VERY unpleasant feeling. Co-worker takes no meds, no caffeine, similar results with same diet, day 2 was a bitch!

Blood sugar can have a pretty big impact on mood (obviously this varies person to person).

If my partners blood sugar drops to far she becomes cranky, irritable, tired, illogical etc. Whilst this isn't depression, the two can go hand in hand.

Honestly, in your shoes, I'd consider a less aggressive type of dieting. If you had a good Ballance and your meds were working prior to crash dieting then a more measured approach, whilst slower, may be more beneficial to you.

Really, "going on a diet" is a sore poit for me. The idea that you can quickly undo what crept on over a longer period of time is not a very sustainable way of loosing weight. Modifying your diet for the long term makes much more sense. Wich means learning how to use moderation, not just cutting this or that out entirely. If you drop a bunch of weight with a quick fix, most of the time it ends up coming back and some.

Good luck mate, depression isn't an easy beast to manage, but in a place like this, there's plenty of people here for you.

Bobzilla wrote: I wondered too if this wasn't an addiction withdrawal... but I'm not sure I want to go through it again to be honest. The sucky thing is I am down 7.2lbs and 2" off the waist so the diet was doing what it was supposed to do. Just the bad side effect.

Not sure if I would call it addiction, but withdrawl is correct, I think. I recall the same thing happening to me- not triggering something, but a pretty strong emotional reaction to carbs coming out of my body.

No good idea how to deal with it, other than just that. Which doesn't seem like a good suggestion....

But I will confirm that the withdrawl symptoms happens in others.

If you're 35 lbs from healthy it's my understanding you really shouldn't be going that fast as it will berkeley up your metabolism and mood. Aim for more like 1lb/week, maybe 2, tops.

You're losing weight way too fast. Not safe.

I'm always surprised that more mass shooters aren't found out to be vegans.

To echo what's been said in here: yes cutting out carbs can mess with your mood very badly and no 3.5lbs/wk isn't a healthy rate. Sure it seems nice but you're dealing with the outcome of it when your mood is f'ed up.

I'm not overweight but I wanted to track what I ate so I tried MyFitnessPal. It was fun for a couple weeks putting in food and seeing how many calories and of what type I ate. I didn't intend to do it forever and have stopped since but I feel like I learned a lot about my diet from those weeks. High protein high fat and low carbs seems to suit me. But low carbs does not mean no sugar! It just means less percentage wise than the standard guidelines would suggest. Something like 40/30/30 protein/fat/carbs I think.

Try just moderating your sugar intake a little. Don't go cold turkey. Cold turkey can be easier in the short term but long term I think it's less effective.

Cutting carbs will do it to you, sour monster when I am cutting down. But if comes back up pretty quick. FYI your body is pissed off at you when you cut carbs as fast as a lot of the pallio diet call for. Your gut bateria are unhappy, your insulin is unhappy. Basically your a waking pile of SAD

I'll echo the general consensus:

Consult a real physician.
Go on a less aggressive diet (under guidance of said physician).
Find the right diet for you. Treat finding that diet like diagnosing an issue or tuning a car: change only one variable at a time and see if it helps or hurts.
Maybe a healthy diet for you would cut down on sugars and certain fats, but leave in complex carbs and dairy.

Can you get more beejers? I have found that getting more beejers fixes my mood right up.

My mom went through what you're describing. I avoided her for about two weeks. You're detoxing from all of that stuff. Once you get past it (and you will if you can stick it out) you'll be able to handle the foods in limited amounts and it won't give you that high. It's just really hard to get past that point.

I can't really say I've noticed a correlation between diet and depression. But I can certainly see how there would be for the reasons already mentioned.

I may be stating the obvious, but regular alcohol consumption has a negative effect on how well anti depressants work. Please don't think I'm inferring that you drink a lot- I really have no idea, and besides that is a personal decision everyone makes for themselves. Just speaking from experience.

There is no detoxing. That is bullE36 M3. You just get used to no carbs, but your brain still isn't happy. It is literally deprived of its fuel (glucose, which carbs are turned into). It is making the effect it is on you because your particular brain is rather sensitive with the depression and medication (try going to the same medication but different manufacuter---I bet you notice)

Bad diet. Seriously. Get a new diet that allows at least a small serving of carbs. Doesn't have to be much.

As a diabetic, I know first hand how carbohydrates affect moods. Low carbs = low blood sugars. My brain will not act like itself. Irritable, unable to focus, a general numbness, insomnia, massive mood swings.

It sux.

In reply to Bobzilla:

Completely eliminating a macronutrient from your diet will absolutely throw things off for you. I've definitely heard of low carb/no carb grouchiness.

White flour and processed sugar will absolutely put weight on you and you will absolutely drop weight when you eliminate them. I do my best to do so.

I also eat brown rice and sprouted grain bread (Ezekiel bread), along with some whole grain bread here and there. That's during the week, but on weekends, I'll have "regular" bread here and there. I'm an avid cyclist, so carbs don't terrify me, but at 44, white flour and sugar will pack weight on me with a quickness.