How I Used Food To Beat Depression

Sitting in the waiting room of my family doctor, waiting to get a routine check-up, I glanced up to see a poster on the wall. What I read scared me half to death.

My heart beat faster. My breathing became shallow. This poster asked if I had experienced…

• Prolonged sadness or unexplained crying spells
• Significant changes in appetite and sleep patterns
• Irritability, anger, worry, agitation, anxiety
• Pessimism, indifference.
• Loss of energy, persistent lethargy
• Feelings of guilt, worthlessness
• Inability to concentrate, indecisiveness
• Inability to take pleasure in former interests, social withdrawal
• Unexplained aches and pains
• Recurring thoughts of death or suicide

…For longer than two weeks. I found myself nodding “yes” to nearly every single question.

At the bottom appeared these words…

“If you have experienced these symptoms for more than two weeks, you may be…DEPRESSED!”

My routine check-up just became a little less routine.

After an hour with my doctor, he confirmed I was indeed suffering from clinical depression. When asked what my options were for treatment, he doctor said I basically had one choice: He would refer me to a “shrink” who would then prescribe an antidepressant.

My first thought was I would NOT be dependant on a drug for the rest of my life. I was determined to find a way to deal with this condition without relying on drugs. Little did I know, the answer would come while attending a fitness certification course.

I’ll never forget it. While discussing various diets and nutrition programs, a hand went up behind me and a lady asked the instructor for his opinion on a diet called The Zone. She commented that many of her clients (she was already a personal trainer) experienced tremendous results with it. In a nutshell, the instructor pooh-poohed it, and every so-called low-carb diet, stating they were too high in protein and fat.

His idea of good nutrition was to eat loads of carbs, very little fat and a smidgen of protein – basically, just what the government has been telling you to eat for years.

Knowing very little about food and its effects on the body, I decided that I needed to be prepared to answer such questions from my clients. All I knew about nutrition was what I read in magazines. You know…

• Eat less. Exercise more.
• Grains, fruits and veggies good…fat bad.
• Drink lots of water.
• Eat junk food in moderation.
• Blah, blah, blah…

To make sure I could intelligently educate people on the “evils” of low-carb diets, I signed out every low-carb diet book I could find:

• Protein Power
• The Zone
• Carbohydrate Addicts Diet
• Atkins Diet

I’m sure there were a few more in there but those were the ones popular at the time. Anyway, after reading several of these books, something happened. I soon realized the information contained in those books held the answer I was looking for to help me control the symptoms of my depression.

You see, one message, common in all of the books, would end up dramatically changing – if not saving – my life. What message did they carry? Very simply…

Food Is A Drug!

Without a doubt, food affects your body in the same way that any drug does. According to Wikipedia.org…

“A drug is any substance that can be used to modify a chemical process or processes in the body, for example to treat an illness, relieve a symptom, enhance a performance or ability, or to alter states of mind.”

How many people do you know snack when they’re bored, anxious, angry, nervous or upset? Aren’t they using food to alter their state of mind?

Here’s The Good News

Like any drug, if you abuse it you suffer the consequences, but when used properly, food can…

• Give you the energy you need to get through your days and still have energy to spare.
• Help to eliminate or at least greatly reduce mood swings. This was a big one for me. I saw my moods level right out.
• Significantly reduce hunger pains and cravings. Great news when you want to lose weight.
• Reduce the risk of serious and not-so-serious disease. More and more illnesses are being linked to the food you eat on a regular basis. Proper nutritional habits are your best insurance policy.
• Reverse existing health challenges. Diabetes and high blood pressure are two of the most common health challenges. By properly using food, you can greatly improve – if not eliminate – these two conditions.
• Sharper mental focus. Rather than walking around in a fog, imagine being alert and focused as you go through your day.
• Reduce overall body fat.

In just 30 days, after changing the way I used food, my moods and behavior did a 180-degree turnaround. As a matter of fact, I can tell you that it saved my marriage.

Basic Guidelines For Using Food To Control Your Mood

When using food to alter your brain chemistry, you need to focus on controlling two things: Blood sugar and insulin levels.

By keeping both of these components low, you will see a tremendous lift in your moods, your mental alertness and energy levels. Not to mention, it burns fat more easily than a low-fat diet will.

Here’s how I use food to control my blood sugar and insulin levels:

1. Eat a moderate amount of high-fiber carbohydrate at each meal. Eat lots of fibrous veggies, a small amount of high-fiber fruit (apples, oranges, berries) and if you eat processed carbs, make them high-fiber as well. Oh, and eliminate any beverages containing sugar. Personally, I rarely get more than 40 percent of my calories from carbs. Often it’s around the 30 percent mark.
2. Eat protein with every meal and most snacks. Again, for me personally, I get about 30-40 percent of my calories from protein – usually chicken, lean beef, some fish, some pork and high-quality whey protein powder.
3. Eat fat. Forget everything you’ve ever head about low-fat eating being the healthy way to go. Your meals and snacks should include a healthy dose of fat. Ideally, it should be mono or polyunsaturated fat, but some animal fats certainly won’t hurt. My fat intake stays pretty steady at about 30 percent from day to day.
4. Eat 5-6 meals, evenly spread throughout the day. You’ve heard it before, you’ll hear it again. You may as well accept it. Eating two or three meals won’t cut it. Eating small meals throughout the day prevents overloading your body with more carbohydrate than it can handle, which in turn controls blood sugar levels.
5. Lift Weights. It doesn’t have anything to do with food, but it’s too important not to mention. When you lift weights, your body uses stored sugar (glycogen) in the muscles to fuel your workout. Cardio, on the other hand, uses a mixture of fat and glycogen. However, high-intensity interval cardio mimicks weight lifting in that it burns a high amount of stored sugar.

Will changing your diet work as dramatically for you as it did for me? I can’t say, but I invite you to do it for 30 days and judge for yourself. Then drop me a line and let me know how it worked for you.

To help you use food more effectively, check out these resources:

South Beach Diet – My personal favorite. The book’s easy to read and follow and the meals are yummy. You can also get help through their website.

The Zone – This book “flipped the switch” for me. It provides the best explanation of how food affects your blood chemistry and hormones, but I found many of the recipes to be painfully time-consuming to prepare.

The Formula 40/30/30 (The Cookbook) – By far the best-tasting recipes out of all books mentioned here. After several years, I still use this book on a weekly basis for meal planning.

eDiets – I’ve never used it but have read many good reviews of their programs. What I like about them is they allow you to choose which eating program you want to follow.