constant wishing

Im really fed up, i am at uni and weigh 10st 9 and extremely unhappy with myself, i used to be a size 6 this time last year and i looked fantastic, i suffered depression then comfort ate and hence piled on the weight. I have been on cambridge 3 weeks and havent had a week where i havent ate and hence i have only lost about 4lbs. I also run for my uni and used to run for Scotland but although i am fit, i aint anywhere near what i was, i am constantly wishing to be who i was..........i was so much happier and a much nicer person. I was racing at the weekend and my time was 7mins slower than last year, that is ridiculous. I feel totally humiliated and just want to be that thinner person again! i need advice, how to i combat my binge/comfort eating? my depression? (i used to be on anti-depressants but came off them at the start of the year cos i wasnt sure if they were working). Once i have had a bad day that is me on a downward spiral and i just cant snap out of it!

I constantly try to do things that afterwards i think i will be a better person for doing it. Please help me, i dont want to be miserable at xmas.

:cry::cry::cry::cry:

i am aiming for your weight . i think if you are feeling that low you do need to see your gp and discuss you feelings . he will be able to help even if it is with medication . alot of the drugs do work you just may not realise it . have you had major life changes that may have affected you , these feelings may yet have to be released. it seems there may be some other underlying issues that you need to resolve and ok your weight may be one of those issues but iss being thin/slim the only thing that will make you happy ?
really go and talk to your gp or practice nurse . carry on with cd if that is what you want and take advice from your cdc .
hugs on their way , hope you pick up soon.
luv

yuppet said:

Im really fed up, i am at uni and weigh 10st 9 and extremely unhappy with myself, i used to be a size 6 this time last year and i looked fantastic, i suffered depression then comfort ate and hence piled on the weight. I have been on cambridge 3 weeks and havent had a week where i havent ate and hence i have only lost about 4lbs. I also run for my uni and used to run for Scotland but although i am fit, i aint anywhere near what i was, i am constantly wishing to be who i was..........i was so much happier and a much nicer person. I was racing at the weekend and my time was 7mins slower than last year, that is ridiculous. I feel totally humiliated and just want to be that thinner person again! i need advice, how to i combat my binge/comfort eating? my depression? (i used to be on anti-depressants but came off them at the start of the year cos i wasnt sure if they were working). Once i have had a bad day that is me on a downward spiral and i just cant snap out of it!

I constantly try to do things that afterwards i think i will be a better person for doing it. Please help me, i dont want to be miserable at xmas.

:cry::cry::cry::cry:

Click to expand...

Hiya, firstly :hug99: I know exactly how you feel with the depression. I suffer with it but the mistake I make is I start taking anti-depressants and as soon as I start to feel better I stop taking them than I go back on a downward spiral. I have been taking them now for the last 3 months and I feel so much better. Firstly you need to go back to see your GP and tell him/her that the anti-depressants you were on did nothing for you and you want to try some different ones. But you must be prepared for a bit of a wait as they can take up to 6 weeks to start kicking in. Once they kick in stay on them and you will find that you will start feeling better in yourself then in turn you will be ready to lose the weight you want. I know 6 weeks seems like a long time but it is not if you look at how fast the last 6 weeks went if that makes sense. Good luck hope you start to feel better soon.

P.S sorry for the essay

Yuppet,
I do hope you won't take this amiss but I think you should consider the underlying issues here. Your feeling that you are overweight/underperforming in races/not as nice a person as you were etc etc are, in my humble opinion, related to your depression and to whatever caused your depression. Fixing the weight matter might well not make you feel better overall - you are likely to find something else about yourself to dislike. I'd urge you to see your GP and request counselling/other therapy. Alternatively your university is likely to offer counselling as part of its student support.
I do hope you aren't offended, but as a mental health professional and a person who has long term depression I really felt I had to offer the above for your consideration.
Look after yourself,
Kate

Hi there,
I think you'll find that depression is much more widespread than you realise and that most of us go through periods when we feel that we are not good enough or that life is just too awful. For some of us, eating appears to offer some comfort but in fact it can add to the feeling of spiralling downwards. I know because I have been there.

In my humble opinion, you can't tackle the weight problem first. I tried it numerous times and the failure made matters worse. It just made me feel even more of a failure. For me, the cause was easy to identify (I had had twins at the age of 42 and I felt guilty that I found it hard to enjoy being a stay at home mum to them and my other child, particularly as I had endured years and years of fertility treatment to get the three of them. I just had to wait until they had settled down at school and then my self esteem started to grow back!). But I do know people who have suffered from depression and simply didn't really know what it was that was causing them so much grief.

I tried anti-depressants for a short while and they did help during the worst of times, but in my opinion, they don't help you to understand the root cause of what is ailing you. I think counselling can help. Counselling made me challenge my belief that "good mothers" i.e. all other mothers but me, loved every minute they spent with their children, couldn't wait to play a nice game of snakes and ladders with them, never got stressed by their bad behaviour and never screamed like a banshee. Friends and relatives had told me this wasn't true over and over again and I couldn't take it in, but properly trained counsellors have a way of getting you to see things from a different perspective.

Please don't punish yourself with thoughts that you could be a better person than you are. Everything that will make you exceptional is already in place and when you are able to see yourself through eyes that are not clouded by depression, you will know that.

I wish you all the best.
K9
x

Yuppet i can honestly say i know EXACTLY how you feel. I was a size 8 when i first joined uni and my weight went up about a stone and a half...i then went on a destructive mode of yoyo dieting. I also got depressed and shut myself away from everyone. I went from being confident and happy, to being moody miserable and pessimistic. I was nine stone this summer (a yoyo via the atkins) and went travelling....since being away i have put on 3 stone....so id imagine im feeling just as rubbish as you. Id literally every day say..."this is my last day of eating before i start my diet tomorrow"and so i would binge on anything and everything....and then the next day id eat one thing bad and go through the same process. Just getting bigger and bigger and feeling worse and worse. So i made this decision to change my life....im going to lose the weight properly and introduce food slowly. It sounds ridiculous but i just thought to myself, only i can change myself feeling rubbish and thats by sticking to a diet. Since finding this site and doing cambridge, seeing how well other people have done i finally feel like the old me is attainable again....im only on day 6 but i know ill suceed....if you ever need to talk to someone whose been there quite a few times, then im here! PJ xxx

yuppet,

I think all the previous answers about depression have given very good advice. It is clear that you perhaps have come off the tablets earlier than perhaps you should have and you might need to go back on them.

In terms of doing things to be a nicer person - you've already said you were happy and a nice person in the past - so you must still be a nice person now - it is just your feelings about yourself that have become a little confused right now.

Losing weight will not make you a nicer person as you are already nice. Losing weight will just make you thinner and feel better about yourself. Tackle the depression issue first and I'm sure the weight problem will be a lot easier to deal with.

BTW if you are exercising by running a lot it may be that you haven't lost weight because you are retaining fluid and over-doing the exercise. I think there may be a sticky that explains this or, if not, ask icemoose in a separate thread about exercising on SS - he seems to be a bit of a guru on all aspects of the diet.

Chin up.

Yup, been there, had an amazing first year at Uni then some things went wrong with my family back home and I started trying to live off 600kcals per day (NOT in a balanced CD way) even though I was the thinnest I'd ever been at that point. Cut myself off from just about everyone and everything and ended up completely miserable and on anti-depressants (which did help me through the worst).
Had a similar thing when I moved down to Edinburgh but with different although equally bad eating fallout (lots of takeaways and crap). Been really getting myself back on track the past year or so though.
Somehow I got it into my head that the reason I was so happy in 1st year was I was thin, but in hindsight it was actually the other way around; I was thin coz I was so busy living and enjoying my life that I wasn't obsessing over food and scales (and was dancing so much I had the most exercise in my life!)
The important thing to remember is that being slim doesn't necessarily make you fit or happy and that, despite all the bad things that happen, you're still the same person who is capable of having a fab time, achieving their goals and making your life the best it can be!
Tough to acknowledge at times, but true!
Good luck :wave_cry: