Monday 30 January 2012

Depression - exercise natural anti depressant

Well it certainly made interesting reading last night by debating if you would still go to the gym/exercise if you could stay the ideal weight without it & also eat what you like. I came to the conclusion that my twitter friends are a lot healthier than my Facebook friends.

Anyway I've been thinking about this topic a lot as Mitul (my good friend in Dubai) is convinced I would not go to the gym if I could eat what I wanted & stay slim! I'm 100% certain I would as exercise gives me so much more than staying slim.

Let me tell you a little more about me & hopefully from this you'll understand why the exercise is so important to me. All through my 30's I suffered being over weight (heaviest I was 13 11 & for a shorty like me I'm only 5 1 that is obese) I swapped my job on the road selling advertising for recruitment & found myself office based & not being very active. I used to accept offers from friends to go out drinking so would squeeze myself into clothes that would hide my bulky frame & paint a smile on face & pretend I was happy. Deep down I was so upset & would come home spend time crying about my weight & eating take aways, chocolate, cakes, crisps etc then on a Monday another diet would start only to end about 10 days or so later. I felt worthless has very little self respect & just generally negative about everything. The weight really got me down & I sank into depression. I decided on advice from a friend to see a counsellor so in 2006 I began to go once a week to talk through things with a lovely lady called Bernadette. We talked through lots of things & there were tears, laughter, thought provoking conversations. These sessions went on for approximately 18 months & it helped me gain the confidence to go for a new job which I'm pleased to say I got. In 2008 I lost the weight, see an earlier post for this story on how I did it.

Anyway after losing weight & then finding a love of exercise I no longer suffer from depression, I look at the cup half full rather than half empty & feel mentally strong. You see exercise makes me feel I can conquer anything. I feel in control of my life & am very happy. I am so happy that I found exercise I enjoy as not only do I look and feel better than I did in my 30's I no longer suffer from swollen joints, my back ache, what back ache? I look at food as fuel & eat lovely home cooked meals that I cook & freeze at weekends. Yes I still have a sweet tooth but I can control this now by allowing a couple of treats once a week.

So in answer to the debate I posted would you exercise if you could stay slim & eat what you want then it's a massive yes from me!

Yes I know there are others things you would love me to do like dating etc hon but I'm happy in my own skin being who I am & making my own decisions. Maybe this is a post for another time as I am sure it's something Mitul & me will debate at some point soon.

Thanks for reading guys. X

1 comment:

  1. Hey, it's Kesselld from ww. I hope you don't mind me commenting ( I don't fully understand how this blog thing works!). I think you're doing great by the way, very inspirational!

    I started doing exercise in the hope it would help me lose weight, so had I not been overweight in the first place I'm not sure I would have exercised. However, now I know how much better it makes me feel I would like to think I would never give it up. Especially now I'm realising I've gone from struggling in classes to being at the front doing everything at the hardest level and working on high right until the end. My run I did recently outside (first in about 8 months!)made me realise how far I've come. Love it!

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