Mood tracking and weight loss

Sunday, 11/08/15, 1:24pm

I started a mood tracker the other day. My first entry is the lowest of the low, "depressed", "why does life have to be so hard?". Entry right now is "content". How can 2 days change my mood so much? I know how. I've been exercising every day-that helps avoid the lows for sure. Actually I started a weight loss challenge this week which has definitely contributed some to my highs and lows. I was at my heaviest non-pregnant weight of my life, and although I don't buy into society's expectation of needing to look perfect, I wanted to lose some weight. I do think that my extra weight contributes to my depression. I also think it has something to do with my prone-ness to knee and foot injuries. (Is prone-ness a word and if it is or just wanted to be, would it be spelled " prone-ness or proneness? But yes, I'm sure there's a better word to use but it's just not coming to mind). Back to the point of my digression here, I'm doing this weight loss challenge. Each person puts in $50, we started Nov 1 and we end Jan 1. The person who loses the most percentage of their body weight wins the pot, etc. It's fun. I'm glad I'm doing it and it's working, and the group is being a great support group, but it's hard. I was basically eating whatever the hell I wanted before this and not giving a damn, but I really enjoyed it. Definitely outta control, but still enjoyable. Sigh. Now it's entering my food into the MyFitnessPal app, being more strict about getting my exercise in every day, and some days I don't count everything. And some days I snack too much and freak out because I suddenly feel like I don't have enough calories for dinner. And some days I weigh more than I did yesterday, "seriously what the hell?". And some days I'm 3 pounds less than I was before, again, "seriously what the hell?" But it's good. I know it will be good to lose weight. I think that being healthier and more in shape will help my depression. I know that exercising every day is one of the best preventative strategies I can use for my depression.

But I've seriously digressed.

My depression can be quite the rollercoaster. I do know that. It's fabulous one minute, hell the next. At least I'm at a point where I can sometimes recover to being halfway to fabulous pretty quick. I've come a long way in the last year or so, but I've still got plenty to go.