It’s Sunday night, and I’m writing now because I know I’ve gotten into a bad habit of putting off my blog-writing until the last minute, and then sometimes putting it off even longer. I have several different topics written down, but none of them struck me as right. I could write about them, I guess, but it would just be writing. I would just be filling space. They are topics I care about normally, but right now I’m having a hard time caring about much of anything.

Lately, my blogs have been a bit more personal, so I might as well continue in that vein. See, the truth is, I have, and I guess I continually do, struggle with depression. I have ups and downs. Sometimes the downs seem to be random, while at other times they’re triggered by something or someone. Of course, my most recent down was triggered by JRTC.

“Overcoming depression,” is, I think, a fitting title. Depression is one of those ongoing things that never seems to just go away. It took me… not long at all to figure that out, but it took me years to really accept it. At first it was horrifying. I’m going to probably deal with this for the rest of my life? I can’t handle that! … But I can.

The Early Years

I don’t know when it started. You know? Lots of us can’t really remember a time when it was different, though we have a feeling somewhere in the backs of our minds that it was, at one time. I do know when it got bad, and then when it got worse. I definitely remember crying – all – the – time. I couldn’t handle the things I thought I should be able to handle. I remember feeling so sick of “having to pretend everything is ok.” Dropping out of school, quitting multiple jobs, dropping out of college… Depression is miserable, right? I mean, to me, the words are almost synonymous.

I used to wonder why no one cared. Couldn’t they tell? Couldn’t they read between the lines? Nevermind that I was trying to hide it.

The worst part was that I “knew” I had no right to feel that way. I told myself…probably every day…how good I had it. Followed closely by an increase in the flood of tears and a feeling of hopeless misery as I told myself how bad I had it. Followed by berating myself for feeling that way. Endless cycles of what felt like endless sadness. I dealt with it like many do. I avoided people, isolated myself, built bad habits, self-medicated, ran away, et cetera…

How I Healed

Those valleys at first were so deep I thought I’d never get out. And once I did, it seemed like another one was there to meet me right away. Now, they’re less frequent. They’re not so deep. But how I healed then is the same way I get through the valleys now. Now, I’m just more practiced at it, I guess.

• Prayers of Family and Friends – I have to mention this first. People loved me, throughout all my dark years, enough to pray for me no matter how I hurt them or worried them. My parents, siblings, grandparents… My friends from highschool, friends online… I don’t know how many prayed for me or how frequently they prayed, but I do know God heard them. I use this as a reminder to myself to pray consistently for those I care and worry about. I know it makes a difference.
• Walking with God – My healing came from God, not from within myself. But it wasn’t instantaneous like I wanted it to be. I had walked away and abandoned him because I couldn’t believe he was really there. I spent two years crying out in my misery, asking God not to change my situation but to help me cope. Finally, I said he wasn’t doing it. Why would he not do it if he was there? Why would he let me suffer so, when I’m trying to do right, and when I’m asking for help? By the time I got to the deepest part of the valley, my faith was, well, nowhere in sight. I had forsaken almost everything I had previously valued.
  Eventually, I came to realize I did believe in God. I couldn’t deny his existence anymore. But it was still a long time before my life began to reflect that admission of belief. And after that, it was still a long time before I began to learn to trust. And even then, nothing magically got better. I wanted it to. I wanted it to be as simple as saying I believe – please help me! But it doesn’t work like that.
  I had to learn to walk with God, and I have to keep walking with him, and he helps me through. I go through things I’m sure I can’t handle, and he listens to me complain, and he loves me. And sometimes I don’t even realize until long after the fact that he’s really been carrying me and my load, just like in that poem Footprints in the Sand.
• Permission to Feel – I’m an Army wife now, so my first thought is of my husband and how he has to ask permission to do almost anything. I don’t know when, but at some point, I convinced myself that I did not have permission to feel. Permission denied.
  I did not have a right to my feelings. I never asked anyone; I just decided. The second biggest piece of advice I can give to anyone struggling with depression is to allow yourself to feel. There’s no should to human feelings. Maybe there’s a “norm,” maybe. Maybe. But no should. You just feel what you feel. The problem is that some of us spend all our time feeling guilty for feeling bad, and then feeling bad for feeling guilty, and then feeling guilty all over again. Like I said, in me it produced an endless cycle until I decided that I was going to allow myself to feel sad. Even if my reasons were flimsy – even if there were no reasons at all. When sadness hits me, I feel sad. When anger, depression, or hopelessness hit me, I feel it rather than denying it. I find that it helps tremendously.
• Venting and Support – Both are important, but sometimes we can’t have both. Still, the last step for me and the last piece of advice I can give is this: Find an outlet and find support. Journaling can be an outlet, chatting with friends can be, and so can art or a number of other hobbies and crafts. Even crying while eating a bowl of ice cream can be an outlet. Prayer is another great outlet! You’ve got to have some way, though, to express your feelings. It’s good for you.
  Me, I choose a combination of all of the above. And as for support, I have quite a few supportive loved ones, but my main source of support is my husband. I am so blessed to have him.

I Want to Help

I don’t know if I’ll ever really have an outside-the-home career. As you know, I’m a stay-home wife, and I hope one day in the next few years to become a stay-home mom. But even if I don’t have a career, there’s something I want to do. I want to help. Depression is one of those nasty things that I hate for anyone to have to experience. But we do. We go through it, and if you’re like me you may struggle with it for most of your life! I saw several different counselors and psychologists in my low times, but only one made a difference to me. I want to be that person for someone else.

I want to help… so badly! The hard part is that what works for me may or may not help anyone else. It’s hard to know how to approach people because everyone is different! Just like not everyone struggling with weight issues conquers them in the same way, not everyone struggling with depression conquers it in the same way. But I do so want to help.

And I guess that’s all I have to say about that. For now.

I would argue that counting calories is the easiest way to alter your diet. It’s not the only way! It’s not even necessarily the best way, though I’ve not found a better. I’d like to share some information with you, and some tips for how to try out calorie counting if you never have. I’m currently using Calorie Count to help me with my weight loss goals.

Setting Goals

Counting calories, in and of itself, is not going to help you lose weight or eat healthy. If you start counting without a goal, you will see how many calories you’re eating every day, but that won’t do you much good. What you need is a limit, a target, or a goal to shoot for in your daily calorie intake. There are many websites that can provide a calculator to determine this number for you, but you can also choose for yourself, using some trial-and-error. Here are some guidelines:

1. Don’t go too low. Those in the medical field generally agree that no woman – not even the skinniest – should go below 1200 calories per day. The bigger you are and the more active you are, the more calories you need. If you eat too few calories, not only do you risk malnutrition, but you also risk putting your body into starvation mode, meaning that more fat is stored (rather than burned)! For men, I think the number not to go below is 1400 per day.

2. Take off a few hundred calories. If you know that you usually eat 2400 calories every day, try cutting back only a few hundred, to about 1900-2100 per day, and see where that gets you. Try it for a week or two before deciding to lower it any more.

3. There is another way to get a daily calorie deficit. Your body burns calories all day long (metabolism!), and your goal with counting calories is to eat approximately the same number of calories as you burn to maintain your weight or to eat fewer calories than you burn to lose weight. However, to achieve this weight-loss deficit, rather than eating less, you can also try exercising more. Eating the same amount while adding exercise to your routine will increase how many calories you burn throughout the day as well as increasing your calorie deficit.

Reaching But Not Exceeding

The tricky part of calorie counting comes in trying to reach your target without going over. If you’re limiting yourself to 1400 calories a day, for instance, you will soon see that you have to put some careful planning into play. This is the secret; this is how calorie-counting leads to healthy eating. You simply cannot pig out on unhealthy, high-calorie foods every day or you will starve!

1400 calories…

Let’s see, I could go to McDonalds and have a medium chocolate shake for 580 calories, medium fries for 380 plus of course 50 for ketchup, and a double cheeseburger for 440. Crap. I’ve now had 1450 calories (I went over my daily limit), and I can’t eat anything else today at all.

Sure, this might work out for a day or so, but pretty soon you’re going to be feeling very hungry!!

Tips:

1. Choose one meal a day to be the biggest meal. While nutritionists usually suggest this should be breakfast, most of us find it to be more realistic to say that dinner or supper will be our big meal of the day. When my husband is home, I know that we’ll be eating a full meal for dinner, so I try to “save” several hundred calories for that meal.

2. Eat tiny portions slowly. Eating slowly isn’t just a mental trick to feeling like you’ve eaten more. It actually gives your stomach time to tell your brain that you’re fuller than you thought! It takes a lot of patience, but try it out! Also, drink water to help fill your tummy when it feels like you haven’t had enough. And remember, snack time is only an hour or so away!

3. Find healthy snacks. If you only have one egg and one piece of toast for breakfast, you’ll probably find yourself hungry before lunch time. And this is okay! Many people highly recommend switching from 3 meals a day to 5 or more, and you can do this in part by snacking. If you’re a fruit or veggie person, those both make great munchie foods. You can also try individual yogurt cups, nuts, milk, and low-calorie crackers.

4. Give yourself time to get used to the change. When you’re cutting calories, it’s expected that you’ll feel hungry at first. Make sure this isn’t a sign that you’re starving yourself, first of all, but after that just give yourself some time to adjust. You’ll find your body getting used to it within a week or two, I’d say.

5. Finally, remember not to deprive yourself! Make sure you’re eating enough, and make sure you allow yourself to enjoy some high-calorie foods sometimes. As you know, I’m not one to recommend cutting things out of your diet completely. As long as you’re willing to accept the fact that the milkshake is going to fill you up a lot less than 500 calories of something else, it’s fine to indulge sometimes!

Success

If you decide to track other nutrition information, such as fat and sodium, I say more power to you. But even without that, setting and meeting a calorie goal can help you a lot in learning to make healthier food choices. Success comes not just from losing weight. It comes from becoming more healthy.

Have you ever tried counting calories? What were your goals? Did you reach them? Or do you have a better method you’d like to share?

Go ahead, tell me I’m wrong. I’ve gone and done it now, haven’t I? I’ve made a statement that can be disagreed with or even proven wrong! Well, I believe it, or rather, I don’t believe in it. I don’t think that dieting is healthy or good in any way. Don’t worry. I’ll explain.

Dieting vs. Diet

Dieting is eating or drinking according to a regulated system that is often designed to reduce or suppress the appetite. Dieting often if not usually involves restricting oneself from certain foods or from sugars, and it almost always involves limiting your calorie intake, sometimes severely.

Diet, on the other hand simply refers to the usual or regular food and drink one ingests.

Weight Loss Via Deprivation

I don’t argue that you can’t lose weight by dieting. On the contrary, I’m sure that you can. In fact, I’ve done it myself! The problem is that when you restrict your intake for a period of time to lose weight, you will usually find that when you stop that restriction, you gain back all the weight that you lost.

Whether or not your lose weight and keep it off with dieting, though, is not my concern. The problem I have with dieting is with the actual practice of dieting, not with the result.

Our bodies were designed to need certain nutrients, some of which we enjoy and some we do not enjoy so much. If you take away foods or food groups from your diet, you’re going to be either depriving yourself of something you need or something you want. Neither is good!

If you take away a nutrient you need through dieting, your body is going to suffer. I don’t know how our bodies copes with the loss, but however it’s done, it’s not healthy. Taking away all carbohydrates is not healthy, Dr. Atkins! Carbs serve a purpose!

If you take away a nutrient you want through dieting, your morale is going to suffer. Depressing yourself through your eating habits is not going to serve you well in the long run! By depriving yourself of what you enjoy you’re only more likely to quit your diet and splurge once you do quit. I don’t think that even having one Cheat Day now and then is enough to counteract the affect this has on your emotions and mental state.

Alternatively: Alter Your Diet

The alternative to dieting is to alter one’s diet. It is a more long-term action that is based on determining what is good for your body, mind, and soul when it comes to food. Choose to make good eating habits. The idea is rather than making strict guidelines as to what you can and can’t eat, and limiting your intake to lose weight – rather than that – try to eat a healthy, well-rounded diet. Then to lose weight, eat slightly less of what you would normally and increase your activity levels!

Good Habits

You have to decide what you can consistently live with, and what you can live without. You already know which things are healthy and good for you, and which things aren’t. Most good eating habits can please both your mind and your body, but you’ve got to think for yourself, not simply follow a prescription laid out by someone else. That being said, I will go through a few recommendations.

• Eat that salad that is offered to you before your meal. If you can stand salad, try to make a habit of going ahead and taking it. It’s good for you, you’ll eat a little less of your meal because you’re not as ravenous, and you might even feel a little better about that pizza you eat afterwards.
• Don’t skip dessert if you have a sweet tooth! I would go nuts watching everyone eat dessert without me. I need my sweets! So guess what – I don’t skip dessert! No, it’s not good for me to intake too much fat, but it’s good for my soul to have that dessert. I try to take small portions if I’m trying to lose weight, but I don’t skip it.
• Cut down on soda. Of all the nasty things we put in our bodies, I think soda is among the worst. There is almost no redeeming quality to it. But we do so love it, right? If you can stand it, try cutting down on the soda. Limit yourself to a few less sodas per week, to start. I would recommend drinking water instead, but if you are like me, you hate water. You may need to change to something a little easier to handle, like sweet tea (which has sugar and some of the caffeine you’re missing from that soda!), juice, or milk.
• Water yourself as much as you can handle. Believe it or not, water really does help fill you up. So if the health aspect isn’t enough, maybe you can force yourself to drink it because it will help you eat less. It’s hard to have too much water. Take in as much as you can, even if it’s an extra glass per week.

Zen Habits posted on their blog recently about The Simple Way to Stick to a Meal Plan, and there are some really good hints in there, such as eating real, whole foods that you love. I find the author’s 1800-cal meal plan a little extreme, and more towards the “dieting” end than simply altering your diet, but I would still highly recommend the read.

Do you have any thoughts on the matter?

I mentioned in another post recently that my friend Lisa is gearing up her team to participate in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure. I wanted to remind you, if you haven’t already, to consider checking out Lisa’s blog. I’ve heard that she’s got some interesting information (discount?!) up there about the Walk, especially for anyone interested in participating. Of course, you can still visit the team’s profile at the 3-Day website to help them out.

I want to take a moment to mention an old friend of mine, who I have recently learned is participating in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure walk for breast cancer. I knew Lisa from church and highschool marching band when I was just starting highschool, and she has decided to do this walk because, like many of us, she has friends who have been taken by breast cancer. She does it in memory of them, and in support of the people who are fighting with breast cancer currently.

On her blog, Perky and the Tits, she talks about the steps she’s taking to prepare for the walk, which will take place in early November, along with some other interesting stories. But one of the biggest steps she’s working on is the financial contribution she still needs for her team to be able to participate. If you would be willing to donate to the Perky and the Tits team for the 3-Day, you can do so by clicking here, and then clicking the donate button on the left hand side. The team still needs quite a bit to achieve their goal, and every dollar helps! Your donations will also be tax-deductible.

And now, I’m off for the weekend! See you on Monday!