Key fatloss upgrades to lifestyle help lift depression....

Today's Post: Monday, 3-7-2011

Reuters Health had a story today on a review of studies of lifestyle upgrades in weight loss programs and found they lifted the mood of the people doing them.

They note the two most likely reasons for this.

The people who did exercise as one of the lifestyle upgrades tended to have their moods lifted most often.

And, social support often helps improve mood. So those programs with groups doing the upgrades may also have helped.

1. The big one is exercise. That’s no surprise.

People who begin strength training improve their self esteem and do right away and do so sooner than they begin to lose fat from the added exercise.

That’s partly psychological from a feeling of being more in control and experiencing that your body can do the exercises.

But, particularly strength training and interval cardio also release more feel good neurotransmitters; and doing the exercises that are vigorous enough they command your attention helps take your mind off more negative things.

In addition, significant health benefits to blood sugar and circulation and heart health indicators also begin to show up even before the fat comes off. This too may help people feel better physically and lift their mood.

The really nice thing is that strength training sessions and interval cardio sessions of 8 to 20 minutes a day at home can make a significant difference.

Or, a program like CURVES for women or a personal trainer or going to a gym where the regular members help each other can help you get started and provide social support. And even two or three sessions a week can help.

2. Not eating or drinking things that fatten and eating foods that actually give you nutrition that do not make you fat also may well lift mood.

If you drink soft drinks or eat sugary snacks or salted snacks made with refined grains several times a day, your blood sugar goes on a roller coaster ride and the lows can cause a bad mood. Conversely eating health OK protein foods and fats and oils with vegetables and whole fruit tends to deliver a much more stable flow of energy. It helps to always eat a protein or fat food with fruit or real fruit juice and eat it first if possible since that reduces the blood sugar boost of the fruit or fruit juice.

These foods along with nonstarchy vegetables fill you up without making you fat.

So with more nutrition and less blood sugar and insulin surges, you feel better, eat a bit fewer calories without getting extra hungry and also lose fat – besides feeling better.

Also, many of these commercial sweet and salty snacks have a high level of omega 6 oils like corn or soy in addition to the extra omega 6 in the refined grains. If you stop eating them and use extra virgin olive oil and take omega 3 supplements and eat wild caught fish high in omega 3, this has been shown to lift mood and prevent cancers and heart disease.

Also, people who make this food and drink upgrade and get more omega 3 and less omega 6 are less irritable. That makes feeling bad from getting into arguments with people you are close to less likely. So, you are less likely to feel bad from doing so.

So, upgrades in what you stop eating and drinking and the healthier alternatives you begin to eat and drink more of instead also can boost your mood in these two ways.

The best news is that if you make these lifestyle upgrades and keep doing them, you keep losing fat and gradually lose more fat than people who stop doing them and the fat you lose never returns!