Fight Depression with Food

Open your mouth and get ready to smile!

Depression is one of the most misunderstood conditions. While it is a frequent cause of suffering, many people who live with depression are embarrassed of their condition. Because of this, they're often hesitant to seek help.

If you find yourself suffering from the effects of depression, you don't have to suffer alone. And you may not have to take specialized medications, either. In fact, your kitchen cupboard may house everything you need to overcome bouts with depression. Read on to learn about a few foods that will help you overcome your struggle with depression on a daily basis.

Fish

As if omega-3 fatty acids didn't have enough benefits (it has been found to fight against heart disease and even Alzheimer's disease), it seems this fishy sounding, heaven-sent oil also helps ward off depressive bouts. According to a 2002 study, participants who downed a gram of fish oil every day during the study cut their depressive symptoms in half. More fish anyone? (On top of getting omega-3 fatty acids from tuna and salmon, you can also pick some up by grabbing a handful of walnuts or flaxseed.)

Oats

When you need a brain boost and a mood equalizer, nothing does it better than whole-grain oats. Filled with vitamins B6 and B1 and folic acid and available on practically every shelf at the grocery store, whole-grain oats put you on the fast trek to improved mental health. At the same time, you'll also enjoy lowered cholesterol, reduced risk for heart disease, and improved immune response when your body finds itself up against a nasty infection.

Rice

With plenty of vitamins and folic acid, rice is a great way to regulate your mood over time - but you've got to stick with brown rice. Because brown rice is a low-glycemic food, it causes glucose (sugar) to make its way into your bloodstream slowly and surely, preventing you from having those miserable mood swings that come from sugar lows. Since you can slip some brown rice in practically any meal, it's easy to make sure you get plenty of the brown goodness!

When there is no food in your hand, beat depression by forcing a smile, enjoying a funny movie, spending time with loved ones, exercising, and hanging out in the sunshine for a while.

Cabbage

It may not make its way to your dinner plate too often, but if you're battling with depression, a serving or two of cabbage may be just what your mental health ordered. One of the ways it helps you fend off depression is by also fighting stress. More cabbage means less stress, less worry, less anxiety, less depression. So slip some in your salad today, and watch your stress and depression melt away!

Canola

Okay, so you probably aren't going to drink a quart of canola oil, but if you get desperate enough, you just may. Because multiple studies have shown that depression is more common in individuals with low levels of vitamin E. Since canola oil is rich in vitamin E, it's a good idea to reach for the bottle of canola when cooking up your next meal.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

If you're struggling with depression and plan to fight it with your fork, you should also be leery of foods that can cause you to sink deeper into depression. Some of the most dangerous foods to your mental health include the following:

• food with lots of fat
• food with lots of sugar
• food and drink high in caffeine
• food with low nutritional value

In other words, your tendency to head to a fast food restaurant and top it off with a quart of ice cream won't do your mental health any good. Rather, it will do just the opposite.

Healthy Cooking for 1 or 2

Because coming up with healthy meals for one or two people isn't always easy.

Whether you're a bachelor, bahelorette, newlywed, or are spending a weekend on your own, the idea of cooking for yourself or you and just one other person can be frustrating. You don't want to wind up with tons of leftovers you'll never eat, so you wind up at the fast-food place again.

But if you want to eat better by cooking for one or two, there is hope! Read on to get some tips on cooking for the smallest of groups without winding up with enough leftovers to feed the entire neighborhood.

Think Ahead

The bane of any cook's existence is figuring out what to cook at the last minute. Avoid this problem and the subsequent trip to a restaurant by planning your meals a week in advance. Once you have your meals planned out, head to the grocery store and buy everything you'll need for the week.

Not planning to eat all that broccoli during one meal? Get ready to eat some of it in the coming days. But it doesn't have to be eaten as leftovers warmed up in the microwaves. Instead, find a complementary recipe that could use a bit of broccoli. This way, you use everything you cook, but it doesn't always take on its original form and result in you getting burnt out on broccoli.

There is no sincerer love than the love of food. -George Bernard Shaw

Divide and Conquer

Ideally, your meals will use the entire piece of meat, bag of bread, head of vegetable, and package of other ingredients you use. However, when you're cooking for one or two, this isn't always possible. To avoid having excess food you can't use but have already cooked, split up foods before cooking.

For perishable items, a sealing plastic bag should prevent it from going bad in the freezer for a few days or even a week or two. Non-perishables can be preserved with greater ease, but should be eaten fairly soon after opening.

Get Creative and Social

Doing anything day after day can get a bit tiring. Keep your kitchen prowess from growing dull by changing things up now and then. Grab a new recipe book (there are even some custom made for cooking for one or two people) and give some new recipes a shot. When you're not quite hungry for a big meal, take advantage of your decreased hunger and go for a healthy snack. This allows you minimal preparation and absorbs even less of your daily calorie count.

Or you can make things more exciting by cooking bigger portions. Of course, to do this, you'll want to have more people on hand to avoid an overabundance of food. So invite your friends over to try your new favorite dish. Or make it easier on yourself by inviting them over for a potluck dinner. You supply the main dish and your friends provide the rest! Still have more food leftover than you can possibly eat on your own? Become a hit at the office by supplying lunch for your coworkers once or twice a week. Before you know it, you'll be the most popular person at work.

Welcome Cans

Yes, eating only fresh, whole foods is the best way to provide the best nutrients for your body. But that doesn't mean you should avoid canned or frozen foods altogether.

In fact, if you choose wisely, you can have a very healthy meal that makes use of frozen and canned fruits and vegetables. Going beyond things fresh allows you to save precious time, while making it easier to keep your diet well rounded and full of the colorful foods you need to maintain your good health.

Cream of the Crop

Any nut is a good nut. But some nuts are better than others. If you're in the market for the healthiest nuts out there, go for walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, macadamia nuts, or even peanuts, which are not actually nuts but are legumes. A handful a day should do the trick. Two handfuls will get you even better results.

And remember that even though it ends in the word "nut," coconut is not actually a nut and is jam-packed with that saturated fat that is suspected to be the cause of many a heart attack.

The Big Breakfast Diet

How to lose weight by loving the most important meal of the day.

You know it's the most important meal of the day, but your busy schedule keeps you from getting a good breakfast every morning.

However, one fairly new diet insists that if you make the most important meal of the day the most calorie-laden meal of the day, you may be able to lose weight.

Think it's an idea birthed by the cereal and milk industry? Read on to learn how this early morning diet is supposed to work and whether it can give your body a weight-dropping wake-up call.

Look for 600

The main step of getting into the Big Breakfast Diet is to eat a breakfast with about 600 calories. To make sure your big breakfast goes for the distance, you'll want to fill up on plenty of carbohydrates (Atkins dieters, beware!) and protein. Then, get a move on your day.

According to the folks who praise the Big Breakfast Diet (and those who invented it), eating a substantial breakfast does more than fuel you through the day. It keeps you full until the day is over, effectively keeping you from going after high-calorie snacks that don't do much for your good health. And avoiding temptation is something anyone can appreciate.

All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast -John Gunther

Look for Results

So how does the Big Breakfast Diet fare with real people? To find out, researchers grabbed 94 obese women who were physically inactive and an average of 30 years of age. Splitting the women into two groups, the researchers had one group eat a diet low in carbs. On average, these women consumed a little under 1,100 calories a day. The second group ate about 1,250 calories a day, with 600 or so being eaten during breakfast.

The weight-loss results were about the same after four months. In fact, the low-carb group actually lost five more pounds than the Big Breakfasters (28 compared to 23 pounds). But when the ladies went another four months, the Big Breakfast Diet showed that it was a force to be reckoned with. While the low-carb dieters regained an average of 18 of their 28 lost pounds, those who participated in the Big Breakfast Diet lost an additional 16.5 pounds per person.

Look for Application

Now for the big question. Is the Big Breakfast Diet just what your waistline needs to regain its trim shape? It might just be. After all, getting a dense breakfast filled with powerful protein and carbohydrates keeps you moving strong all day and keeps you from munching on those miniature candy bars on the receptionist's desk.

Whether you decide to go Big Breakfast or not, this should serve as a wake-up call if you've been skipping breakfast or treating it as a lesser meal. While you may think avoiding breakfast isn't going to do anything but give your calorie count a shove in the right direction, think again. Having control over your appetite means eating smart, and it starts with a calorie-filled breakfast!

How to Get It

Jamming 600 calories into your first meal of the day isn't an easy task. Actually, you may be wondering how you could get so many calories into your breakfast. If you're considering the Big Breakfast Diet, you can grab an impressive 600 calories by eating the following:

• a bowl of cereal with at least 8 ounces of milk
•  a piece of pizza (that's right-you can feel good about eating pizza for breakfast)
• a strawberry smoothie
• a couple scrambled eggs with cheese, ham, and vegetables
• your other favorite foods

Sleeping Your Way to Weight Loss

Can catching Zs help you drop lbs?

You've been working at shedding that last five pounds for months, and nothing seems to work. You cut back on the amount of calories you eat, work out twice a day, and say no to every sweet temptation that has passed your way. So why do those extra pounds keep such a firm grip on your hips? It could be your unwillingness to hit the hay.

That's right. According to legit medical research, spending an ample amount of time getting shuteye is essential to helping your body get rid of those unwanted pounds. Wondering how it works? Prepare to be amazed.

Getting Hormonal

Inside your body are all kinds of hormones that are responsible for doing all sorts of things. Two of these hormones, leptin and ghrelin*, have a stronghold on your appetite. In other words, if these two hormones decide to make you feel hungry, you're going to feel hungry. They work by causing you to feel hungry (ghrelin) and informing your brain that you've had enough to eat (leptin).

While these hormones function quite well most of the time, a lack of sleep can result in your leptin levels to plummet and your ghrelin levels to rise. As a result, you feel hungry more than you ought and your brain never has a clue that you've had enough to eat. When this happens, you can only imagine the damage that can be done to all the hard work you've put into looking your best.

Put It to Bed

Now that you're ready to power up your sleep for an easier time with weight loss, you may be wondering how to get better sleep. The first step is to give yourself enough time to sleep. You may be able to function on four or five hours of sleep each night, but most people require more. On average, shoot for eight hours, give or take an hour. It may mean giving up your late night dancing ways or beginning your workout a bit later in the morning, but getting your body's hormones regulated will pay off.

In the event you're already spending plenty of time in bed at night without feeling rested in the morning, you may be living with a sleep disorder. From sleep apnea (pauses in breathing as you sleep) to restless legs syndrome (irresistible urges to move your legs when you rest) to narcolepsy (constant sleepiness), sleep disorders disrupt your bedtime routine and your entire day from the moment you wake up. With proper diagnosis and treatment, you can find the relief you need from your condition and beginning sleeping better and losing weight with greater ease.

*Sleep loss also changes the amount of another hormone (cortisol) produced by your body. Like the combination of leptin and ghrelin, cortisol is also directly responsible for regulating whether you feel hungry or full.

The Other Way Around

Getting plenty of good sleep is essential to your ability to obtain and maintain a healthy weight. At the same time, losing weight is a good way to improve your ability to sleep well.

Why? For a number of reasons.

First, overweight people are more likely to suffer from sleep apnea, a condition that causes the sufferer to stop breathing for prolonged periods, as he or she sleeps. In many cases, losing weight actually results in the individual being cured of sleep apnea.

Another reason weight loss helps you sleep is because of the frequent link between being overweight and suffering back pain. While back pain is bothersome during the day, it can be extremely bad when the sufferer lies down to sleep, making it difficult to fall asleep and stay that way.
So whether you find yourself attempting to lose weight or get better sleep, you can't have one without the other!