Nutrition and Depression

When I was in graduate school, I took a nutrition class as an elective.  Being newly recovered from my anorexia, it was fascinating to me so I wanted to learn more about nutrition.  We had to do a presentation and I wanted to do mine on eating disorders but for some reason that I now forget, the professor declined to allow me to choose that topic.  Instead, I decided to do a present my talk on nutrition and mental health.  I honestly knew very little about how nutrition affected our mental health and specifically my depression, and I was surprised by all that I found out during this project.  This was all before the internet so the resources that I had were not the wealth of what we have now.  I had no idea what I would find or if there was even a link between our nutrition and our mental health, but I went off searching for those answers. 

In short, I found that there was some evidence at the time(1993) that supported what we eat can impact our mental health.  Of course, my main interest was depression since that has been my struggle since childhood.  I was curious, could what I eat make a difference with my depression?  Could avoiding certain foods help me struggle less?  This project was just the tip of the iceberg for me on this journey.  Over the last almost 30 years, I have learned a lot of how my nutrition helps or hurts my depression.  

Society hasn’t always recognize the mind/body connection, but we are slowly getting there. I am a big advocate of healthy eating as a tool to help support out mental health.  I have learned a lot over my lifetime and know what types of food I need to avoid or limit in order to help control my depression.  I wanted to share some of the things I have learned and how I eat in order to better control my depression on a daily basis.

Almost 3 years ago, I switched to a Whole Food, Plant Based(WFPB) way of eating. This is eating whole, unprocessed food and avoiding all animal products, oil and a few other items.  It may sound a bit extreme, but I have honestly never felt better in my life.  I still have some episodes of depression, but I feel as though I am able to pull myself out of them faster and that they don’t get too severe.  It has truly been life changing for me both physically and mentally.  

I’m not saying this is the only way to eat to help manage your depression.  My goal is to encourage you to explore how you feel as you eat.  Be mindful of what you are eating, how you feel while you are eating and how you feel after you are finished eating.  By tracking how the food you eat makes you feel, you can start to eliminate those that make you feel bad and add more of the foods that make you feel good.

For me,there are quite a foods I know I need to avoid or limit.  One of my biggest depression triggers when it comes to food is refined sugar.  I eat very little.  I do eat a piece or two of dark chocolate each day but that has a lower sugar count that’s many other types of candy. Plus, it does have some positive health benefits. Or, so the scientists have said!   Eliminating animal products has also really helped.  I became a vegetarian when I was 18 or 19.  I never really started eating meat a ton after I recovered from anorexia.  I did start eating some meat such as chicken and pork in my 30s because I was just so busy raising kids, but it definitely took it’s toll. My depression was increased during that time.  I truly didn’t connect it to my eating habits at the time, but rather on the stress of raising 4 sons.  I also notice a difference in my depression when I eat highly processed foods.  Do any of us even know what is in our processed foods?  Think about all of the chemicals and preservatives that are in a lot of the foods on the shelves of the store.  These ingredients can affect every aspect of our health, so watch what you eat. 

What I have learned is that the food I eat can have an impact on my depression.  In 2017, I watched the documentary, Forks Over Knives, and listened to how different people switched to a WFPB way of eating and had immediate improvements on their physical health.  I don’t recall anyone discussing improvements in their mental health, but I wanted to give it a try.  I also wanted to give it a try for my fibromalygia pain, so I decided to go all in and see how it might help.  

So, I did. I committed to 6 weeks to see if it would help my inflammation pain.  It did! But, it also helped my moods.  I’m not perfect.  I will eat foods that aren’t WFPB, but when I do, I scan feel it.  For me, clean eating is one of the easiest things in my life that I can control and helps my depression.  When I eat fresh fruit, vegetables, whole grains, beans and other whole, plant based foods, I feel such a strong stabilization in my mood. When I eat something high in refined sugar like a donut or piece of cake, I can feel my mood quickly begin to slump. Fried foods and heavy foods such as pasta with creamy sauces, can also trigger my depression.  Over the years, I have just learned that the more pure and healthy the foods I eat, the better I am able to help myself manage my depression.  

Track what you eat, how you feel before, during and after you eat and look for the connections.  Try to do this tracking between 7-21 days in order to get a good sense of how what you eat may affect your depression.  To learn more about the Whole Food Plant Based way of eating that has helped me so much, you can check out my favorite resource: www.ForksOverKnives.com.  They have incredibly tasty recipes and lots of information on how this way of eating could help you physically as well as mentally.  

Understanding how our mind reacts to what we put into our bodies can be a big part of our recovery and management of our depression.  Many people believe the myth that eating whole food plant based is expensive and complicated.  However, it doesn’t have to be that way.  Go check out the Forks Over Knives website and do a little research of your own.  Again, this may not be the way you need to eat to help your depression, but I wanted to share on how much finding the right way to eat for me has helped me manage my depression.  Track what you eat and how you feel and you will slowly realize which foods you need to eliminate and which foods which you need to increase your intake. The connection is real.  Managing our depression is both a physical and mental process.  Small changes can make a big impact.  Start slowly and build from there as you discover what foods work for you and which foods don’t work for you.  Start today!