Weight Gain and General Wellness

Obesity is strongly linked with depression and other mood disorders. It sounds like obesity isn’t as simple as eating more and moving less.

After I dropped 50 lbs, I looked back at the period of 4-5 years during which I put on that much weight. It wasn’t too hard to figure out that overeating wasn’t the whole story.

First, the most obvious change was the lack of sleep. Because of heavy school work, I had to cut down my sleeping hours. On average, I slept about 5 hours a day while I knew I was an 8-hour person.
Second, maybe the sleep deprivation made me very cranky. I got angry easily over trivial things. I almost constantly tried to find a way to channel my anger out.
Third, I felt so overwhelmed and helpless at times. It seemed so many things were happening in my life and I couldn’t have a firm grip on anything.

It only became clear to me many years later that I was at a very low point in my life during that period. It is impossible to pin down whether the weight gain led to bad moods or the bad moods caused the weight gain. However, it is reasonable to say that lugging 50 extra pounds surely didn’t make me feel one bit better.

Is weight loss all about burning more calories? If so, why do we keep hearing stories about people who have lost tons of weight, but end up gaining every pound back? Maybe burning more calories, like taking diet pills in some sense, is only a short-term fix for weight problem. You can temporarily lose weight or suppress your appetite. However, such short-term solutions may not have long-term impact in weight control unless other problems in one’s life have been taken care of at the same time.