@atomicspacebunny thank you for your post. I’ve been depressed for the better part of my life and I think part of it was due to my diet lifestyle.
I can see why the absence of comfort food would make someone feel a bit down short-term. I mean, we all felt happy for at least the few moments of guilty pleasure we felt when gorging on comfort food. I know I was, since I’ve been an emotional eater my whole life, whether I was overweight or skinny.
Being an emotional eater makes all the shitty food your scratch. It’s the only thing that makes you feel good at the moment. So yes, from my experience, doing any diet changes that eliminated my comfort food used to make me miserable for a while. The thing is, at some point it’s over. You finished eating. You realized you didn’t actually wanted it or needed it. You feel sluggish, lethargic, bloated and disappointed with yourself not only for aesthetic reasons but mostly for health reasons. You realize you’re abusing your body and it affects you negatively both emotionally and physically. Doesn’t that make you kinda depressed in the long-term? You never feel healthy, you can’t do things you want to do and could if you were at a better shape and better mood etc.
Maybe part of it also has to do with addiction. Sugar is addicting. Going keto fights that and no addiction is an easy peasy thing to fight.
The beautiful thing with keto is that unlike other dietary changes, it has a tremendous positive effect on your physiology and by extend your mental state.
I have found myself feeling so content physically, energetic and positive on keto that I even forget to take my antidepressants. YMMV but it’s worth sticking to it to see for yourself. Are you still restricting? Replacing your comfort food sessions with a nice fatty meal will take care both of your mental and body struggles. Don’t be afraid of fat.
And, even though ive been medicated for depression for the last 3 years because I was basically forced to, I believe they should be very last resort kind of thing. They don’t resolve anything and can be helpful in extreme cases, temporarily. For example, I weighted a healthy 115lb and after my clinical depression I got down to 80lbs. Every bite going in was like “yo it’s me again!”, right back out. So I was forced to take antidepressants after I was hospitalized. I gained like 30 pounds and struggled for a long time with my weight. I think some of them cause insulin resistance, haven’t looked it up much.
what I did look up was research suggesting depression is also largely an inflammatory condition. Keto woe takes care of that, reducing systemic and tissue-specific inflammation. Prob the reason why many people feel better psychologically on keto after a while.
Give it sometime, do it right and I believe you will be happy with your observations as well. A prescription at this point would just be a bandaid. Re-evaluate later, I’d say. For now KCKO, good luck!