Donut Weight and Mental Health

In the past month, donuts have helped me lose weight. Let me explain.

Last fall I decided to finally spend some time letting my injuries heal. It meant running very little and taking several breaks from running altogether.  I tried to keep up my fitness through weight training, calisthenics, elliptical, and stationary biking, but unfortunately I still managed to put on about fifteen pounds between last October and the end of January.

Besides cutting down on running and eating more than I needed (especially snacks and sweets), one major factor in my weight gain was medication. People with mental illness are especially susceptible to weight gain, and medications are a major culprit. I'm on two medications that both have weight gain as a side effect, and another medication that causes increased appetite. It's no surprise that maintaining and/or losing weight is difficult.

 While doing research to find ideas for losing weight, I found out that over 80% of people with mental illness are overweight or obese. Reasons for this problem include lack of social support, poor motivation, embarrassment at being seen exercising in public, and medications. The good news is, while there are difficult challenges to overcome, people with mental illness can lose weight.

A study that gave people with mental illness three workout classes per week and one weight loss/nutrition class per week showed promising results. Many of the patients lost weight, with 38% losing 5% or more of their body weight. You can reading about the study on the PsychCentral Website: People with Serious Mental Illness Can Lose Weight Too.

Reading the study was encouraging to me, but after trying from the end January to the end of March to lose weight, I wasn't finding much success. In college when I ran cross country, I weighed about 150 lbs. While I don't necessarily need to be that light again, I'd at least like to get close.

So, I set a goal of getting to around 155 lbs. I planned to lose about a pound a week until I reached my goal, but by the end of March the scale hadn't budged. That's when donuts came in.

I've always done best with diet when I some sort of goal other than the weight loss itself. In the past it's been eliminating or reducing sweets. This time, I decided on eliminating or reducing snacks. But, I also wanted to give myself a reward.

Enter the donut. Since I had a ways to go to my weight loss goal, I decided to  reward myself with a donut when I weighed under 165 lbs. I weighed about 172 at the time, and after several weeks, I got to reward myself with a donut. I love donuts. I get my next one when I crack the 160 lbs mark.

Run well.