Surprising Ways to Boost Your Mood While Dieting

Well believe it or not, you can get a bit whiney and have a change in mood while dieting. It is a biological thing as well as psychological. Here we will touch a little on both and then give you some effective and simple tips on helping it.

The psychological reasons you have a bad mood while dieting

Dieting is a psychologically distressing thing. It is something, that when it is not looked at in the right way, will certainly get your brain going! But it’s normal, because your thoughts and emotions will be going between you being able to do this and not being able to do this. It is a very disruptive force especially when you are having an off day and maybe you fell off the wagon a bit and ate the wrong way or maybe you had a bad day and didn’t get to the gym.There are simple ways to combat this mood while dieting and we will get on to that in a minute.

The physiological reasons for a bad mood while dieting

There are physiological reasons for this that come from the changes in diet. When you calorie restrict yourself you are taking nutrition away from your body and your brain. Your body goes into compensation mode and you are left feeling spent. There are two things that are affected by your mood in the body when you diet. The first thing is your blood sugar. When your blood sugar fluctuates it will make you cranky and moody and even weepy. The other part that is affected is your serotonin which is your happy chemical. You need certain nutrients to keep this going and calorie restriction throws it off.

Surprising ways to boost your mood while dieting

There are several ways that you could boost your mood while dieting.

1. Eat! One of the fastest ways to hurt your mood while dieting is to starve yourself. Ever feel hangry? That’s just one of the symptoms you can feel from starving yourself.  Many people who follow starvation diets or even intermittent fasting diets discover that it exacerbates symptoms of fatigue, anxiety and depression.
2. When you eat or look for a mood boost, you should look for what gives you energy and not stimulation. The foods you eat should be eaten in the way that you would eat to keep your blood glucose up. This means fresh fruits and vegetables and snacks every three hours max up until two hours before bed or not after 7pm.
3. Eat fish! Or anything that is rich in omega 3 and 6 fatty acids. It is a food for your brain that you need in order to process the good chemicals you need to boost mood and you don’t have to eat a ton of it.
4. Enhance your brain’s serotonin, melatonin and dopamine by eating foods rich in vitamin D and take the supplements as well. This is the one vitamin that houses your three mood driving chemicals and without it you may subject yourself to dementia as you age. So this and the omega 3 and 6 will do a lot for you besides boost your mood while dieting.
5. Eat whole grains. Whole grains are rich in many vitamins – including B vitamins – which are associated with healthy mood support. Many people excessively cut into their carbs when they are trying to lose weight.  This means that their intake of whole grains can often fall below the ideal.  Since whole grains often contain nutrients that are difficult to find elsewhere, it’s good for your mood while dieting to eat a healthy amount.
6. Don’t deprive yourself of the treats you love.  It’s true that you are not going to be able to gorge on chocolate, other candy, chips, cakes, pizza and other junk food all the time.  However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t ever have them again.  You’ll need to exercise control over your portions.  You’ll also need to eat these foods more rarely.  However, if you cut out all your favorites, you’ll feel deprived and this will hurt your mood and your motivation.  At the end of a hard week, have that piece of cheesecake.  When you’re out with the girls, have that glass of wine.  Just don’t have them every day or have too much of them at a time.