Depression with anxiety + obesity

Yes, but slowly I've been making headway. My answer to anxiety has been eating, but a big part of it for me has been cannabis use. It has been my go-to in my efforts to self-medicate myself away from depression and anxiety, and it's useful in preventing seizures. Side effect? The munchies.

I've fought excess weight all my life (I'm 70 now). For the longest time my approach was to deny myself food. It never worked long term. I just thought about the food I was denying myself. Add to it, nearly everyone in my circle was overweight. Food was all around me. Really. Good. Food. and insufficient "won't" power.

I managed to lose weight slowly over the course of my working years by firmly changing just a single behavior. I decided that I would never put any money into any vending machine at work. No more Doritos, no more Little Debbie's, no more Coke, no more pre-packaged microwaveable subs... I went from 240 to 200lbs over two years just with doing that. Then I retired. Not nearly as physically active, I'd climbed to 220lbs. I had to change a behavior again because there were no more vending machines in my environment.

I chose this --- when I get the munchies, or when I'm in anxiety mode and I find myself in front of the refrigerator door, I grab a piece of fruit. That doesn't do the trick by itself, but it is the signal that I have to get busy with something. Consequently, I'm getting things done around here, those nagging little problems, spackling and a paint touchup for the wall anchor that I removed, assembling and cutting up my wife's collection of empty Amazon boxes for the recycle bin (can't hardly keep up with that), de-cluttering the home office desk, or giving attention to what ever project I may have already started. Little jobs for just the right moment.

It's my good fortune in that I am a musician, and time with my instrument fits "busy" very well. "Busy" isn't physical exercise, it's a distraction and re-focus that buys me time away from eating. It's part of the reason I leave so many unfinished projects around here.

An extra edge is that I have a couple of monster-sized Bluetooth players, and Spotify and Sirius Radio. With the right soundtrack, not even the God-awful Christmas light string repair was mundane with Ozzie cranked up. At 220lbs less than two years ago, I'm now 178, and no longer classified as obese. All I did was to change one behavior, one that isn't even related to food. No pills, no pushups. It's how I did it.