Depression is often reported as feeling sad, helpless, hopeless, and other related emotions and behaviors; this condition is often occurred in people on a diet. These are a few signs of depression:

1. Disrupted sleep, sometimes with unpleasant dreams.

2. Lose appetite.

3. Waking up in the middle of the night with difficulty getting back to sleep.

4. Difficulty of concentrating during the work.

5. Anxious worrying.

6. Becoming emotional or upset for no reason.

7. Become short temper.

8. Exhaustion on waking from sleep.

9. Insomnia

Feeling depressed during a diet could be coming from outside, lifestyle factors that have nothing to do with your diet, or they could be coming from the diet itself because you just don’t think you’re making progress as quickly as you’d like.

If you experienced either of these problems, you need to solve it fast or you’ll never achieve your ideal weight. If the reasons are your environment, people in your life, jobs, or other external factors you need to track the source and solve the problem; but sometimes without you realized, the problem may lie within your diet itself:

1. Studies have shown antioxidants can help prevent depression. If you are depressed you should take stock of your diet and make sure you are eating foods that have high levels of antioxidants: spinach, broccoli, asparagus, apple, blueberry, blackberry, strawberry, black plum, and red beans.

2. Serotonin is the brain chemical used to regulate intestinal movements, control of appetite, mood, and anger. Research shown that eating a diet rich in whole grain carbohydrates and low protein will increase serotonin by secreting insulin, so if your diet restrict carbohydrates you must rethink about it. But remember not to increasing insulin for long period since it may cause insulin resistance.

3. Another study shown that low selenium levels in the diet can lead to irritability and depression; the government is recommend daily intake of selenium by 75mcg for men and 60mcg for women, so you should include food source of selenium in your daily diet such as cereals (corn, wheat, rice), walnuts, beef, chicken, egg, cheese, and tuna.

4. Regular exercise can reduce anxiety, stress and help with weight loss which can ultimately boost self esteem and help conquer depression. You don’t have to run a marathon. Something as simple as a walk can do wonders, as long as you do it on a regular basis.

If after dealing with the points listed above you are still feeling depressed it could be that you aren’t realistic about your dieting goals. Many people will have negative body images when they look in the mirror and will expect overnight results from their diet. Before you let unrealistic expectations sabotage your diet you need to get your head around the whole concept of a diet:

1. With all the wild promises floating around about losing 10 pounds in 10 days it’s easy to get discouraged. You have to remember that these testimonials are the extreme cases, not the norm. Few people will lose that much weight that fast on a healthy weight loss program. Everyone is different. As long as you are making steady progress forget about all the hype and just keep moving forward.

2. No matter how disciplined you are or how great the diet plan you are following is, you will reach a point where your body gets used to the new way of eating and your weight loss will slow down. This is normal, don’t panic. Just stick with your plan and stay motivated. You will start to see your weight loss increase again as long as you stick with it.

3. Sometimes you will have a day when you can’t or won’t follow the diet plan due to various circumstances such as party, eating out, getting sick, or just doesn’t feel like doing it. If that happen, just let it go and start anew on the next day; discipline is needed but don’t too strict with yourself, this is also the cause of depression.

Occasionally, feeling depressed and overwhelmed when dieting is completely normal. As long as you are following a well thought out diet plan that includes exercise with proper nutrition you will lose the weight you want to lose. You have to control your negative thoughts or they will make it impossible for you to accomplish your weight loss goals.

Select a diet that contain all food groups from a list of weight loss program by Stefan Vincent to avoid depression while trying to lose weight; check Diets That Work for a guide on how to select a diet wisely and efficiently.