ggperson

I would just like to point out that whether person will be depressed or not is really not up to them.

While I'm sure what u/davidfranciscomusic meant was to give people encouregemnt to fight and find joy in life even in difficult situations, his statement should not be used to shame people who are not able to be emotionally strong and cheerful.

Being proud one's not depressed makes about much sense as being proud for not being in wheelchair.

Systemic reviews have shown antidepressants are only slightly better than placebo, with many bad side-effects. Almost half the people treated with anti-depressants don't show any response.

80% of people who "beat" depression will have a recurring episode during their lifetime. If we tell them to be proud they beat it, we are risking they feeling ashamed when they get it again.

My worry is that very often we point to "sucess" cases in order to demand other patients with chronic conditions, be they physical or psychological, to show the same improvement, determination etc.

I've seen this often with multiple sclerosis, and I'm sure it's similar with other conditions "Well he's out and about being all cheerful, why are you sitting on the couch in darkness wasting your life."

And the answer is because people with same disease have different severities, have different genetic predispositions etc.

I apologize for answering this, it is not my place, so feel free to ignore me.

However, I am 29, and have been housebound for last 6 years and bedbound for more than 3. I have BMI of 19.5, and I eat full 3 meals a day plus snack at least twice a day.

I have achieved this by following low GI way of eating since I was a teenager.

I learned about it from a book by Michele Montignac, a French nutritionist. I suggest you at least read it and make up your own mind.

His idea would be that excerise + low caloric intake is an overly simplistic approach to a complex problem that is a human organism, which doesn't just take food for energy but for everything - from building your hair, to bones, tissues, muscles, eyes...

As you can imagine, since I can't exercise not even a bit, and I am stuck in bed all day long bored out of my mind, food is a constant temptation and I think I've proven to myself that this method works, otherwise I would certainly be obese too by now.

Unfortunately, once you KNOW how your body reacts to which types of foods you realized that 99% of things in supermarkets is not acceptable as human food, which means you are stuck with preparing 3 meals a day from fresh fruits, vegetables, fish, meats and whole grains which is hard work and expensive, but worth it.

You are very sweet :) I just understand that you must be tired of people presenting you with their miracle diets and easy solutions when the reality is a struggle, so I didn't want to annoy you.

Montignac has several books. They all follow the same principles, but I only read "Eat Yourself Slim" because it was aimed at women. Even with that one if you skip the chapter on eating in menopause everything else will still apply to you too :)

The thing I REALLY like with his method is that it is based in presumption that human body has evolved to protect itself from starvation, so if you start low caloric diet to lose weight you will be very unhappy and frustrated with hunger and "Montignac's diet was based on the idea that reducing calories in ones diet triggers a "survival instinct" that causes the body to store fat after losing pounds early in the diet."

The thing is, I believe in science but scientists are fighting so much about this that I still don't know who to trust.

However, even if you in the end decide not to follow Montignac's method, and choose low calories way instead, I believe you will benefit from the understanding of the complex ways food interacts with our body that this book tries to explain in simple terms.

My experience tells me that life is always complicated and difficult to understand and that's why this "calories eaten < calories spent = losing weight" just seemed suspiciously simple to me. And for the first time Montignac offered me at least a logical explanation why you wont gain same amount of weight from a Snickers bar and a plate of vegetables, meat and raw oil that has same number of calories.

I agree. OP made it sound like there are many effective treatments available and one simply has to have a will to try some of them.

I truly hope you have some quality of life until cause and cure is discovered.