[Anonymous]

Over the past few months I have been suffering from depression. Stress from that and exams has caused me to lose a lot of weight. I have no motivation to eat until I haven't eaten in so long that I force myself to in order to prevent myself from fainting. I'm not purposefully starving myself, I just have no appetite most of the time so I eat about 3 small meals a week.
I'm even more depressed now that I'm sure I have failed all my exams and my eating habits are getting worse and since I'm not eating much I don't have any energy and am constantly tired.
Any tips on how to overcome this?

[superwolf]

When I was in a similar situation a couple of years ago one of the things I found helped most was just to have lots of stuff I could snack on close at hand (doesn't have to be unhealthy, you could get nuts, dried fruit, cereal bars, that kind of thing), so I could eat little and often rather than make what seemed like the massive effort of having a proper meal. My doctor recommended that I aim for eating five handful-sized 'meals' a day, and not to worry about eating full-sized meals until I was doing better under that plan.

It would be a good idea to discuss your eating problems with your doctor - they'll most likely want to monitor your weight to make sure it doesn't go dangerously low, they might have good advice on what kinds of food to eat (you want to make sure as much as possible that you're not depriving your body of vitamins and minerals as well as calories etc.), and maybe prescribe you some supplements to try and keep you more healthy while you're having these problems. They might also prescribe you something like complan, which is a magical milkshake full of vitamins, minerals and lovely calories, which can be a sort of meal replacement. You can buy it over the counter (expensive though), or get it on prescription.

Hope you manage to get this sorted soon.

[AFineMess]

This may sound weird, but sometimes exercising increases my appetite. I eat less not for the same reasons as you, but more so because if I put on a little, I get paranoid and start cutting down meals and stuff. But when I'm doing lots of dance or exercise I feel like I need to eat more. The reason you don't have energy is BECAUSE youre not eating enough.
Try playing sports or getting active- Exercise produces endorphins (which will make you feel better and HAPPY :P) as well as increases appetite for most people.