I too am prone to depression, and when I lived in Europe and before that, I had to take meds. In Eastern Europe, I also had SAD very badly. However, when I came back to Ohio, my system recognized that it was much lighter here, and the SAD I used to experience in Europe is gone.

I have found a problem with dieting while depressed, which can actually be used to make it better.I'm not talking so much about checmicals in the fo od, but about eating behaviors and patterns.

If my eating is out of control, I feel that my whole life is out of control. I feel hopeless, and can't get motivation to do anything. If I'm already depressed, it feeds into it and makes it worse. Then I overeat (I usually overeat when depressed or bored) and feel like crap for having done so, and get more depressed, and overeat more, and so the spiral goes.

However, I have learned that if I can even get one day of eating in a healthy way, and if I can repeat that pattern for a few more days, it usually makes me feel better about myself, and I don't feel so out of control of my life, and I start to feel some hope, and the depression feels lighter and I feel better.

The problem comes in when I've been doing well, and then slip or overeat or see that I've gained instead of lost, or some such thing. If I'm not in depression mode, it's not that big a deal. If I have an underlying depression, a bad moment becomes a bad day, and could develop into a bad week if I allow the feelings of darkness and hopelessness to overcome me.

For the past month, I've been plugging away, in a mild depression, trying not to mess up my WOE. I did on New Years, but with the help of this forum I was able to not get into a downward spiral, and a bad weekend remained there...I didn't carry it into the future with me.