Eric Edmeades argues that poor diet worsens depression and anxiety through nutritional deficiencies and stimulants, creating a feedback loop that mental-health treatment alone won't fix. His WildFit program has worked with over 50,000 people, with participants reporting that depression lifted alongside weight loss.
Questions this video answers
Over 50,000 people ("over 50,000 people completely transform their relationship with food over the last 10 years").
Weight loss (poll result: number one benefit).
Increased sense of well-being (reports such as "My depression is over; my long term sadness is over").
Chapters
What is mental health? Well, I suppose you could say it's healthy mentality, healthy thoughts. Right? But here's the thing, question I have for you is what comes first, mental health or nutrition? Because I've had a lot of people say, well, yeah, but if I wasn't so depressed, I wouldn't eat this way. If I was happier, I wouldn't eat this way. So it seems like what we should first do is work with people on their mental health and then we can fix their diet that is wrong. Like that's backwards. It's completely backwards. And I know it seems to make sense that if somebody's sad and depressed, they're going to eat more chocolate. I know, I get it, I get it. It's a terrible feedback loop. Somebody is feeling yucky and then they eat something that spikes their blood sugar and then causes them to feel yucky again. So then they eat more of that thing and the cycle continues. People very often answer their sadness, their depression, their anxiety, their stress with dysfunctional foods. Then those dysfunctional foods go into them, increase their toxicity, mess up their energy, mess up their metabolism, then they feel bad again, then they eat more of those foods. Do you know anybody who's ever done this? Do you know them intimately? Like, I know I've done it. And so I want you to know something, something that we've discovered. Having had over 50,000 people completely transform their relationship with food over the last 10 years. And that is this. Food first. And it's a very simple idea. If you want your brain to work optimally, your body's needs need to be met. You need to have the right healthy fats in your system. You need to have the right vitamins, the right minerals, the right amino acids, the right level of hydration. You need to be breathing proper. And oddly, if you get all of that stuff right, people get happier. I was blown away when I discovered this and this is how I discovered it. We started a large poll of our clients and it was an audience driven poll that meant that they could put their own answers in and then vote on all those answers. It was completely organic. And you know what's crazy? Having now had thousands of people complete that poll. Here's the crazy bit. Number one on the poll. Number one benefit of changing your relationship with food was weight loss. That was the number one benefit. Very. That's good to know. But do you know what number three was? Number three was increased sense of well being. My depression is over. My long term sadness is over. I am happy again for the first time. In 10 years. Those are the comments we're getting from people and very commonly people coming to us and saying, I've just spoken to my doctor and I'm coming off my meds, I no longer need to take my antidepressants. And so I want you to know that if you have ever suffered with sadness, depression, stress, anxiety, the very first thing that you should do is re examine your relationship with food. Because there are two reasons that you might be having this relative to food. One is you might be malnourished in some ways. There may be key nutrients, key fats, key vitamins and minerals, hydration that are missing and that's causing you an energy problem which has an impact on your psychology. The other problem might be that there are chemicals, preservatives and stimulants and things that are triggering your psychology, causing a sense of anxiety. And so what's amazing is, is that when you get those things right, you will find that you just start to feel better and you might end up having a conversation. Just like one of my clients who went to a psychiatrist and said, I'm a bit worried, I feel different. How do you feel? I don't know. It's like I feel. I feel like I have more energy and the world seems a little bit brighter and I laugh at stuff. And the psychiatrist said, oh, you know what it is you might be experiencing happiness. Yeah, that's what it's like for people when they've been dealing with long term sadness and depression. And what's amazing is when you fix your relationship with food and water and air, it lifts a huge weight. Now, I'm not saying that there might not need to be more work to be done, but it'll be easier to do that work when your relationship with food is right. That's why I sat down with mindvalley founder Vision Lakiani and recorded a masterclass on all about resetting our relationship with food. Not talking about diets, not talking about restriction. I mean, how good is that? Let's take somebody who's depressed and now take away all their favorite foods. That's not gonna work very well. Instead, what we've done is created a masterclass that talks about how to manage cravings, how to be conscious of them, how to understand the core hungers the body feels, and how to address them in the most functional ways without having to rely on a bunch of willpower. So join the masterclass right now. Spend this time with me and Vishen and you will see food, psychology and mental health completely differently. And you might just turn an entirely new page.
