{"id":742,"date":"2010-04-08T11:18:04","date_gmt":"2010-04-08T18:18:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hundredtenpounds.wordpress.com\/?p=742"},"modified":"2010-04-08T11:18:04","modified_gmt":"2010-04-08T18:18:04","slug":"drugs-and-weight-gain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=742","title":{"rendered":"Drugs and Weight Gain"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a personal subject for me, but something I wanted to share here. I\u2019m no stranger to depression and since I was 14 years old, I was on some sort of antidepressant. I\u2019ve tried almost all of them out there over the years. I had no idea that the pills could be contributing to my weight gain. It was never discussed!<\/p>\n

In my \u201cFat History\u201d (About Me Page), I spoke about a revelation I had during a sweat lodge. I got off the pills. For the first time in years I didn\u2019t take anything and I started to lose weight. I lost my 110 pounds\u2014all off pills. Because of the weight loss, and my increased activity, I was HAPPY. All the time. I had energy. I ate a healthy diet. I was so active, I rarely sat still to even watch TV (just ask Michael\u2014it drives him nuts that I can\u2019t sit still for one TV show :)). I didn\u2019t need pills! I was convinced that exercise had cured my depression. And it really had!<\/p>\n

Last year was a hard one for me, however. There were a lot of changes in my life; new relationship, insecurities, job changes, financial changes, friendship changes, and finally a new move. All of these things overwhelmed me at one point (last March). I found that I wasn\u2019t suffering from depression BUT I was having horrible episodes of intense, crippling anxiety. I was reluctant to take any pills\u2014exercise had worked for me\u2014but exercise wasn\u2019t working for the anxiety like it did for the depression.<\/p>\n

I spoke to my doctor (who like most HMO\u2019s is very quick to prescribe something instead of try to fix something). I was prescribed Celexa. I was told it was similar to one I had taken in the past. I took Celexa for about 9 months or so. And I gained 15 pounds.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After losing 110 pounds, I was absolutely devastated to gain 15 back. And the worst part? I WAS STILL DOING ALL THE SAME THINGS I DID BEFORE.<\/strong><\/em> I still worked out like a fiend. I still watched what I ate.<\/p>\n

I read a fantastic article about reversing the effects of antidepressant weight gain. Check it out here: http:\/\/www.divinecaroline.com\/22189\/96350-reversing-antidepressant-weight-gain\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One part of the article really caught my eye: \u201cSome animal studies focusing on drugs like Zyprexa that cause substantial weight gain suggest that the drug interferes with other brain chemicals such as histamine or a sub-group of serotonin-containing cells, thereby promoting hunger.\u201d That\u2019s how I felt! All last year I was always hungry. I thought perhaps this new hunger (and insatiable hunger to boot) was because of my new running program. I started researching \u201cweight gain while training\u201d and found that other people had similar issues. But I was still kind of baffled as to why I was gaining so much.<\/p>\n

I asked my doctor if I could be referred to a nutritionist to see if there was something I could do. She refused. She said that since I wasn\u2019t obese (anymore) and not diabetic, insurance wouldn\u2019t cover it. What? I\u2019m still frustrated about this and STILL haven\u2019t seen the nutritionist.<\/p>\n

Since I was refused the nutritionist, I started to think that maybe it was the pills? I decided to stop taking them. The article states: \u201cWeight gain ranged between fifteen and forty pounds for those on antidepressants and between seventy-five and 125 pounds for those on mood stabilizers and atypical antipsychotic drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here’s a picture of me on New Year’s Eve. Now that I’ve started losing the weight, I can REALLY see that 15 pounds.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

New Year's Eve<\/p><\/div>\n

Since I\u2019ve stopped taking the pills, I\u2019ve lost 3 pounds. I\u2019m pretty happy about that. I\u2019m a work in progress. My goal is to lose those 15 pounds I gained last year. I\u2019m doing everything right. Now it\u2019s time for my body to realize that and catch up!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Hike 2 Weeks Ago<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a personal subject for me, but something I wanted to share here. I\u2019m no stranger to depression and since I was 14 years old, I was on some sort of antidepressant. I\u2019ve tried almost all of them out there over the years. I had no idea that the pills could be contributing to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[44,75,91,101,104,154,267],"tags":[328,359,529,8757,8758],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}