I'm 5'3" and 200 also so I get it. I weighted 120 when I started this; my first 6 months on lithium I gained 40 or 60 (don't remember) pounds and it just continued from there. I've mostly been around 213 but lost weight this summer with decreased appetite and so far it has stayed off. I once got down to 160 and held it for quite a while but then my Seroquel dose went up and up and I haven't been able to lose weight. I'm fairly likely to be coming off Seroquel soon but the replacement drug (Clozaril) can cause a lot of weight gain although my pdoc says she hasn't seen that commonly at lower doses. So maybe I can lose some weight on it? Only time will tell.

What worked for me was well, tapering off Depakote over a long period didn't hurt anything. But I did pretty much a diabetic diet and stuck to it pretty carefully. It helped that I was feeling well and was cooking a lot. I ate a LOT of healthy soups and did a lot of crockpot cooking. Now I want to do that but am not well enough to reasonably be able to follow through with plans. I keep waiting to get stable enough to try again but that's been pretty elusive. At the time I'd had a high blood sugar and since diabetes runs strongly in my family I was motivated. If Clozaril causes weight gain I'm going to try to get my family dr. to let me try metformin to help balance out the screwed up metabolism from the meds.

I have always been jealous of people who can decide not to take a med because of weight gain. I can't do that because they don't work well enough for me and I've low on options for years now. I take what is available and we try to avoid the worst ones for weight. Which doesn't work very well.

IT's a rotten situation.