Overweght but stable- accept being fat or try the SLOWWWW moving diet train

The title says it all. I'm 5'1.5" and 200 pounds. I've tried it all and nothing gets the weight off. The last time I tried, I lost 4 pounds in 6 months. Hardly motivating at all.

I'm thinking if I'm heavy but healthy and just do everything in moderation I'll be okay. It's just so easy to look in the mirror and say F&%$^ it!

ANyone else encounter this? How do you deal?







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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.

That's a tough one. Stability is the most important thing and I can understand the weight thing.

I recently lost 25 lbs on WB, then my pdoc upped my Seroquel, and not only did my weight loss stop in spite of eating next to nothing and being very active, but I've started to gain it back. And I'm eating probably less than 1000 calories a day and doing 3 very physical 2.5 hour shifts at work each week in addition to walking dogs and riding.

The point being, I think that it doesn't matter what you do on Seroquel. I topped out at 182 or 183 and that didn't seem to matter if I binged on junk food every day or was on a strict diet.

When I go off meds, same thing. Doesn't seem to matter what I eat or don't eat. Weight comes off.

This little bit of weight loss has been the only positive thing I've had in so long I don't want to gain it back. The thought distresses me. I'm still overweight, but I like the way I look so much better and I could easily be happy with my body here. But it looks like I have to choose between keeping weight off and chasing stability.

It's a tough one. If I were already stable I might just accept it like I have in the past. I just said on another thread that I always used to say that I'd rather be plump and happy than skinny and miserable.

But I'd rather be skinny and happy LOL. Seriously though, stability has to come first. My depression becomes life threatening. Being skinny is a moot point if you are dead :-/

And I've had periods where I've been very fulfilled and productive while being overweight.

Same here. There are so few options that weight gain is often the most benign side effect.

I understand exactly what your saying. I see your on that lovely drug Seroquel. I love it but hate it. I ballooned up to 205 from meds, and I'm 5'3". After being put on meds for hypothyroidism I lost thirty pounds, but that stupid Seroquel wouldn't allow my weight to budge no matter what I did. Every time I come off Seroquel I would drop a ton of weight. I'm down to 135, but I probably will end up back on it. I have to make that decision, mental health or physical health (Seroquel caused me to be pre-diabetic)? It's so frustrating, I get where your coming from.

I have to admit that I have a great fear that I'll come off Seroquel, lose a lot of weight and then re-gain it as my clozaril dose is increased. If we don't get rexulti samples in the next 3 weeks of course. Then I'll be going down on Seroquel but staying on it and that should be interesting since I made it to 160 while on 600 mg of Seroquel. It's 800 mg or above that my metabolism stops. Inetestingly always at 213. I've rarely hit 215 and never stayed there but 213 has been predictable for severeal years until this summer of weird nutrition and poor appetite.

Well I've been on meds since I was a skinny teenager. I'm 5'3 and 250 lbs.

I hate how I look and weight lose is very difficult for me. I gained 13 lbs on zyprexa.im happy I'm going off of it!!

I know. It's depressing. I don't know what I'm going to do.

Yeah I'm 5'2" and 180 lbs. I was 160-165 before meds, so I've never been thin. I was on Seroquel for a month and half and gained close to 10 lbs and never lost it. I quit taking it because of the weight gain. I'm on Latuda now and have gained maybe another 5 lbs or so. It doesn't help I don't exercise anymore. I need to. Maybe I could lose some, not sure. It sucks. I mainly choose to stick to weight neutral meds. I still have some symptoms, but I'm fortunate that they help enough that I can manage. I know a lot of you are not as lucky

Your on meds that have the side effect of weight gain for "many people"

Meds: 600 seroquel, 1200 Triliptal, 300 lamictal, 20 prozac, 150 wellbutrin, .5 Klonopin, 300mg x3 Gabapentin.

Is your Bipolar stable and are you staying at baseline and enjoying life? If not.. Then its very possible your just on too many meds. Often Pdoc's layer one med on top of the other in the quest for helping a patient. But sometimes a person is simply on too many medications at one time.

I personally would ask my Pdoc about doing a med review and see if you indeed need that many meds daily.

I deal with Anorexia and weight gain was always a NO way for me as that would swirl me into a hellish anorexic episode.

When I was taking meds the only ones that were true weight neutral were Invega and Haldol.

I hope you can find a solution, One should not have to accept being over weight that will cause physical problems just to stay mentally more stable.

Be your own Best advocate.

I think I'm slowly moving into the acceptance phase in terms of the weight gain.

When I went to buy clothes for my new job recently, I had no idea what size I was anymore, and had to find out by trying stuff on. It was the first time in all my life that I ever needed anything with an "XL" label. I was kind of stunned in a numb way standing there in the store, when the "large" belt wouldn't go all the way around my midsection, and then when I slowly tried the extra-large belt and it only fit me with a couple inches to spare. I was just shocked, like it couldn't be real. I also needed new underwear and knew that my next size up would be a U.S. size 8 for women's underwear, and the package had "XL" written on it. I honestly did not feel like I am an "extra large" but I guess I am, just lacking self-awareness because of how suddenly it has happened.

After that experience I think it's slowly been sinking in that I am now officially "fat" and I do feel more apathetic and accepting about it, for some reason. Like it's a battle that I have lost, since I was so afraid of becoming this big, but now I have, so the battle is over and it's time to move on. A feeling sort of like that. Almost feels like a new part of my identity, like I am a stereotypical introverted, fat nerd, who enjoys spending my evenings off in sweatpants, eating pizza rolls and playing World of Warcraft. And that's alright.

However my pdoc gets really worked up about weight gain in her patients, so I am sure she will make a fuss about it next session.

I'm 5'4" and 237 lbs. I've been on so many meds that cause weight gain it's ridiculous.

I decided I'd rather be fat and happy rather than skinny and miserable. Sure it would be nice to get back to or close to my high school weight, but I just don't want to risk it. But then again, I eat mostly junk food, I guess because I didn't care anymore. After my recent physical, I have no choice but to lose the weight. This should be an interesting journey...

I can't stay on meds that make me gain weight because the med may work but I will be miserable because of the weight so there is no point!

I'm five nine and weigh in at 280, and that's after losing sixty pounds over the last three and a half years. Yeah, I'm a big girl and probably always will be, but I'm stable. I've learned to accept that ... mostly.

A low carb, high protein diet has helped a lot, and I'd be even thinner if I could learn to like exercise....

think it's a catch 22, can the weight gain itself make you depressed? I have been overweight most of my life, not even due to meds so when my doc wanted to put me on Zyprexa I absolutely refused. I am glad I did because all the meds were starting to make my problems worse. But as one poster said this is not an option for everyone. I think it's important to be on the lowest effective dose and exercise regularly. Until better treatment is found, options are tough. I would say stay healthy as you can and learn to love yourself, I happen to think a large confident woman is one of the most attractive things there is.

I have a morbid fear of gaining more weight. I have gained about 60lbs since starting psych medication.

My doctors put me on a diabetic medication called Metformin. The idea is that it increase my metabolism and slow down or prevent the continued crawling up of weight in addition to staving off the possibilty of diabetes. I have to say it has been working. In fact I might have even lost a little.

Again, it is called METFORMIN. It's used to reduce blood sugars for those in early diabetes or those not quite bad enough to take insulin.