Antidepressants and Weight Gain

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aguilar_k3
aguilar_k3 Posts: 14 Member
edited March 2019 in Motivation and Support
Hi All!

I am looking for success stories for motivation. I gained 20+ lbs on antidepressants and am wondering how easily people were able to lose the weight after going off medication.

As of late 2017, I was at a very healthy weight and possibly in the best shape of my life. I had never been overweight. Then I started citalopram. Over the course of the year, I saw my weight skyrocket despite my efforts at calorie counting and exercise, though I had never had difficulties before.

My GP insisted that citalopram caused minimal side effects and the problem was probably my "lifestyle." The first few months of the year, I sustained the strictest diet I had ever been on--low carb, high fiber, high protein, minimum added sugars, exercise 5-6 times a week--and, although the numbers added up to about a 7 pound weight loss, I lost only a pound or two.

FINALLY, I talked to a psychiatrist with an actual background in this stuff, and she admitted that weight gain is a very common problem with SSRIs--sometimes as much as 50 lbs! I'm glad to no longer feel crazy, but I'm worried about the long term effects on my body.

Anyone else been through this?

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  • mbaker566
    mbaker566 Posts: 11,233 Member
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    it's frequently because a change in appetite not due to the medication itself.

    i've gained and lost on almost all the common and a few odd anti-depressants. the only one that i only gained on was remeron. i was ravenous all the time.

    i only lost on xanax.
  • aguilar_k3
    aguilar_k3 Posts: 14 Member
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    mbaker566 wrote: »
    it's frequently because a change in appetite not due to the medication itself.

    i've gained and lost on almost all the common and a few odd anti-depressants. the only one that i only gained on was remeron. i was ravenous all the time.

    i only lost on xanax.

    From what I've read, it's still not known whether the weight gain results from a change in appetite or to metabolism, but it seems fairly accepted that it may be a mix of both. I personally did not experience a change in appetite on citalopram. Prozac though, which I tried for a few weeks after going off the citalopram, did make me ravenously hungry.

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