Weight gain from stopping Zoloft

I was taking zoloft for 3 years and stopped it about 2 months ago. In the past 2 months I have gained 15 pounds. My doctor restarted me on the medication for anxiety today and I was wondering if it would make me lose the weight or at least prevent me from gaining any more.

[RefractoryMan]

That's a bit of a twist on things. Most of the time people say that taking their SSRI caused them to gain weight.

I used to take Zoloft, but that was back when I was in my early 20's and weight is easy to keep off at such a young age. When I stopped Zoloft I didn't just stop meds, but rather switched to Effexor so I never had any time off every antidepressant to see if that would cause weight gain.

I think if you want to lose weight you can do it with or without Zoloft. I take a lot of meds because my depression is very resistant and these meds do cause weight gain. Because of this I can not eat more that 1100 calories a day or I gain weight. I must count my calories very carefully. It is pretty sad that a man who weighs 168Lbs must consume less than half that of a normal man my size.

I do it by mostly eliminating nearly all carbohydrates from my diet. In doing that I can eat more fats and meat as well as veggies and still not gain weight. I also use a morning Protean shake for breakfast because it's only 150 calories and has lots of protean plus it supresses hunger. I try to make it to the gym here and there, but you know how difficult it can be to motivate yourself when you suffer depression like we do.

Beware of fruit. People always think fruit is so good for you, but they would be wrong. Fruit has a lot of natural sugars which are nothing more than simple carbohydrates. Eat them and your body will convert that sugar into fat.

To compensate for the nutritional value of fruit just take a really good multi-vitamin everyday. You have to do that when limiting calories.

Just remember.... Carbs make you fat and they can be found in almost everything. Avoid them or limit them and you will loose weight for sure. When your body doesn't have enough carbohydrate in it then the body has no choice but to start using fat as a fuel scource. Once it starts using fat for fuel then you will burn fat like crazy.

The big down side is that carb depravation can be difficult. Our bodies naturally crave junk carbs and after 2 days on a low carb diet the cravings are pretty bad, but after a week they go away. You still want to eat a little complex carbohydrate. Stuff like oatmeal, whole wheat products, yams, brown rice (No potatos not even baked) You can eat a little bran flaks too. Just be careful because even with these complex carbs you must eat them in small portion. This will keep you from getting too weak. As for any meat, you can chow down with no limit even things like pepperoni and sassage. Just be sure that your not eating carbs when you do this unless it's a very small portion of complex carb like maybe a 1/4 cup of brown rice.

If it's not a complex carb don't eat it. Complex carbs do not cause the sharp insulin spike like simple carbs do. That's why simple carbs made from dough are so bad. They cause a very sharp insulin spike and the bodies immidiate response is to take that overload of insulin and store it as fat.

Remember all that and also this..... Breakfast and lunch can be larger portions, but dinner should always be small portion and never after 6:00pm. No food after 6.

I have also started taking Xenedrine after every meal. It's a diet suppliment, but it doesn't contain any Ephederine so it won't aggrivate your anxiety or depression.

You can buy it at Walgreens and so far it's working pretty good for me and my doctor looked at the ingredients and said it was safe to take with my meds. I like it because it gives me just a little edge if I slip on my diet.

Don't worry about the Zoloft issue. You can drop the weight if you follow what I said. It's not easy, but It can be done. You just have to stick with it.