Potato chips. Ice cream. Cupcakes. Pie. Cookies. Chocolates. Fried anything. Food can be the enemy when we cave to cravings. We who are bipolar are prone to eating our problems. And taking some medications, like Seroquel, can result in weight gain.
A 2008 study by nurses Susan Simmons-Alling and Sandra Talley published in The Journal of American Psychiatric Nurses Association found that 35 percent of people with bipolar are obese — the highest percentage among any psychiatric condition. A 2005 study showed that bipolar individuals are also more likely to have eating disorders, such as bulimia and binge eating.
Some drugs change your metabolism or cause your appetite to increase. Mood stabilizers like Lithium and Depakote are notorious for causing weight gain. Antipsychotics such as Abilify, Geodon, and Zyprexa are known to cause weight gain only if taken alone, all according to the Mayo Clinic.
To answer the question posited in the headline of this post: Yes, drugs can have an effect — but only if you let them. Sure, you may have to be more proactive in watching what you eat and making sure to get in those 10,000 a day. But you don’t have to sacrifice your physical health for the benefit of your mental health. You just have to work a bit harder — and it’s worth it.
I’ve developed a beer gut in sobriety even though I’m not drinking beer. As a recovering alcoholic, I can’t drink, so I feel like I can indulge in other ways. Plus, I have bipolar and I take Seroquel, one of the biggies that causes weight gain.
Those first two years of sobriety were filled with pizza and ice cream. One time, I was at an AA meeting and the speaker mentioned that her sponsor told her that anytime she feels like a drink, she should drink a milkshake. I took that advice to the extreme and started drinking a milkshake a day. Bad idea.
It goes without saying that exercise helps. I work from home, sitting in an office chair all day, so I rarely get out and walk around, especially when temperatures are averaging eight degrees, as they were last week. In the summer, I do a lot of walking and so am significantly trimmer. But I’m ready to have a stable, slim weight again.
At my estimate, I’ve put on 15-20 pounds, going from a size small to a medium or large and a waist size of 30 to 32, depending on the clothes. It’s time for me to shed some pounds, so I am embarking on a new diet, one that recently helped my bipolar dad to lose 14 pounds. It involves eating fruit in the morning, a salad for lunch, and any type of meat or fish for dinner.
I haven’t started my diet yet, but I plan to on February 1, and hope to lose 15 pounds in one month. I know it’ll be a long journey, but I’m committed to staying on track.
Who’s with me?
