A little update on the body front. I shared the below little note with friends and thought I’d share it here too. Sometimes I do have fun and quite enjoy the positive changes that have come into my life. It’s good to share the silly stuff too.
I have a new hobby…having lost 85 lbs I was meeting this fall without a single item of clothing that fits…I’ve taken to stopping at yard sales and shopping goodwill…it’s FUN to reinvent myself with a new wardrobe…and OMG wearing a size 8 is also so much fun…today I even got a pair of size 6 pants…anyway…doing it this way means I can get LOTS of clothes for uber cheap and then see what works and what doesn’t…starting a wardrobe totally from scratch with a totally different body is a TRIP.
You can see before, during and after psych drug photos here — except I’ve lost 10 more pounds since those photos were taken. I continue to do nothing other than eat healthfully and work on healing my injured body. My primary motivation was never to lose weight but rather to get healthy. For me that ended up dovetailing with losing weight and I have to say I’m enjoying it. Getting back the body I had in my youth feels damn good.
Below I’m reposting my psych meds and fat page which can always be found in the drop down navigation menu under nutrition.
PSYCH MEDS and FAT
These are pieces I’ve written on the issue of weight gain and psychiatric drugs. I was always made to believe I was a lazy glutton for having gained weight on psychiatric drugs. I also saw this happen to my clients routinely when I worked as a social worker with people who took psychiatric drugs. I’m here to tell you it’s often simply not your fault while ingesting these drugs. There are however options to taking them in the first place or at the very least most people can generally avoid taking them long term. This blog in it’s greater scope looks at many alternatives that you might not have to take medications for long and ideally, not at all, if you so choose.
You’ll perhaps see that my attitudes change from the first article to the last one, as well, as I come to learn more and more about psychiatric drugs and what happened to me all those years I was taking them.
My pieces on fat vs. my pieces on good diet and lifestyle for holistic wellbeing may at times seem to conflict with each other. This is because I hold a couple of seemingly conflicting ideas as both valid. I suppose its the nature of our paradoxical existence.
Shaming people because they are fat is counterproductive to say the very least. Fat and obesity as experienced in the lives of human beings is extremely complex. While diet and lifestyle can certainly help tip the balance the foods people eat and why they eat them are intimate, deeply personal and laden with psychological significance. People can’t just change these things based on simple desire or will quite often. Appropriate dietary and lifestyle changes are most often a process that involve education, self-discovery and healing.
Also, obesity is extremely complex and the complexity is not limited to the food people eat. Other factors, completely outside of the control of the individual come into play.
Acceptance of oneself as we are in this moment remains the most important thing.
Your brain on exercise — It’s hard to understand why the importance and primacy of exercise is so often overlooked and/or buried in the treatment and care of those who suffer from mental distress. It is nothing short of criminal to not make exercise and diet one of the first thing that is tended to when people are suffering from that which is most often treated in psychiatry
Weight loss and diet after withdrawing from psychiatric medications I’ve not made weight loss a priority AT ALL. Other than having the whimsical desire to lose weight like every other woman in a fat hating culture, I’ve not actually made it a focus, period. I’ve made getting healthy a priority and focus. I eat wholesome, natural, real whole food and as much as I want. I feel bad enough without adding feeling hungry to the bouquet. I do not eat grains as my metabolic issues don’t allow for it. There are a lot of foods I don’t eat, actually. But I do not concentrate on portion control or calorie counting AT ALL. From the foods I do eat, I eat whatever I like and as much as I like. (still I’ve lost 56 lbs)
Psychiatric Meds and Fat May 2007 — Most of us who have been treated with psych meds gain weight, there are a lucky few who escape this side effect, and then many that gain a moderate amount and then what seems a large significant minority for whom major weight gain is a problem. I fell into the last category.
The fat melts away: psychiatric drugs and fat–a commentary April 2009 — So I’m feeling really skinny. I’ve lost about half of the 100 lbs psych drugs put on me. I do not want congratulations! No. Really because it generally strikes me as insulting.
Psych meds make you fat — June 2009 — a response to Therese Borchard who seems to have drunk the kool-aid and believes that you can take psych meds and just diet and exercise and get thin. It’s simply not true for many people. And it’s not your fault if you’re one of those people.
Fattened by pills — Paula Caplan academic writes about drugs that make us fat in the Boston Globe.
The politics of fat — speaks to fat as a broad issue, not just for those who take psych meds. Includes some interesting and informative links.
These archives now span close to five years. They are a record of a time in my life when I was learning and transforming at a rate unlike any other time in my life. I say this as a way of disclaimer. In the earlier years of this blog I am processing shock and dismay. In the early years I am undisputedly angry. I have worked out much of that and see things in a much less judgmental manner now. This continues to evolve. I sometimes want to take down old posts because they no longer convey how I feel, but I realize that they may still be helpful to people who are going through something similar now. The journey got me to where I am today, it’s just odd to have some of it in writing here for all to see.
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PSYCH MEDS and FAT
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