Hey guys, I have a bit of a different video for you today. Today, I’m going to go over my experience with antidepressants and weight gain. My hope is that this video can help at least one of you!
Hey you guys what’s up my name is sydney welcome to my channel or welcome back to my channel i’m glad you guys join me for this video this video is going to be a little bit different than my typical content today i’m going to be talking about my experience with antidepressants and weight gain this video is going to be more so focused around the side effects of
My antidepressants namely weight gain and less about my story with anxiety and depression mostly anxiety i’m gonna say that for a different video the whole history of my anxiety because that deserves a video in itself it’s a long history my medicine is primarily for anxiety but in the ssri class they typically work for both depression and anxiety but anyways the
Reason i’m gonna be talking about this is because nothing else maybe it can help someone if either it could give you the push you need to get help and know that you’re not alone because i don’t think that there should be a stigma around mental health i’m a big proponent of being open with struggles that we may go through and honestly i feel like talking about
It is the best way to get rid of the stigma and then two if you’re considering going on medication i think i’ve had an experience with four pills i think i’m talking mostly about three different ones and maybe you can learn from my experience but that being said i do need to disclaim everyone’s body is different everyone reacts differently to medicine so just
Because i have a certain situation with certain medication does not mean you will have the same responses that i did and also i don’t think that medicine is for everyone definitely go talk to a doctor and decide what treatment you think is best for you it’s just the route that has worked best for me i don’t always think weight gain is a bad thing i think a lot of
Times weight gain is necessary and it kind of was for me um so i don’t want my waking story to have a negative connotation to it and i am going to be talking about like my specific weight so if you weigh the same amount as me i’m not trying to say anything about your body i’m just talking about my experience with the medication i’ve taken and the weight gain
That i’ve experienced and honestly just what i’ve learned because it’s it’s been i’m going to be going through like four ish years so buckle up we’re gonna be talking about a lot in this video i do want to start talking about this stuff more on my channel so if you like it please make sure to let me know in the comments below and let me know if you want to see
More content like this and i will happily do that for you let’s get in with the video i have taken a bunch of screenshots of pictures over the last four years just to give you guys um an image of like the time in my life that i’m talking about so i’ll have pictures pop up on the screen throughout while i’m talking i’m going to start talking to you guys about
The first medication i want to touch on and that is well butrin i did take another medicine before bellevue trim but i didn’t have any noticeable side effects from it i’m starting with wellbutrin i’m going to start with march 2017-ish because when i was looking through my pictures that’s when i really saw the differences in my weight basically march 2017 i was
On wellbutrin and i was really skinny that was definitely a side effect of wellbutrin for me personally i lost a crap ton of weight i want to say when i started taking wellbutrin i was probably around 118 and by the time i got off of wellbutrin i was 105 and just for reference i am five foot five i’m pretty sure 105 is i think it’s slightly below average on the
Bmi scale but needless to say i was very skinny just for my my body and my body type i have or at that point i had little to no muscle so you could definitely tell i was getting smaller and smaller on this medication i remember one situation i used to eat rice cakes with peanut butter and bananas on it every single day before class in college and i remember when
I was on wellbutrin there was a day i couldn’t even eat like my favorite breakfast i was physically gagging i just could not eat it i was like repulsed by food i had no appetite whatsoever wellbutrin took my appetite from me and i would try to force myself to eat but food just was like my body rejected food and also on side note while butane just did not work
Well for me i do have mostly anxious tendencies with the bit of depression i would say the wellbutrin really made me more anxious honestly so on top of me just losing a bunch of weight i was also more anxious than i was before starting it what really set it over the edge though and got me to that 105 weight was at the same time i was on my butcher and i was going
Through a breakup i was really sad i kind of cope by not eating so already i had no appetite and then i was really sad before my breakup so i wasn’t eating even more on top of that so that’s when i really got down to like 105. i just knew i needed to switch medicine one because i didn’t feel good mentally and two i didn’t want to be as skinny as i was i really
Was struggling with the fact that i had no appetite and i felt like i was just getting skinnier and skinnier and there’s nothing i could do about it i want to say i switched around july i’ll put a picture up this is like me in july 2017 right as i was switching my medication i believe and then the next medicine i switched to was zoloft i’m not a doctor i don’t
Know how these medications work i know it’s an ssri and i’m pretty sure wellbutrin is something other than that ssri so zoloft worked really really well for me mentally i felt better than i had in a long time i was really anxious about school but outside of that i feel like my anxieties were lifting i just feel like i was feeling a lot better mentally so in that
Aspect zoloft worked really well for me but nothing can be perfect so with zoloft i actually had the opposite effect of wellbutrin i gained a bunch of weight on zoloft so i think i was on zoloft from like july 2017 to march 2018 and within that time frame i gained over 30 pounds i think i gained 35 pounds so i was around 140 when i was taking zoloft and i gained
Weight quick i don’t know what it is i think a lot of it is zoloft really ramps up your appetites it has the opposite effect and i feel like in my mind i was like well i need to gain weight anyways because i’m so underweight so in my mind i was like justifying eating a lot with the fact that i was underweight and also this time period in my life is when i discovered
Starbucks so i was getting like venti coffee frappuccinos every day that didn’t help it was really the perfect storm i gained 35 pounds in a couple months and also in this time period of my life i started working out religiously i want to say in january 2018 and when it was january 2018 that’s when i probably weighed around 1 40 at that point and i wanted to see
Progress in the gym and at this point i started eating as well as i could january 2018 i was watching what i was eating i was monitoring my calorie intake and i was eating in a deficit but i still could not lose weight and it was just so frustrating to me that no matter what i did no matter how many calories i burned in the gym no matter how little food i ate i
Couldn’t lose weight so it really became evident to me that zoloft was prohibiting me from losing weight not only did it make me gain weight but it also made it incredibly difficult to lose weight and that was just so frustrating i remember crying all the time because it’s just the worst feeling to feel like you don’t have control over your own body i just want
To talk about a few things i remember from my zoloft days in december 2017 we actually went dress shopping for my sister courtney and i vividly remember and i have a picture of me of this to prove it i was crying at dress fitting because i just felt so not confident in my body just i had never been that heavy before and i just it was really weighing on me and i
Just felt so ugly honestly and i hate to say that because if you’re 140 i don’t want you to feel bad about yourself i’ll be honest with you i weigh 140 right now so i just felt so bad about myself and i remember that vividly and i just didn’t want to feel like that anymore i wanted to have control over my own body and that’s why i needed to change medication that
Is actually what prompted me to eventually switch off of zoloft i’ll have a picture of myself in like march 2018 this is me at the end of my zoloft journey like i said i loved how i felt mentally and almost talking about this out loud it sounds like i had a really bad relationship with food i really don’t think that i did have a bad relationship with food i just
Think i was working out more and eating less to try to compensate or overcompensate for the effect zoloft was having on me and it just wasn’t a health healthy lifestyle to be living and i wanted to be able to get to a weight that i wanted to be sustainably without having to outdo myself so once again i switched medication and all of this to say this video doesn’t
Show you anything just take from it that you can’t just expect the first medication you take to be the magic pill or any medication in that sense even if you find the perfect medicine for you you still have to work on yourself you’re still going to have moods and emotions and anxieties so i just want to put that out there medicine does not solve everything one
And two a lot of times there’s trial and error because no doctor knows how medicine is gonna work for your personal body chemistry so just keep that in mind a lot of times there’s trial and error but hopefully at the end of it it will be worth it so this might have been a stupid decision but the next medicine i switched to after zoloft was wellbutrin once again
So i switched to wellbutrin in like march of 2018. once again i think my mind set when i was switching back to wellbutrin obviously with the guidance of a doctor i’m not just like popping pills getting off the street but i was thinking like okay i know going into wellbutrin what i’m up against if i’m aware of that going into it then i can purposefully eat more
So i thought since i knew i was not going to have an appentite that i could like control that somehow which that doesn’t make any sense and surprisingly the if my weight loss was less the second time around i think because i was being more mindful about what i was eating and i was forcing myself to eat a lot more i did lose weight still i think i went down to
Probably like 120 on wellbutrin 115 which was a healthy weight but i definitely still did lose weight on wellbutrin which as you heard from my doloff story i wasn’t mad about so on that aspect wellbutrin if you like are aware of the weight loss that it can occur you can stop it to an extent provided that you’re not gagging when you’re eating your food which i
Wasn’t the second time around but the reason well butrin wasn’t working for me a second time around is part of the reason it worked for me the first time around i did not feel good mentally like i don’t know why i thought it was a good idea or my doctor thought it was a good idea for me to go back on wellbutrin i think the second time i was on wellbutrin i really
Put the pieces together that this just did not work for me mentally because i still did not feel good i felt more anxious than usual um i have a picture of myself crying driving i was obviously stopped i was in traffic and there was an ambulance and i was just sobbing because i was so anxious about the ambulance and where the ambulance was going and i would just
Cry about everything then there’s a picture of me crying watching bird box bird box is a great movie by the way i love it but it made me so anxious just because i had anxiety which was made even worse by will be trin so everything would make me anxious everything would make me cry and at the time when i was taking these snapchats of myself i don’t know why i was
Taking them i don’t think i put it together that i was so well butchering at that moment i just i this weird thing i like taking pictures of myself like every single day on snapchat so i can look back and see where i was like this day four years ago whatever so i think i was just doing it for like memory sake but now looking back at it now it’s so evident that
It was the medication just was not working for me once again i changed medicine because it was not working for me will be trend just was not the answer so i think i switched january or february of 2019 and i switched to the meds that i’m on now which is lexapro so i’ve been on this medicine for over a year the reason my doctor chose lexapro for me is because i
Told her mentally i loved zolaf it worked really well for me but i didn’t like the weight gain side effect and i wanted to be able to have control over that aspect of my body so she thought that flexipro would be a good fit because it isn’t in the same family as soloft and there’s just like through different patients she’s worked with she’s seen that it hasn’t
Been as highly um tied to weight gain as zoloft is so fingers crossed alexa pearl would have worked for me i tried it out and luckily i can tell you that lexapro has been working for me since i’ve been on the last year i have not gained weight other than when i’ve wanted to gain weight so like last year winter of 2019 i wanted to gain weight because i was bulking
And i was able to gain weight if i want to lose weight and i actually put effort into it i can lose weight and i feel really really good mentally on lexapro like i swear people who knew me when i was on wellbutrin would not even recognize me now on like obviously i still have anxiety i still have emotion i mean i’m able to cry all those things i have normal human
Emotion but my anxiety is not over hyped like it was on wellbutrin and i honestly i’m like a new person and it’s amazing i never knew that i could be this chill it’s crazy but that goes to show like keep trying until you find the medicine or the therapy or whatever it is that works for you because when you get to the finish line you’ll be like wow so worth it so
Definitely it was worth it and once i switched from wellbutrin to lexapro i was able to start gaining a little bit of weight i finally started to see like muscle definition because at this point i’ve been working out for at least a year so i was finally starting to see like improvements in the gym muscle definition i was finally feeling better mentally i had
Control of my weight i could if i wanted to lose weight i could lose weight if i wanted to gain weight i could gain weight and i feel like i finally found a medicine that worked for me i don’t have many pictures of me currently because i didn’t go like anywhere in 2020 but i do have a video of me squatting 180 last week there you go thank you before i started
Working out i was a twig i had no muscle definition so i’m proud of where i’ve come i can’t say it’s because of the medicine but it’s kind of tied to it since we are talking about weight gain and weight loss just finding the right medicine allowed me to see the results i wanted to see in the gym so that’s just another thing to note here’s a picture of me when i
Was on wellbutrin and me when i was on lexapro there’s quite a difference and i don’t want this video to make you feel like weight is everything because it’s not by any means definitely what’s most important is your mental health but when it gets to a point that your weight is interfering with your mental health maybe that’s time when you need to make a decision
What to do about it i don’t want this video to come off like wait’s all that matters because it’s definitely not i just know that weight gain and to anxiety or antidepressants is like a topic i feel like a lot of people going into the medicine world would want to know about i just wanted to tell you guys about my experience throughout the last four years or so
And i hope that it can give you some insight and make you feel one less alone or two make you feel like if the medicine you’re currently on isn’t working for you like there’s hope for you i hope you guys like this video if you did please make sure to like subscribe and come back next wednesday at 11 a.m eastern standard time you know where to find me and i didn’t
Even point out but i have a new guest with us today i don’t know if you can tell one toby two hilbert he lives on my face there he is there’s hilbert he has been here for the last week and a half and i’ve put off recording this video because he just wanted to be center stage and i wasn’t here for it hi i’m sydney and hilbert and that’s toby so also let me know
If you guys like this video if you want more content like that let me know in the comments below also i’d be curious if you’re comfortable if you want to share about your experiences with medication or mental health in general in the comments feel free to do so and we can interact there so i will see you guys next week peace out bye haters peace
Transcribed from video
My Experience with Antidepressants and Weight gain | Zoloft, Wellbutrin, and Lexapro By Sydney Nicole
