7 Tips to Manage Your Weight When Taking Psychiatric Medication

Weight gain is one of the main reasons that people diagnosed with depression and other mood disorders stop taking their medication. Some people gain as much as seven percent of their body weight — or more — from psychiatric meds. In a study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health that was published in July 2006 in the Archives of General Psychiatry, researchers reported that nearly one in four cases of obesity is associated with a mood or anxiety disorder. But following a strict treatment plan that involves meds doesn’t have to mean shopping for a larger pants size. There are effective ways to manage your weight on psychiatric meds. Here are some strategies that you might find helpful: 1. Control Food Portions Skip the diet. Just limit your portions. Restaurants today tend to serve two to three times the amount of a healthy portion. We’ve added 570 calories A DAY to our diets since the late ’70s, and half of those calories can be attributed to large portions, according to research from the University of North Carolina in Chapel hill. “Even though today’s serving sizes can be more than triple what the USDA recommends, they’ve become our new normal, and anything smaller can seem puny by comparison,” Lisa R. Young, PhD, RD, wrote in a Fitness magazine article. I try to carve out an acceptable portion before I dig in, since it’s difficult to determine how much you’ve consumed otherwise. Sometimes I’ll use a small...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Addiction Antidepressant Antipsychotic Binge Eating Bipolar Depression Eating Disorders Exercise & Fitness Health-related Medications Research Bingeing Diet Food Addiction Junk Food Mindfulness Nutrition Obesity self-so Source Type: blogs