Disclaimer:- this may not work for everyone. I know there’s a huge argument out there about cheat days and how they can lead to binge eating and difficulty returning to a weight loss plan after. This trick worked for me, it may be different for you.
TD;LR- bipolar meds made me gain 5 stone. Found a plan that worked for me and lost it slowly. Back at my goal weight now. Cheat nights made the diet so much easier, and helped me to shed the weight. Cheat days are well worth it and I’d highly recommend them. If you look into my post history, you can see a before and after pic I posted to /r/bipolar.
I was diagnosed bipolar in 2015. At the time I was married and around the 12/12st 7lb mark. Basically I was skinny as a rake and really enjoying the attention I got from it. I’d just got married, my daughter was on the way. Then I got really ill with mania, followed by depression.
Alongside lithium, a mood stabiliser, my doctor put me on Quetiapine (Seroquel) which is an antipsychotic that is really good for bipolar depression. Sadly, it also makes you extremely hungry when you take it, leading to massive weight gain if you’re on a high dose like I was.
The weight gain was slow at first. I perhaps put on a stone to start off with, just by being up all night raiding the kitchen cupboards for anything carb heavy- sandwiches, crisps, ice cream, all that. It’s hard to explain but the medication-induced hunger makes you crave carbs in a big way.
When my wife and I split up. Things really took a turn for the worse. I lived alone and began to buy Nutella every night. I used to have probably 5-6 slices of toast with it, then I’d typically eat the entire jar after that. My body had become used to consuming large volumes of food so I rarely felt unwell after eating.
Then came the winter of 2016 where I got really depressed. I didn’t leave my flat for 2 months aside from going to the shop at night, and I ballooned to 17st. I vividly remember feeling the flab on the sides of my body, rolls and rolls of it. I tried going to the gym for 4 months. I got strong and fit, but my diet remaining the same so I kept gaining. I developed what I believe would be referred to as a binge eating disorder. With the increased dose I was making myself physically sick every night with the amount of food I was consuming. I often ate food out of the bin at my worst.
I told my doctor about this and he agreed to try and switch me to a different medication. In short, it didn’t work but what did happen was that the new drug meant I was able to halve my dose of Quetiapine, so the binge eating subsided. By that point I was 16 stone or thereabouts.
I tried CICO. I lost a couple of pounds, then gained it back. It didn’t really work for me, despite seeing amazing result for people on this forum.
Finally in August last year I found I needed to change. I was getting called fat at work constantly (I work on a psychiatric ward where we as staff get quite a bit of abuse anyway) and my bullying neighbour would dig into me every time he saw me about my weight. I joined Slimming World, a UK based diet plan, after hearing my mum’s friend tell me she’d lost 6 stone on the plan.
I was shocked to find it actually worked for me. I enjoyed the plan and I was able to find foods to keep in the fridge at night to snack on when the meds hit. I lost about 1.5lbs a week, and I now stand before you all back at 12st 6lbs- my target weight.
So what’s with the title? Well, every Friday night after my weigh in I’d have a take out pizza and some of my favourite cookies from the shop. Don’t get me wrong, the influx of carbs make me feel like shite on Saturday morning, but the ‘cheat night’ was enough for me to look forward to throughout the week. In fact, I doubt I would have made it to my goal weight had it not been for the pizza nights!
I was really strict with myself. I ate well all of Friday and got straight back on my plan Saturday morning. For me it worked, for others it doesn’t.
So yeah. Pizza and cookies did it for me. Back to my pre-diagnosis weight and staying strong.
Thanks for listening everyone!
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