I’m back on Zoloft and I sadly really need it. I don’t want to gain weight as I have from Zoloft in the past. Will intermittent fasting help? Anyone with experience?
Not a doctor, you should eat with meds and watch the calories and volume and stuff. I have half a protein bar minimum with my meds or I get sick. It’s like 100 calories (200 if I eat the whole thing)
Side note. Don’t be sad that you’ve done the work to find a successful medication plan. That’s a big success and dean. Been through that game 1000 times.
I started taking sertraline but haven’t seen any weight gain. In fact, seems I have a huge loss of appetite and have to force myself to eat to get protein and calories in. I already eat small portions…but it feels like it takes me hours to eat something. Plus I’m down 7lbs, so definitely no weight gain.
I am doing 16:8IF with eating a low carb diet, and I track 90% of the things I consume so I can track CICO. No exercise atm either but that will change when I head back to work next week because my job is go go go.
I would definitely track CICO (Calories in calories out). The calorie deficit is what will make you lose the weight. But if you are looking to maintain, just track what you are eating. Like if you’re body needs 1500 to maintain don’t be eating 2000-2500 a day. You’re gonna gain weight from that plus the meds. I would aim for a calorie deficit to keep maintaining without gaining anything from side effects + exercise. That’s just my personal opinion. I’m not a dietitian or nutritional professional.
The studies on weight gain and SSRIs are actually quite old! Several newer meta-analyses have shown no weight gain with the majority of SSRIs. A few had maybe some studies that were convincing, but the weight amounts were very small - between 1 and 3 kg. Source
Happily, as you can see from the study - Zoloft (sertraline) is an SSRI minimally associated with weight gain! Graph
So all that to say - IF should work well for you, for weight loss or maintenance. And hopefully you won’t need to prevent weight gain, as Zoloft shouldn’t cause it :) best of luck friend
Honestly the best thing to do is to head off the weight gain before it starts, lower your food intake and start exercising if you do not already. IF will not magically help you keep the weight off, it works as a tool to lower your calories consumed by limiting when you eat. It is that calorie deficit from eating less food that will help you with weight gain. Be aware that you can still eat too many calories while doing IF so you have to be your own monitor and ensure you are not just eating more food in a shorter amount of time.
Have you calculated your BMR, your TDEE, and determined what a good calorie deficit is for yourself?
I don’t know specifically why Zoloft causes weight gain, but most medications cause weight gain by increasing feelings of hunger and decreasing how satisfied you are from food, resulting in the individual eating more.
If you are aware of this and monitor how much you eat to ensure you’re not eating excessively in comparison to before you took Zoloft, there’s no reason for you to do IF
Just from my general experience when I was on Lexapro and didn’t experience weight gain, I think I had appetite suppression to be honest. But I also felt less anxious and didn’t feel the need to stress eat. Don’t fret! Zoloft will be worth your well being!
First time posting in this sub, but I take sertraline and I’ve been doing IF for about 5 weeks now (in addition to making a good faith effort to track my calories and moderately increasing physical activity). According to the scale this morning, I’ve lost almost 10 pounds since I started, so the sertraline definitely isn’t stopping me from losing weight.
The only thing that I have to work around is that my doctor recommended I take the meds with peanut butter to help with some of the side effects of the meds, so that’s 200 calories down the drain every day and is something I have to plan my eating window around.