When Ethan and the others say that antidepressants make you gain weight, what do they actually mean by that? From what I understand the only way you gain weight is when you burn less calories than you eat. So if I were to start taking antidepressants, but didn’t change up my diet or physical activity, would I still somehow start gaining weight?
Posted Oct 17, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC
Yes. It changes the physiology of your body, metabolism included.
They make you overeat - sometimes in a very robotic and addictive way. At least from what I know
I can answer this one. Antidepressants (at least the one I was on) stimulate weight gain but massively increasing your appetite. On remeron I could eat double the amount of calories I actually needed in 1 day, and would literally still be starving after. I was SO hungry. It was insane. After a week of being off it my hunger levels were back to normal and I immediately stopped gaining and slowly went back to my previous weight (in the time I was on it, I had gained 50 pounds). What sucks is that it actually really did help with my depression and I was a lot happier on it. ☹️
it's like when you take adderall it makes you have no appetite so that can make you really hungry . i've taken medication before that makes me so fucking hungry i eat anything in site
They increase your appetite which causes overeating. It can be hard to lose weight when you’re constantly hungry.
I've been on Lexapro for 5 years now and the main cause of weight gain is the increase in serotonin which can increase appetite and but in my expereince it just makes it harder to feel full, so you're in a weird way where you're kinda hungry all the time.
With proper diet and exercise it can be managed. 2 of Ethan's worst nemeses. It doesn't help that Ethan is in his 30s where losing weight by dieting alone becomes harder.
I actually lost a bit of weight on lexapro. I also have a lot of gastrointestinal issues and rarely eat more than once a day unless I’m drinking which I can’t do at all if I’ve taken my medication in the past 24-48 hours. 😒
Different for everybody
I gained weight on Rexalti and on Lexapro. My body is used to lexapro now but it’s very very hard to lose weight. Lexapro does not seem to work for me but I’m scared that getting off it will make me worse and I’m already struggling a lot
Every body is different. In general, you’re right. Weight gain is caused by regularly consuming more calories than you burn.
For some, depression is associated with loss of appetite, so a boost in serotonin might cause an increase in appetite, which may cause weight gain.
Or, a serotonin boost might give someone more energy, which causes them to be more active, which causes an increase in appetite. When I started running regularly, I gained weight at first, because the increase in exercise caused a major increase in appetite.
Here is an article about SSRIs and weight gain you may find helpful.