Posted by King Vultan on June 26, 2004, at 11:42:26
In reply to Nardil and food craving, posted by Tai Chi on June 26, 2004, at 4:55:04
I'm on 90 mg/day of Nardil and observed a gain of nine pounds in two months. However, I can't say that I've really had an enormous increase in appetite; though, there may be a slight increase from my baseline, with some other factors also at work here. One is that my previous antidepressant was desipramine, which works on norepinephrine and had a significant negative effect on my appetite. Perhaps my weight was unusually low because of this.
Then, as I withdrew from the desipramine and went through the two week washout period before going on to the MAOI, my appetite absolutely soared--an effect I've noticed in the past when dropping appetite suppressing drugs (such as Effexor in my case--my apologies to the many people who suffer weight gain on this stuff). Then my appetite started declining late in the washout period, and I went on to the MAOI.
Now, with the Nardil, as I said, I didn't really experience a huge appetite increase, but what happened is that I experienced terrible insomnia and started getting up much earlier and got in the habit of going up the street to a restaurant and having a hearty breakfast instead of my typical quick bowl of cereal. I found that the calories, fat, and carbs really made it much easier to push through the morning, but on the negative side, I have to believe this had something to do with my weight gain.
So what am I doing about it, which I assume is the part you're really interested in? I cut back somewhat on the fat and calories, while increasing my exercise fairly drastically. I typically run 10-15 miles a week and have gone to 15-20, one week even going 25 miles. Being that active and with a body mass index in the normal range, I feel it would be unwise of me to cut carbs, and I have lost two or three of the nine pounds in about the last 5-6 weeks.
The discouraging thing about exercise, however, is that at my weight, even that week where I ran 25 miles did not burn off one pound worth of calories. Better to not eat that appetizing food to begin with and avoid the resultant problem of it turning to fat in the body, but for most people, this seems to be much easier said than done, particularly if the person is on a blasted drug that has a side effect of increasing appetite.
Todd
poster:King Vultan
thread:360589
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040621/msgs/360648.html