About fat and health.

[lightningandsnow]

This is just my personal story, but I'm sure there are others like it.

I was recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder. My current medication, Seroquel, is associated with clinically significant weight gain. I just started on it, but if it ends up being one of my long-term medications, chances are that I'll gain around 20 pounds.

Which would put me on the low end of the "overweight" range of the BMI.

My meds keep me sane and alive. They keep me healthy. Wallowing in depression for months isn't healthy. I'd take an "overweight" BMI number over that any day. Lots of medications cause weight gain - the very medications that keep people alive and healthy.

[driver8]

1. My wife has a similar situation as yours.

She was a dancer and always in shape, so the weight gain is really bothering her.

However, she is starting to realize that it is better to feel good than to be thin.

Without the meds, her life (and ours) would be very difficult.

[kudzu22]

2. Do whatever you have to to stay healthy

I'm in the middle of "overweight" and people think I'm skinny as a rail. Personally, I think BMI is a load of hooey.

[Warpy]

3. Exercise, eat decently, and don't smoke

Even the obese who do that will end up far healthier than their thin cousins who are junk food scarfing couch potatoes with two packs a day down their lungs.

I saw a lot of skinny coronary bypass patients. I saw very few lifelong nonsmoking bypass patients.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. The women in my family tend to be skinny in youth and gain weight starting

at about age 40.

The only ones who have defied the trend starve themselves to what has to be the point of malnutrition.

So I'm heavier than I want to be, but I exercise four to five times a week. I've seen plenty of living object lessons in the merits of staying active and involved in the community. Such people tend not to go into a long decline but to stay healthy and vigorous until they drop dead of a stroke or heart attack or develop a fast-acting cancer that finishes them off in a month or two.

[lightningandsnow]

10. Most of the girls I've met in first year university are fucking skeletal.

I'm talking size zeroes here.

And yet they all seem to binge drink and smoke. Hmm.

[krabigirl]

19. Hmm, I ate and exercised just as much on my SSRI, didn't do squat.

[Warpy]

20. Sometimes it's a good idea

to read the body of a message besides the headline.

[soleft]

4. If you're able to exercise and eat healthy don't worry about your BMI

If all your health stats are normal and you feel good - fuck those 20 pounds and anyone else who has a problem with it.

[Zywiec]

7. Weight isn't a health stat?

Who knew?

:shrug:

[Obamanaut]

15. Body fat percentage is better. nt

[Last Stand]

6. Have your blood sugar checked VERY regularly. Can cause Diabetes

even if only taken for a short time. Read up on this med and its side effects.

I have 20+ years in mental health and do not want to undervalue the positive psychiatric elements of this process for you, but I encourage you to read up. Go to askapatient.com and some other sites to hear people's experience with it.

[lightningandsnow]

8. I'm 18 years old and slim-to-average weight..

I know diabetes isn't really a risk for me at the moment, but I know it is if I take it in the long-term. I'll be sure to get my sugars checked frequently. :)

[Last Stand]

9. Not to be alarmist, but no one is not a risk, per se.

I worked with a man who never had a sugar problem before taking Seroquel and within a month, his BSL was over 600--almost coma-level. He is now insulin-dependent.

Just be careful and be healthy. It can be a very good med for some people and it is excellent to normalize sleep patterns.

[Cleita]

11. Our culture seems to value skinny as a sign of attractiveness. You can

be sexy, attractive and overweight. I wouldn't worry about it unless you get too chubby where it's also unhealthy. Historically, women with some padding on them were regarded as more attractive than those who were thin. Go to the museum and look at paintings of women from hundreds of years ago especially Renaissance painting of Venus, who was the goddess of love and beauty. Many men also secretly like full figured women although they won't admit it.

[paulsby]

12. i'm "obese" at 12% bodyfat

why? because BMI uses weight as a proxy for fat.

it is a ridiculous , inaccurate way to measure bodyfat.

[Obamanaut]

14. You wrote this while I was typing mine. Yours is more to the point. nt

[Obamanaut]

13. If you are physically able to do so - exercise regularly. Find out from

your health care professional what your maximum heart rate should be for your age and condition, then find a cardio exercise you can enjoy that will allow you to exercise up to the percentage of that maximum he/she recommends.

Do some weight bearing exercises. I have dumbbells at the house that I use.

Eat a sensible diet.

Worry less about the BMI and more about the percent of body fat. You can gain weight with the above exercise and diet regimen, but it will be an increase in muscle, which weighs more than fat. An 'overweight' BMI number can easily be a healthy 'percent of body fat' number.

Good health to you.

[CrawlingChaos]

16. If you're pearshaped like me...

and tend to carry your extra weight in the hip and thigh, then I particularly wouldn't worry about being slightly overweight since the fat in these areas seems to be less of a health risk. Or so they keep telling us.

[Odin2005]

17. I know a lot of plenty of "slightly overweight" women that are very attractive.

Including my GF. :evilgrin: I find a women with a size 14 more attractive than a woman with a size 4. :hi:

[krabigirl]

18. That's one of the reasons I went off Lexapro.

I use alternative medicine now...won't say much more, but I gained 40 lbs on Lexapro. I've lost it all and then some, but I don't feel as stable. Not sure what to do.