I hate nutrition more today

So as I may have mentioned I take a drug that helps me sleep called Seroquel. It's hardcore, to quote Wikipedia, "an atypical antipsychotic approved for the treatment of schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder." No, I'm not psychotic or schizo, I just don't sleep well and one of the off label uses for Seroquel is sleep aid, and it's unmatched in being able to help people who can't sleep otherwise. Since being on this drug I have been able to sleep better than ever before, but it does have a downside: weight gain. Ever had a full meal and then been just as hungry after that meal as when you started and have a desperate compulsion to continue eating? Yeah, that's Seroquel. I'm hovering around 205 lbs lately, which is really bad on the BMI scale, though not actually that bad in reality. Still, I'm bigger than I want to be.

I have fought tooth and nail to bring my weight back down. I eat much less food that I really enjoy (read high flavor high calorie) and much more reasonable stuff (fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, etc). I have slowly been cutting calorie sources out of my diet, losing sugar where I can, eating healthier breads, not eating those chips with my lunch, limiting my happiest food (desert) to one small serving a day. However, I never saw much of a difference in my weight.

A couple of weeks ago recently, I decided I needed some downtime from my very restricted diet and just ate whatever the hell I felt like for two weeks. It was glorious and delicious. So much bad food. And you know what? I didn't see a difference in my weight either up or down.

After that came my return to the UD Capoeira classes, where I decided to increase my workout schedule to a ludicrous 5 days a week. Granted I've only managed four days a week so far, but that's still doubling my already challenging workout schedule. I've been at this for weeks. Net result on my weight without increasing the amount or badness of the food I eat? No change.

I was starting to think I'd gone insane. Maybe I was sleep eating? Maybe I was unconsciously eating an additional 1000 calories a day somehow? Maybe my 15 minute walk that I've been forced to skip more often due to the new job was actually burning more calories than I thought? Then I turned to the Internet.

As it turns out, people on Seroquel who have a problem with weight gain have noticed a weird phenomenon: they gain weight to a point they hate and then that weight remains constant no matter what changes to diet or exercise are made. The only people who saw any weight loss were the ones who cut back on Seroquel or transitioned to different drugs.

Apparently if I ever want to not be 205 pounds I have to cut back on my only hope of sleeping at night. I don't have to work out or eat differently, I just have to stop sleeping. This is a really, really big problem for me, as I'm not willing to go back to the land of sleep deprivation, but I really want to get some weight off. I'm doing well in Capoeira, but if I lost even ten pounds I could be doing so much better, not to mention I'd look better.

For now, at least, I'm going to stick to the status quo. I may not be happy with my weight, but at least it is stable and not disgusting. We'll see if continued increased activity over months has some long term gains or not and, come my next doctor's apt, see if there aren't any new viable sleep aid choices.

I hate nutrition

I may have bitched about this before, but one of the side effects of one of the drugs I'm on is weight gain. I work out and do my best to eat right, but it's ever a problem for me feeling like I'm carrying more weight than I should. Because of this, I'm careful to try to eat better most of the time. Recently I started eating at Moe's and became a big fan of their burritos. I didn't want to look up the caloric info on it, mostly because I was sure it was going to be bad and I was going to have to eat them less. However, when I finally looked it up, even when I included every single ingredient, the burrito was less than 450 calories. I was pleasantly surprised. Then, just because I was there, I glanced at how much the 2 ounces of queso I had was, expecting bad things. 150 calories. Really, not that bad. So overall, 600 calories, not bad. Then I looked at the tortilla chips.

600 calories? Six the fuck hundred calories? For a few chips? The burrito and the freaking cheese sauce combined equals some chips? God dammit. So now I guess I just get a burrito. I hate nutrition.