So, today I wanted to write about more practical mechanics of losing weight on Seroquel. I did write about the psychology of it in my halfway post on my blog, but links might not be allowed, so ask me if you want it.

The reason I decided to put this article together, is I didn’t believe it’s possible to lose weight while taking Seroquel. This medication changes your metabolism and your feeling of hunger. So if you will just eat normally (whenever you are hungry) you will start gaining weight — in fact, obesity is one of the most common side-effects of this medication.

Also, there is something to say for food as a way to do mild mood regulation, there is even a term “comfort food” :)

**Between starting Seroquel, dealing with being diagnosed and fired from my job because of it, and moving to America I gained 30 kilos (66 lbs).**

In the post above I already talked about why I wanted to lose and how I stayed motivated. Here I wanted to get into small details and hacks of the process of getting back to normal BMI.

**Tip 1. Don’t make changes you are not able to keep up with long-term.** It took me 3 years to lose my 30 kilos for good. So a bit less than 1 kilo (2lbs) a month. It was not all the same speed — there were months without progress and month with double progress. For example, the first months of covid were no-progress months. But it’s better to lose 30 kilos in 3 years then lose 5 kilos one month, then gain 6 next month, then lose again, and so on (that’s called yo-yo dieting and it leads to gaining weight overall).

So if you can’t quit carbs for the rest of your life, don’t quit carbs. If you can eat a banana instead of a cake some days of the week— that's your next move. Adding on these little new steps you will reach Maximum Sustainable Effort that you can maintain to keep getting stronger and lighter for good.

**Tip 2. You will be hungry and it will be ok.** When I just started losing weight, I read this in one article “Most people think, that if they will fly New-York — San Francisco without a snack, they will die of hunger somewhere above Denver”. I laughed, but there is some truth to this joke — I was so afraid of being hungry and I thought hunger will only grow if I don’t eat.

When I tested it, I stayed hungry for around 40 minutes, and then hunger would subside. And if I drink some water or tea, hunger will subside immediately. So I devised a system. When I first felt hungry, I would make myself a tea (no milk, no sugar), in an hour I would feel second hunger and eat a fruit or a veggie, then with the third hunger, I will actually eat.

It’s one of the most important tricks with Seroquel because we feel hungrier and feel hunger faster. But it’s not what your body needs, it's Seroquel’s trick.

**Tip 3. 3 Types Of Hunger.** Ok, so having a lot of tea and veggies you can fool Seroquel hunger, or as I call it Stomach Hunger (your stomach makes sounds, feels empty, and sort of tries to roll inside your belly). But there are two other hungers: Mouth Hunger and Mind Hunger.

Did you have this experience, after eating healthy all day you just want that salty-salty chips or sweet little donuts? Your stomach is fine, but your mouth drives you crazy. There are 2 strategies I used for Mouth Hunger:

* A lot of spices and peppers in my veggies. You can make comfort food without potatoes if it has cayenne or red pepper flakes.
* One bite of the sweet treat instead of the whole thing — Mouth Hunger is not about volume.

I don’t use sweeteners, because when you don’t use them, your tastebuds adapt and raspberry or grapes start to taste as sweet as donuts tasted before. So instead of one sweet taste of artificial sugar, you have raspberry-sweet, milk-sweet, cocoa-sweet — such a beautiful pallet of joy.

Now for the Mind Hunger: it’s when you ate a ball of popcorn in front of the tv, and then go to cook your dinner. Your brain didn’t register popcorn or Cola or sweet tall caramel latte even if you had a meal-worth of calories in it.

To tame the mind hunger pay attention when you eat. Watch, taste, smell your food, really notice how it make your stomach warm and full. Sit down to eat instead of eating on the go. If you want to just sip something/snack in a car or in front of the tv, choose sparkling water or frozen grapes.

**Tip 4. I started to enjoy food much more since I started to lose weight.** As I mentioned, I used food for mild mood regulation, and (having a mood disorder) it was one of my excuses to eat whatever I crave.

Well, I still regulate mild mood swings with food. But with mindful eating and being a bit hungry most of the time, it takes much less. When it would take a cheesecake to cheer me up, now one oreo does the job. I also now regulate my mood with joyful movement (more below).

In general, I can say that I love food :) It’s not my enemy, it’s not something that I now find disgusting (as some movies show us). It just doesn’t control me anymore. I choose to treat myself within moderation and I set boundaries in this complex relationship :)

**Tip 5. (For women) You can not lose weight with exercise. But you need it in your life anyway.** We have all been there: walk for an hour (600cal lost), then get hungry and eat a burger (800cal gained). Unless you are spending hours a day in the gym, exercise won’t make you lose weight. You will actually lose slowly with diet + exercise than with diet only (those muscles are heavy!)

But you need exercise for something else: joyful movement. It’s your way to get yourself some serotonin that you would previously gain from sweets. In the gym, my gem is cardio: riding a bike or elliptical while listening to RHCP or Queen. It lets some emotions out and leaves me with a feeling of calm happiness.

Outside of the gym, I like to walk. I walk every chance I get and walking time is thinking time for me — allows me to think of a big picture in my photo practice. I used to walk for 3–4 hours in San Francisco every week when it was safe before covid, but little things count too: pace when you brush your teeth, dance while you fry your veggies, and when you are waiting for someone, never sit down in a cafe — take a coffee to go and walk around the block. And also, go for strolls and gallery watching with your friends instead of food-centered activities.

**Tip 6. WeightWatchers, Noom, Metformin.** WeightWatchers is a program I owe 70% of my success. I had the best tear with meetings and trainers, but I never used those benefits, so I think basic tear would suffice. It helped me the most at the beginning of my journey when I needed to eat healthier. Every product has a score of points and you have a daily budget for them as well as some weekly additional points for treats. I think it worked for me because I had some periods of my life where we were quite poor, so both the idea of saving (now points) for my favorite treat and whipping up something tasty from a given set of ingredients was something that I already did well.

Another 20% I can give to Noom program. I am not affiliated with any of the two, but it was honestly money well spent. Noom is basically a cognitive-behavior therapy for food issues (I completely ignored their calorie-counting app, just took their course). Coach (again) was completely useless though. They taught me about many little ways to add activity to my life and helped me escape traps like eating a lot of candy in the evening because I “deserve it” after a hard day, finishing a portion of fries, or overeating just because I blew up my budget anyway.

Finally metformin. You will get it if you have BMI &gt; 27 or if you ask your psychopharmacologist nicely :) Good news: it won’t affect your mood like most diet pills would. Bad news: you will lose weight because your stomach will hurt like hell every time you overeat a bit. Is it worth it? Totally up to you.

**Tip 7. Interpreting Scales Reading.** WW recommends measuring weight once a week, while Noom asks you to start every day on the scales. But there is a trick. You have fat weight and water weight. Water weight can differ 1-2lbs from one day to another. Fat weight is much slower — you need to eat 3500 calories to gain 1lb. Plus there is also the weight of the food in your stomach that confuses everything even more.

So if you overeat at the Thanksgiving table, you might gain +5lb, but in 3 days, when food goes through your system you will see that you only gained 1lb. If you order something salty and drink 2 extra glasses of water, the scale might go up 1lb the next day, and then go down 3lb another day because you went to the sauna. Finally, if you ate a 2000cal piece of cake and then didn’t eat your fruits and veggies, you might actually weigh less the next day, not more. But you now have 0.5lb more fat.

So it’s important to look at the scale, but only long-term average matters, so make sure you have an app that shows this average. The difference from one day to the next is basically meaningless (and not worthy of giving up and eating cake over it:))

In the end, whatever you do, remember, **your body is not the measure of your worth as a person**. It’s only your tool and honestly how it works for you is more important than how it looks for others. Find your healthy and happy lifestyle and your weight will follow. Seroquel or not.