Anxiety and appetite.

_Simon_

Active Member
Anxiety can affect your appetite alot, in that in a very anxious state, you find it hard to eat much at all (due to the extreme nausea).

Does anyone have any mental tricks in order to keep eating? (and no i don't mean so much force-feeding and stuffing it down, but just any mental tricks?) Even if it's to help eat a normal amount rather than a bulking amount?

cheers
 
<div>
(_Simon_ @ Jul. 02 2008,6:04)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Anxiety can affect your appetite alot, in that in a very anxious state, you find it hard to eat much at all (due to the extreme nausea).
</div>
I dunno, it sounds like a mental trick to get so anxious that you can't eat...! That's a problem I've never had to deal with.

My life has been so simple and easy, with no worries about tomorrow except making sure what weights I'm going to use.
wink.gif
 
That's interesting, I generally see anxiety associated with over-eating not under-eating. Of course the correct answer would be to try to find the reason of the anxiety to begin with and try to focus on that but since that is not usually very simple maybe spreading the food in smaller and more frequent portions can help. Using shakes can also help. Maybe try adding something you really like to eat to get your cals up even if the macro nutrient ratio is not the ideal: it is better then getting too little cals.
 
, I&quot;m quite the opposite,i tend to overeat. You should try to figure out and get help with your anxiety as it sounds pretty serious.
 
I feel your pain, Simon. I'm going through some crap at home right now myself and eating is a hard thing. I think it's the naturally skinny guys like us who have this problem, haha. Instead of feeding our anxiety, we lose appetite or feel too nauseated to eat.
There isn't a whole lot you can do... try making high calorie shakes with added olive oil, as many scoops of whey as you can fit in it without making it turn into paste, and down it when you get a chance. That has worked for me in the past.

The only other thing you can do is try to resolve whatever issues are causing the anxiety. Easier said than done, I know. Otherwise, just try to stuff in food or shakes whenever you are able to stomach it.
 
I tend to have the opposite problem too, buddy. Anxiety=Overeating.

As most of the guys already said, besides working with it all you can really do is try and see what it is that drives the anxiety/appetite loss psycho dynamically.

You're already lifting and exercising, which in my case tend to diffuse 75% of my anxiety in the first place.

There's always marijuana! But I read that it suppresses endogenous testosterone, so screw that.

I dunno!
 
They're always antidepressants you can take for the anxiety.

I used lexapro for about 2 months for anxiety and to be like the happy dot in the commercials that likes to hang out with the other dots instead of being a loner (It was my wife's request).

The good thing about it, I felt great. I would wake up in the morning freaking smiling for no good reason whatsoever. For the first time ever i felt fully awake right away, usually I'm a zombie for the first hour or two. I was telling all my family that I love them everytime I talked to them lol. Basically I felt unbelievably awesome.

Now the bad things: I would feel tired as hell about 3-4 pm. I would be driving home from work and a few times i had to pullover and walk outside around my work truck to wake up. When i got home, i could literally take a 2 hour nap every day. The other bad thing was i started gaining weight, which was bad for me. Might be good thing for you though
smile.gif
Even my doctor said that was one of the side effects of lexapro. Other then that, i heard that it's a bitch to quit after you've been on it for a while.

The weight gain thing and some other bad things i read online made me get off the stuff and self medicate through weight lifting, cardio and obssesing over the stuff.
 
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">self medicate through weight lifting, cardio and obssesing over the stuff</div>

amen to that! i'm prone to some intense moods my self, but intense weight lifting/nutrition attenuates them big time.
 
yeah, thanks alot guys for the kind words and advice. yeah it never used to be this bad, but nowadays it's the worst it's ever been. i can't eat much because of this intense nausea, but that's a really good idea about spreading out my calories.
And yeah, i tried eating something i liked and it was still really tough, i couldn't finish it all, although i found it much easier to drink my milkshake ;)

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I think it's the naturally skinny guys like us who have this problem, haha. Instead of feeding our anxiety, we lose appetite or feel too nauseated to eat.</div>

yeah very true i think!

yeah i've gotten help for it, counseling and such, it helped a smidgen but now i'm back to square one, i'm workin on it though, it's a tough one to crack it really really is. and i'm not planning on going on meds again, i wanna figure this out once and for all (i'm right into personal development stuff, i think i can beat it hehe), although them meds that cause weight gain would be PERFECT for me haha

thanks again guys, appreciate it.
smile.gif
 
Back
Top