When ADHD Medications Cause Weight Gain

Appetite loss and poor weight gain are among the most common ADHD medication side effects, especially during the effective hours of the drug. However, not all children with ADHD take stimulants to manage their symptoms. Kids with co-morbid disorders like learning disabilities, anxiety, or depression sometimes take drugs like tricyclic antidepressants, which boost the levels of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine. Although this class of drugs do not have the same addictive potential as stimulants, tricyclic antidepressants side effects often include weight gain, which can be a source of complex self-esteem issues. What can you do if your child's ADHD medications are causing weight gain?

Consider ADHD natural treatments

Thanks to advances in brain imaging technologists, researchers have discovered a startling fact - depression, learning disorders, and ADHD symptoms are all just signs of the same underlying problem. This underlying problem is called a "functional disconnection syndrome", a condition where the left and right hemisphere of the brain has difficulty working together. In order for the brain to accomplish basic tasks, the left and right hemisphere has to communicate with each other and stay on the same wavelength. If one hemisphere is out of sync or underdeveloped, a functional disconnection occurs, and the individual has difficulty doing basic mental tasks like paying attention. Since the brain also controls other bodily functions, children with functional disconnection syndrome also experience problems with motor skills or sensory integration. A comprehensive ADHD treatment using natural methods can address this underlying problem, effectively eliminating the signs of ADHD and its co-morbid disorders. Best of all, natural ADHD treatments do not cause major side effects like weight gain.

Stock up on nutritious foods

Sometimes, the weight gain is due to increased appetite, another common side effect of certain medications. Instead of satisfying food cravings with junk food and other empty calories, have a lot of nutritious snacks on hand. Peanuts, dried fruit, or toasted peas are just some of the things that can satisfy the munchies.

Encourage good eating habits

The key to eating healthy is balance, moderation, and variety - offer a wide variety of foods that do not have too many calories or too much of a single nutrient. You can do this by:

1) Providing moderate portions. Portion out your child's food and keep the sizes reasonable. This will make it easier for your child to eat the food he or she likes and keep a healthy weight.

2) Eating regular meals. Out-of-control hunger and overeating is sometimes caused by skipping meals. Make sure your child eats three well-portioned meals a day.

3) Eating at the dining table. When your child eats in front of the television or computer, he or she is unaware of how much food is being consumed. Encourage mindful eating by restricting meals and snacks to the dining table.

Encourage exercise

Physical activity not only burns calories and accelerates healthy weight loss; it also releases pent-up energy and balances mood. If your child is not fond of sports, choose physical activities that might interest him or her, such as riding bikes through the park or jumping on a trampoline.

Dr. Yannick Pauli is an expert on natural approaches to ADHD and the author of the popular self-help home-program The Unritalin Solution. He is Director of the Centre Neurofit in Lausanne, Switzerland and has a passion taking care of children with ADHD. Click on the link for more great information about what is ADHD.

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Have You Tried Everything To Lose Weight and Nothing Works? It May Not Be Your Fault

Inability to Lose Weight Due to Inflammation and Hormonal Imbalance

It is a well-known fact that your weight is directly proportionate to the level of health that you can achieve in your lifetime. As your weight increases (especially the amount of weight stored as fat in the body), your health decreases. The likelihood of disease in your future is directly related to whether or not you are "overweight" or even if you are simply "over fat".

One of the main problems with being overweight or over fat is that it causes INFLAMMATION in the body. Nothing is more likely to cause disease to develop in your body than your cells being chronically inflamed. The problem with chronic cellular inflammation is that YOU CAN'T FEEL IT! Our society is so geared toward using symptoms or how they feel to determine whether or not they are healthy, that they are developing disease and don't even know it.

Chronically ill patients with conditions such as autism, sensory integration deficit, Asperger's syndrome, chronic fatigue, cancer, syndrome, fibromyalgia, MS, Crohn's disease, ALS, Parkinson's disease, heart disease, depression, thyroid problems, and many many others have one thing in common - INFLAMMATION! You can carry chronic inflammation in your body's at the cellular level and not even know it! If the problem of inflammation in your body is not addressed at the cellular level, you will NEVER BE ABLE TO LOSE WEIGHT, no matter how much you exercise or how little food you eat. With inflammation in the body, you could fast and drink only water and STILL not lose weight!

Now, for those of you who do not think you are overweight, this doesn't let you off the hook when it comes to preventing disease in your body. Most of you probably think that being overweight is the same thing as being "over fat". This is not true. Many people step on the scale and weigh an amount that fits within the "normals" of the height/weight ratio chart, but are still full of inflammation and storing too much fat. You can weigh the proper amount on the scale and still be carrying way too high a percentage of fat in your body. This is what I am referring to as being "over fat". Being over fat is just as much a problem in creating INFLAMMATION in your body as being overweight!

One of the main reasons that people have an inability to lose weight (even though they have tried every diet and every form of exercise on the planet!) is due to their hormones being out of balance. Now, I'm sure you've heard this before, but keep reading, because you may not have ever understood what that meant. More importantly, you may not have realized that there is something that can be done about it!

As the inflammation goes unchecked and uncorrected in the body, your cell membranes begin to break down or degenerate making you extremely susceptible to all of the diseases and conditions listed above and more. No matter what else you do, you WILL NOT LOSE WEIGHT regardless of what you try until you eliminate the inflammation in your body. This is simply a fact. Your body is an incredible healing machine with a God-given ability to recover from virtually every condition known to man, but if you are really interested in losing weight PERMANENTLY, you must address the inflammation at the cellular level.

There are many ways to do this, and we don't have time to go through them all, but I will summarize the starting point below. The most important components to begin reducing and eliminating the inflammation in your body at the cellular level are as follows:

You must detoxify your body of all the existing poisons and toxins that already exist.
You must stop putting the toxins back in your body once they are eliminated.
You must stop eating the types of foods that cause inflammation in your cells which leads to gaining weight or the inability to lose weight.
You must implement a new, totally different type of exercise that does not involve hours and hours on the treadmill, or pounding the pavement for miles and miles!
You must drink enough pure, clean, alkalized, oxygenated water to flush the toxins from your cells and to give the body the life-giving fluids that it needs.
You must clear your nerve system of any interference that may be preventing the body from working correctly. The brain controls everything in your body by communicating with your organs through your nerves, so if your nerves are bad, losing your health is simply a matter of time.

Let me give you some basic insight into just one of these 6 things in this article. Let's talk about 3 basic dietary changes that you can make beginning IMMEDIATELY, that will begin lowering the inflammation in your body. This, in turn, will allow your brain and your hormones to start regulating themselves properly which will ultimately result in your ability to lose weight and burn fat for fuel instead of storing it on your hips (gals!) or in your gut (guys!)

Remember, this is NOT a diet- it is a change in your eating habits that you need to apply consistently over time in order to achieve the success that you are after. Diets don't work. Changes in your lifestyle does!

Here are the "3 Basic Changes" that you need to make:

Remove the BAD FATS from what you eat and replace them with GOOD FATS
Change the MEAT that you eat and
Remove all the refined SUGAR from your diet

Let's break it down into a little more detail:

Remove the BAD FATS and replace them with GOOD FATS. Bad fats include fats such as hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils, trans fats, and vegetable oils that turn rancid and spoil very easily, especially when heated with cooking temperatures. These bad fats lead to cellular congestion which causes cancer, heart disease, chronic fatigue, and more. The reason is that BAD FATS cause INFLAMMATION at the cellular level. This plays a major factor in all the leading causes of death in the United States. Good fats are the nutrient that is most absent in the American diet, not vitamins and minerals. Good fats are essential to producing hormones, preventing cancer and heart disease, weight loss (yes, weight loss by eating good fats!!), and reducing the levels of inflammation in the body. Examples of GOOD FATS are as follows:


a. Raw nuts and seeds
b. Coconut or coconut oil
c. Olives or olive oil
d. Avocado
e. Flaxseed oil
f. Full fat raw milk and cheeses
g. Canned sardines in oil or water
h. Grape seed oil
i. Cod Liver oil
j. Full fat plain, unsweetened yogurt
k. Almond butter
l. Eggs
m. Cashew butter
n. Raw, unpasteurized butter
o. And many, many others!


Change the MEAT that you eat. There are hundreds of studies that link commercial meats such as lunch meats with cancer and heart disease. The grain that is fed to animals instead of allowing them to graze on grass as God intended, changes the fatty acid ratios and breaks down the good fats and makes them bad fats which cause disease in the body! The accumulation of pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, and hormones in meats are far higher that what you receive when eating vegetables and fruits. They are found is much higher concentrations in meat, and you can't wash them off like you can from vegetables. Your best option is GRASS FED AND FREE RANGE meats that offer the right kind of fats and a very healthy source of protein as well.

REMOVE ALL REFINED SUGAR from your diet. This is not only the sugar that you would spoon onto your cereal in the morning or put in your iced tea, but also includes the sugar found IN foods. Ketchup is over 50% sugar. Peanut butte and mayonnaise are both over 50% sugar by content. You have to begin reading labels in order to get the SUGAR out of what you eat!! 1/3 of all the sugar you eat in a day comes from soft drinks and soda, and the other 2/3 from hidden sugars such as found in: lunch meats, pizza, sauces, breads, soups, crackers, fruit drinks, sports drinks, canned foods and yogurt to name a few. Sugar is an "anti- nutrient". In other words, it takes more energy to eliminate the negative effects from the body than the energy it gives you. It also robs the body of significant amounts of vitamins, minerals, etc. which also lead to the diseases of the new millennium such as chronic fatigue, diabetes, cancer and heart disease, ADD, ADHD, learning disabilities, and more.

Do I have your attention yet?

I have created a series of DVD's or CD's to teach you how to implement each and every one of the steps above for those of you who are interested in:

1. Losing weight permanently

2. Regaining your best level of health and wellness

3. Having more energy than you have had in your life and

4. Preventing disease in you and your families future

You too can "Be Your Best"! And it's not as hard as you might think. I will provide a link for those who are interested when they are available for order. Many options are available. I have CD's as short as ? hour and full seminars on DVD with Power Point slides that are 3 hour presentations in a live setting that were professionally recorded and edited. In the meantime, you can let me know of your interest until they are available by sending an email to: doctor.bolan@gmail.com with "Interested in More" in the title. I will let you know the web address as soon as they are available. In the meantime, begin with the "Big 3 Changes" so that you, too, can begin on the road to "Be Your Best"!

Dr. Tom Bolan has been a national expert in the field of health and wellness, weight loss, and fitness for the last 30 years. He is a highly sought after speaker having taught tens of thousands of people the principles necessary to "Be Their Best". Dr. Bolan can be contacted at http://www.maximizedlivingdrbolan.com.

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