My docs feel my anxiety/weight loss connection is a chicken/egg question. Which causes which? Flip a coin and you have a 50% chance of being right. We will never actually know which came first, but there's no doubt in my mind that the two are connected.

Now that I have accomplished a mostly stable diet for a number of years (appetite is another story), I get immediate anxiety relief when I remember to eat. That wasn't always the case. When I was a complete train wreck and seldom ate well, if at all, all I could tell was that I felt different after I ate. Change is one of my big anxiety triggers, be the change for the better or worse. "Different" was enough to scare me. It took me a period of years to get past that.

Anxiety still plays hell with my appetite, but now that I know the difference a steady diet can make, I am allot more pushy with myself to keep something on my stomach, if only soda crackers to soak up the extra stomach acid anxiety triggers.

I go through times where I don't eat much, just enough to keep my sugars in check, sometimes I drop a little weight but once I start feeling better my appetite comes back and I am fine. Just be careful you don't go to long without eating or lose to much weight Hun. Cyber hugs!

I'm literally crying because I have this same issues. I lost so much weight due to being fearful of eating/anxiety. My appetite is horrible and I do try to eat healthy. I'm on 20 mg of celexa and I believe it also curbs my appetite. Thank you so much for sharing and to others for posting their responses.

I too have trouble with losing weight so bad because I cant eat. I was always a big eater but once my depression came I lost my appetite. Its been yrs and I have yet to be able to eat right. Losing weight causes me to have anxiety though and then the cycle continues. Thx for sharing though hun because you're definitley not alone.

I have had both. I gained 35 lbs from ssris and i have also lost weight from bn in a constant state of panic. I never mind the loosing it part lol.

Thank you everyone for your messages. I am glad I am not alone on this. I try to eat very little throughout the day but my anxiety usually keeps me on edge and my appetite is never really there. I dropped about 10 lbs and it sucks. I did tell my doctors and they think that I should join an intensive outpatient program where I can have daily intereraction and therapy sessions to get back to my normal self. I am still waiting on a call back from them.

My appetite seems to disconnect, entirely and quickly, when I get anxious. A stressful turn in the table talk seems to be all it takes on my bad days. I get serious nausea, even vomiting, when I try to eat under the influence of anxiety.

On those days I listen to my emotions rather than my hunger signals to tell me when I need to eat, whether I am hungry or not. When I find my emotions rapid cycling, I stop everything and make myself eat something. Anything. Simple foods seem to go and stay down best. I keep baby food on hand, just in case.

hmm baby food is not a bad idea actually. It is easy and small.

Yes, I can go through periods of eating issues when I have anxiety. I had a really difficult season of this when I was switching several medications in one year.

I’ve not tried baby food, but the brat diet: bananas, rice, applesauce and toast.
I food chain off of those things. Like crackers for the toast and smoothies for the applesauce, or different fruit flavors of applesauce, etc.

Eventually my normal food cravings come back once my anxiety gets better too.

I’m sorry you are going through this with the anxiety.

I do hope that it gets better for you soon with the right treatment, and that you can work out a temporary system of something that you can eat while you are going through major anxiety.

Thank you I hope so too

Hi- I don’t have appetite whenever I worry about something. Anxiety can make us feel that we are not hungry but still we need to eat. Please try to eat little by little to help you feel well.

I hope you will get better soon. I will be praying for you. God bless.

Thank you for your support. When I wake up I wake up with Anxiety/Panic Attacks (from thinking about my day) before I could even eat or drink my stomach is already in knots and acidic. I throw up almost every morning to get rid of that acid. I forced myself to drink an herbal tea after and ate a tiny 100calorie yogurt cake. Kind of proud that I kept it down. But it sucks so much