My first go around on atkins I lost quite a bit of weight. After that success, I gave up smoking. At the time I had been on an SSRI (Lexapro) for panic attacks for about a year. After going on Paxil initially, I gained a bit there too.

I decided in order to quit smoking, it was going to be necessary to not "deprive" myself of anything else. The comfort food came out, and I gained back quite a bit of weight.

The good news, is I've been completely smoke free for 11 months.

The bad news, is after an initial loss of 10 pounds, I've lost nothing for 2 months now. I never stalled anything like this before, except when I was still smoking, and was on Paxil for a while.

Does anyone have any experience in this? I'm getting off the Lexapro as I write this, been off for 4 days now. The circumstances which were triggering my panic attacks have been resolved and are no longer a concern.

How long before I can expect the Lexapro to stop having a negative effect on my weight loss efforts?

I don't know, but you could ask the doctor how long it takes to get it out of your system. I would guess a couple of weeks, because that's how long they recommend being SSRI-free if they were going to switch someone to an MAO inhibitor (a different kind of anti-depressant that doesn't mix well with SSRIs.)

Did you wean off the lexapro?? Quitting Lexapro cold turkey can be dangerous.