Allergy season is never a particularly fun time for allergy sufferers, but it presents an additional challenge for people who are actively trying to lose weight or maintain their weight loss. I personally have horrible allergies, though when I lived in Florida they were blessedly milder. For the past 2 years, however, I’ve been full-time RVing, and I’ve been hanging out in areas with much more pollen. And with that came an interesting problem: unexpected weight gain.
Last year I was a bit baffled when my weight started to trend up. At the time I felt like I was eating to satiation, like I always did. And yet, the scale was going up. I started investigating, and I found some interesting information.
At the time I was taking Zyrtec and using ketotifen fumarate eye drops, both of which are antihistamines. After doing some digging, I found out that antihistamines (which includes basically every single allergy medication) can cause increased appetite and thus weight gain. Some antihistamines are even prescribed to patients, not to alleviate allergies, but instead to stimulate appetite and help patients gain weight.
Another unfortunate circumstance is that seasonal allergies can increase anxiety for people who are already anxious. And many people who are feeling anxious turn to food for comfort.
If you factor in the entire world situation right now with COVID-19, this allergy season in particular is just plain tricky. However, you can continue to lose weight during this time. Knowing is half the battle here. Simply by being aware that your appetite is ticking up because of antihistamines and increased anxiety and stress, not because of true hunger, you can catch yourself before your weight spirals out of control.
All that’s necessary is to continue to take action to get the scale trending in the way you want it to go.
Action Step #1: Continue to stick to your written plan.
If you don’t yet have a written plan, go right now and write one down. If you want some guidance on how to write a plan, check out this page.
Keep a laser like focus on how consistent you are being with your plan. When times are tricky like they are right now, it’s easy to slip into inconsistency. Ask yourself every day, did I stick to my plan yesterday? If you find yourself saying no, that’s a red flag. Sit down and figure out what’s going on. Revise your plan to one that you will stick with.
Action Step #2: Avoid stress eating.
If you’re already anxious and your allergies are making it worse, it will be tempting to stress eat. Here are some ideas to try to make stress eating less likely:
- Make a no snacking rule. Eat enough at your meals so that snacking ceases to be a temptation.
- Stay busy during times you’re not eating a meal.
- Journal your thoughts out.
- Talk things out with someone (a spouse, a friend, a therapist).
Action Step #3: Decrease your food intake.
If your consistency is spectacular and you’re sure you’re not stress eating, but the scale is still trending up, you need to take further action. The scale is telling you that you’re taking in a surplus of food, even if it doesn’t feel that way.
You have the option, of course, to continue to eat to satiation, to gain a few pounds, and then to get those pounds back off when allergy season is over. If you gain 6 pounds during allergy season, and you usually lose a pound a week, you’ll need 6 weeks of consistency to get back to where you were after it’s all said and done. This may or may not be acceptable to you.
If you decide you want to keep losing, here are a few things to try:
- Eat until just before satiation.
- Have portion rules for yourself. Base them on the amounts you were eating when you were losing. For example, if before allergy season you ate 3 pieces of pizza at a normal meal, then stop at 3 now, instead of reaching for the 4th slice.
- Shorten your eating window.
Keep adjusting your food intake until the scale starts to move in the direction you want it to.
When I’m taking antihistamines, I do not feel like I’m overeating, even when the scale starts to rise. This presents a problem, because the rule that normally works for me is to stop eating when full. Further compounding the problem is that when I’m in maintenance mode, I tend to be more loosey goosey. I alternate days of OMAD with 16:8, or simply do 2MAD most days. My main goal is to maintain in a certain range. This works well outside of allergy season. This does not work well in allergy season when I’m taking antihistamines. When I’m using them, I go back to OMAD, because it simplifies my life and keeps the scale where I want it to be. On Sundays (cheat day) or any other off day, I am very careful about snacking and how much I’m eating at my meals. During these times I trust the scale more than my own appetite.
In the end, losing weight (or even maintaining) during allergy season is harder than at other times. You’re likely going to feel hungrier more often if you’re taking allergy medications. It will feel like a slog. But this too shall pass. Pollen counts will decrease and we’ll all find some relief soon.
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