26 days off

I still feel great!  26 lovely days. No it had not been perfect, but feel normal and I feel good mentally.

Weight

I have lost 8 pounds. I didn't think this was a significant amount to post, but for 14 months of the 6 days a week workouts including aerobic, exercises and strength training with weights and nothing budged during all of that. Then to finally get Lexapro out of my system and now an amount has shifted. So this is a good sign and is a good motivator.

Foods and Cravings
This one is so weird, not long after I stopped my last dose of Lexapro I found any cravings being less intense. Now I don't really get them. During my tapering Lexapro, I was also tapering coffee. However now I do not crave coffee at all. I noticed that I had a craving for it and now that I do not take Lexapro I do not crave coffee.

Anxiety and Panic
Since my last dose of Lexapro I have not had any anxiety or panic. I feel calm. During the last few weeks of my taper and up t o now I have had problems with my blood pressure. I started to take a medication and had an unpleasant reaction and then was left off and was waiting for the next step, my Blood pressure shot up and I felt sick and concerned.

I have to say normally I would have freaked out.  But I didn't I calmly made appointments, talked to the Doctor, keep records of blood pressure reading. Now I am on a very very low dose of an Ace inhibitor and I am waiting to see if this works and yet I am not freaking out. So I wonder after I was given these drugs for grief, did the drugs cause the Anxiety and panic and then I was re-diagnosed with panic disorder? 

Sure there were moments I was scared because of the strange pressure in the head and the head spins. But I had no negative thoughts or overblown reactions. I felt in control and concerned and I guess normal?

This is just a window of how I am feeling post Lexapro.

What is Next.

I am giving my brain a little rest, maybe a month before I venture back into withdrawal (not looking forward to this)

I am going to continuing with the exercising plan I started 14 months ago. Aerobics (spin bike daily) exercises (sit-ups and side crunches) and weights. Weights every other day, Aerobics and exercises 6 days a week. Is this too much or too little? I don't know it is what I have built myself up to. I am now using 8 pound dumbbells soon to move on to 10 pounds.

Sit-ups 60 six days a week with 120 side crunches 6 days a week,

The Spin bike is such a great bike! I ride six days a week for 30 mins.  It really helped me with all my withdraw symptoms.  I think the combo of what I am doing is a good one and am planning on adding new and mixing it up.

I am just so grateful to get to the end and see life without Antidepressants. The secret is in the slow taper.