I sympathize with staying away from psych medications driven by a fear of gaining weight. I don't gain particularly easily and have been slim in my whole adult life but was overweight as a young kid and that led to many years of ordeal, including an eating disorder that was very hard to resolve and some of the mental consequences will just never go away, I think. I have a few rationalizations for not using meds and one is definitely the potential effects on weight. It is true that not all antidepressant meds and mood stabilizers have that side effect and not on everyone, and I know my fears are exaggerated, but I understand it because I have similar and have not been able to overcome it so far.

Something else about keeping inspiration up for me is associating myself with curious, motivated, well-adjusted and generally positive people. I have a tendency for this automatically (I think coming from my experience with my dad) but I do need to keep an eye on my choices when I have a more low or challenging period because I have a strong tendency to seek out the company of what I perceive as similar people. Consequently, I tend to choose more insecure, imbalanced, critical, irresponsible, extreme etc individuals when I am not doing well momentarily. Why? Because it is easier to vent, commiserate and not do anything to fix the problems. I am very aware of this now and can consciously say 'no' to those for the most part but still at times find myself engaging in ways that do not serve me well - luckily at this point it never lasts long and those individuals get highly aversive quickly. I see similar tendencies in many other people as well who have good basic morals but struggle with anxiety and depression - they can be quite sensitive to environment, including other people. In that sense, positive and inspiring choices for company can help a lot especially if one has to engage in challenging interpersonal exchanges e.g. in work, family etc. I guess some people keep a therapist for this purpose.