June 2007 Archive

I think I sprained my eyeballs rolling them every time I read a blog entry by someone criticizing Alli without having tried it. Most focus on the potential for “unwanted treatment effects” — the stinky bowel problem, to put it bluntly — while wholly ignoring that such effects are the result of continuing to eat high fat foods.

“Oh, I’m suspicious,” half the folks — who haven’t taken it — say, completely oblivious to the fact that Alli is just a lower-dose form of Xenical, which has had FDA approval for years and a proven track-record of success.

“But what about vitamins and minerals?” others ask. I always chuckle at that one: unless the person is a nutritionist, chances are they aren’t getting their necessary nutrients anyway. Solution: take a multi-vitamin. Duh.

See, it’s this kind of “I don’t think it will work but I won’t try it, either” approach that annoys me. All too often these are the same folks who claim to have tried everything but never made more than a half-assed effort. No wonder nothing changes for them, eh?

Scale Whore has an excellent objective consideration whether to take Alli or not. That’s got to be the first I’ve seen, and it was a refreshing change.

Fact is, as with any medication, you’ve got to follow the label. Restrict your fat intake and you don’t need to fear those nasty side effects. Take a multi-vitamin at bedtime to replenish the fat-soluble vitamins and minerals lost during the day. Eat right. Exercise. Enjoy having your body absorb half the fat of the low-fat diet your following, which translates into weight loss twice as fast as you’d experience on your own.

Yesterday went rather well, although I was hungry almost all the time. The downside of eating low-fat is being hungry about an hour after a meal. Since I’m not the kind of girl to consider celery sticks a legitimate snack (if I were, I wouldn’t be The Chubby Mommy!), I found myself tempted more than once to cheat.

I’m proud to say that I resisted, but it wasn’t easy. At one point I was so desperate for something crunch — chips, anyone? — that I ate an entire bowl of steamed Brussels sprouts. Yes, they satisfied my need for crunch and, with a little salt substitute on them, they addressed that salt craving, too. But I would never, ever recommend downing that much fiber in one setting.

The good news: I woke up a pound lighter. Whether that’s water weight or not, I have no idea. I’m not even sure that I care. I took my Alli pill before breakfast this morning, and I feel proud of making good food choices so far today.

My Alli shipment arrived last week just before we left on a long car drive up north. Given the description of the “unwanted treatment effects” (the oily discharge, uncontrollable bowel movements, etc.) that have a lot of people frightened — including me — I decided to wait until we returned home to take my first Alli.

Needless to say, I savored each and every meal over the weekend. High fat? No problem: I’m going on Alli next week! Oversized portions? No worries: my Alli is waiting at home. Salty nachos dripping with cheese, sizzling steak served with a fat buttery baked potato, gooey cheese-topped bread floating in savory French onion soup… I ate it all. Oh, baby, I enjoyed it, too!

We arrived home last night and I immediately stepped on my scale. I weigh myself a lot… as in, first thing when I wake up and again after I pee, every time thereafter I go to the bathroom (sometimes both before and afterward), every time change clothes, every time I walk by the bathroom where I keep the scale and again right before bed.

Yes, I know that Weight Watchers encourages people to weigh themselves just once a week. I can’t do that. The last time I tried I wound up practically starving myself the day before weigh-in only to find that I’d neither lost nor gained a pound. Hate to think what would’ve happened if I hadn’t limited myself to carrot sticks and water the previous day.

A lot of (skinny) women also say they never weigh themselves. Good for them, I suppose. Personally, I think they’re just trying to keep all the cute clothes for themselves, because one month when my bathroom scale was broken and I hadn’t gone to buy a new one, well, I packed on fifteen pounds in thirty days. Fifteen. So I figure those skinny, non-weighing women are either liars or they’re so caloric deficient they can’t muster the energy to step on the scale.

But back to my food fest over the weekend: I ate like I wanted, stopped when I was full, and refused to feel guilty about doing it. My Alli was waiting, after all. Why deprive myself now when I know I’m going to have to make big changes next week? Yes, I realize I probably should not put all of my hopes on a magic blue pill (no, not that one but one which pretty much has the power to improve my sex life, no doubt). Still, if I’m going to have to limit myself to low-fat foods while on Alli, I figured I needed to say “so long” to each and every one of my favorite high-fat foods first.

So I did. And I lost two pounds. Two!

Does this mean I’m going to continue eating like that? Of course not. I’m going to try Alli and I’m going to focus on eating low-fat. But I’m also going to remember that the best way to avoid the “unwanted treatment effects” is to either not take Alli or keep fat intake quite low. I’ll be going for the latter option on most days, but I’m not going to think twice about skipping my pill when I know there’s a good reason to splurge.

And that, too, might be part of the “mental re-training” involved with taking Alli: learning to look at a splurge as a splurge, something to be earned ahead of time and enjoyed without guilt… just like that ribeye steak I intend to have this weekend (without first taking a pill) when I’ll celebrate five days of eating right.

Amazon is selling 90-capsule packs of Alli (30 days of pills) for $49.99, at a price that’s lower than most drug stores. I couldn’t resist: my order arrives tomorrow.

Naturally, I’m aware of the pros and cons of Alli from their website. Yes, there’s a risk of “oily discharge” and other unattractive side effects, all of which are garnering quite a bit of attention from the anti-diet pill crowd. But here’s one thing the naysayers overlook: the lower one’s fat intake, the lower the chance for such side effects.

In other words, Alli works best when it triggers a Pavlovian response: eat less fat, have no problems; eat too much fat, suffer embarrassing bowel problems.

Meanwhile, Alli claims to deliver the one thing that hampers most low fat dieters: results. By preventing the body from absorbing the fat from even a meal within the > 15 gram limit, you’re going to lose weight faster than eating the same meal without Alli. And results are what it’s about when you’ve tried every diet fad, trend and gimmick but failed.

Results keep a person motivated, and motivation makes a person keep doing what works. Best of all, since you’ve got to learn to eat low-fat meals while taking Alli, the pill actually helps establish the long-term dietary changes that are necessary to maintaining weight loss after you stop taking the diet pill.

As far as I’m concerned, this all gives me another good reason to look forward to seeing my UPS man. As if those cute little brown shorts weren’t enough.