Me, Myself and Alli

If you have missed my previous post, I have started to take the highly controversial diet tablet called 'Alli'. It is controversial for 2 reasons: it has severe secondary undesirable effects and it's strictly reserved for individuals with a BMI over 28 and my BMI is lower. So before I go any further, I would like to stress to anybody under a BMI of 28 NOT to try this at home. It's been a week now and I wanted to post a little update. And what a week it’s been!



 

First half of the week: (Sunday to Wednesday) was like honeymoon. Came Thursday, I feared I ruined it and I had major doubts actually but I carried on and I am quite proud of myself. The idea is that you need to use Alli  with a low fat diet and have a good eye on your fat intake. This week was a major eye opener for me. Before I would only look at the overall calorie content on food labels. So, this week, it felt like it was like discovery channel in HD and I feel I’ve learnt so much. For example: I’ve found a nice soup which stinks when you heat it in the microwave but has so little fat content. Woohoo!

I am still not sure on how much fat I can eat, but I blindly based myself from a guideline I got from a friend:
-  no more than 20g of fat per day (which I discovered is not a lot at all!!!, that’s like 5 chocolate digestives)
-  fat intake should be nicely spread out over the day
-  and not more than 10g of fat per meal.

So when on Thursday, I misread my label, and realised I consumed double the fat than I wanted to, I really panicked. In the end, everything went fine and I didn’t have any problems. I later found from some website that people should not take more than 15g of fat per meal, and that I overdid it by 1g. I can’t rely on this source as these figures are based on people who have a BMI over 28 after all. It’s all complicated and gave me a headache.

Did I lose any weight after all that? Did I have any of the common ‘toilet problems’ associated with it?

There's no so much difference on the scale (I've lost 2 pounds) and no, nothing bad/gross happened to me. Not even the slightest bit of difference in the ‘toilet department’. Maybe the need to stock more on Glade Air Freshners… Frankly, how could I have something bad happening to me, with only 20g of fat maximum a day!!! (apart from Thursday that is). I am glad nothing bad happened to me, but rather mift I didn’t lose more because this week involved a lot of effort.

What effects did Alli have on me?

Not much and a massive amount of difference at the same time.
I have lost those 2 pounds not thanks to Alli, I've lost those 2 pounds because I was ate less, and because I consumed less fat in the process.

Will I carry on taking Alli for another week?

Hell yeah, I will! I have a tendency to food binge a lot and while I keep this under control most of the time, there are times when it goes all haywire. A bit like I need some extra help from a friend shouting at me to stop eating for three for food is available and ready to eat. This is where Alli comes in and its psychological power on me, like I expected, is just phenomenal. All my life, I have been craving for some control over what I eat and Alli just does that. Its psychological power on me is amazing, and went beyond my expectations: Because I am so scared of the gross undesirable effects (and because I am proud and don't want to fail this, now that I've started to blog about it, lol) I eat less food, and I eat less fat. Alli to me is some kind of big brother person, who is there all the time watching you. You cheat and karma, in the form of diarrhoea will happen to you. What stronger incentive do you need?

For how long will I take this?

Maybe till the end of June, we'll see. We'll see how it goes.




The obvious  drawback on this, as I see it, is that, in the long run, on some weaker or vulnerable people, it could trigger even more yo yo dieting. Pigging out for a while, and going onto Alli. Fortunately, this drug is expensive, not easy to get, so this should prevent me doing that. It should anyway...

It could also trigger some anorexic alike behaviour, when you’re obsessing about labels and freak out at the sign of fat. Sadly, I do not have this tendency, and I could just feed myself from domino’s pizza all the time (medium sizzler with extra cheese, with roast chicken instead of tandoori chicken, mushrooms instead of onions, £8.99 on collection special deal) it would be heaven. *sigh*

Overall, I feel that, if anybody over the BMI of 28 ate what I ate this week, they would have definitely lost 4 to 6 pounds this week, without a doubt. It’s not having this effect on me as I would have liked to. But nothing has EVER kept me on my toes as drastically as alli did this week. I just cannot get over that fact. And I shall continue, for a bit more, and keep you updated…

Now, If only they sold convincing alli lookalike sweets…



Disclaimer:
I am not affiliated with the company and if I were, I would be the least eligible character to try this: For one, I am not suitable for it, my BMI is not high enough. Also this drug is non recommended for people who have 'complex relationships with food' aka eating disorder. I believe I have a mild form of an eating disorder, similar to bulimia but without the purging: it's just called binge eating.  Also unlike the typical bulimic, I manage to keep my condition under control at most times: I tend not to keep yummie ready to eat food in the house, and I try to just eat at meals times and nothing in between, as I feel it would increase/encourage my appetite if I did, and, oh boy, I really don't need any encouragement in that department!