Sunday, 6 June 2010

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!


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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.


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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!
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Sunday, 30 May 2010

Alli – The Experiment

Ever since I saw the diet tablets ‘ALLI’ in the shelves of my local Boots, I became fascinated by the product and wanted to try it. I don’t know if it’s the colours of the actual lettering (Research says that products using the 4 colours of blue, yellow, red and green – ever noticed the colour theme of eBay and google? – tend to grab more attention than any other colour scheme) but I was drawn to it, and been obsessed with it  ever since.


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If you’ve never heard of it, ALLI ( containing orlistat) is a diet tablet which claims to “block some of the fat that you eat, keeping it from being absorbed by your body and helps you to lose weight. ALLI is exciting news for adults who are overweight with a BMI of 28 or over, want to lose weight and who understand the importance of sensible eating when they’re trying to lose weight.

This ‘diet aid’ is strictly reserved for people with a BMI of 28 and over and this is where it becomes controversial: My BMI is lower than that and there is no chance I could have got my hands on this, as basically, I am not fat enough to have the right to take it. The problem is that because it’s forbidden, it has become more attractive to me, a bit like smoking and drinking alcohol for a underage teen. I wanted to try it because it was bad.


I managed to get some by some devious but legal way (I paid for it and didn't stalk on any individual outside the shop to buy it for me) but I won’t be able to reveal where I got it as buying over the internet is a dangerous business, and I would not like you to get into trouble. Anyway, I bought it, I am going to start tomorrow, and I wanted to share my experiment.


The way it works is that it stops some of the fat you eat from being absorbed. In short,If you eat too much fat (any fat, whether it’s good fat or not) well the drug cannot deal with that, and you are in deep doo doo, literally! Put it bluntly, if you eat too much fat at once, and overall during the day, it will automatically cause severe diarrhea of the worst kind, coupled with crippling howling painful stomach aches and oily leakages from your bottom, when you’re least expect it, in the car, white trousers or not. To say that I am pooping myself trying this is an understatement.


Why am I subjecting myself to this? Because I am fascinated by it and want to try it. My lovely friends on twitter have tried their utmost to warn me, and discourage for my own benefit to try it, alas I am stubborn. I am so scared of the undesirable effects that I feel it might work on me psychologically and keep me on my toes, to prevent from bingeing so much. If anything, I am too proud to have to say that I was wrong, and really would like this experiment to be a success. *cough* Aaa the things I do for scientific purposes, huh?

Jokes aside, I realise this is highly controversial. You are more than welcome to comment as usual, if you wish. Most probably I will have realised my mistake in a few days – if not before – but it’s something I want to do. I hope I am here to tell the tale lol.
Thank you for reading.
xxx
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