It’s Day 2 on Alli, and no, I’ve still not suffered any of those “unwanted treatment effects.” Well, ok, I did find myself clutching my stomach in agony a couple of times, but that was most likely due to the 15 oz. of Brussels sprouts I munched on instead of crackers while watching TV last night.
The manufacturers booklets that come with Alli — and there are quite a few of them, let me tell you — are very adamant about keeping fat intake down to less than 15 grams per meal, 5 grams per snack.
So yesterday, I looked up the nutritional content of every bite of food and tracked it all in an online diet journal. Yes, I could keep a paper-and-pen food journal but I always manage to misplace such things. Since I’m near a computer throughout most of the day, an online version works so much better for me. Another benefit: since I tend to stick to the same foods, particularly for breakfast and lunch, I like the way the journal “learns” from me — making it easy to add my typical foods into my daily food log rather than having to scroll through a huge list day after day.
Tracking my actual food intake with a calorie counter the instant I ate something definitely kept me mindful of every single bite. I’m certain that, both the risk of “unwanted treatment effects” of Alli and the immediate awareness of my calories consumed thus far gave me a more motivation to make good food choices.
Altogether, my fat intake yesterday was 46 grams, well within the recommended limits for a woman of my age and activity level. My calorie intake was 1719, also within the suggested guidelines for weight loss.
And the result? I woke up to find that the effort might well have been worth it: I managed to lose a pound. Sure, that’s most likely water (even though I did drink my standard 10 glasses yesterday) but when you’re trying to lose weight, every ounce lost adds more motivation.
[tags]Alli, diet, nutrition, fitness[/tags]
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007, 7:22 am | 
Food Bites, My Venomous Life | 
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June 26, 2007 at 10:53 am
Um…what is the Alli doing? I mean, if you didn’t take Alli and dieted the way you are now, wouldn’t you lose weight anyways?
June 26, 2007 at 11:30 am
Alli works as a fat blocker, so even with lowered fat intake it helps by blocking a portion of what is consumed. The company claims this increases success by half: if you’d have lost two pounds dieting, you’ll lose 3 with Alli.
Whether or not that’s the case, I do know that the purpose of the pill is not merely to block fat. It literally forces you to restrict your fat intake by ensuring you’ll suffer some very “unwanted treatment effects” if you do.
Pavlovian conditioning, yes, but don’t underestimate the fear of shitting on one’s self as a deterrent to cheating on one’s diet.
June 26, 2007 at 5:39 pm
I’m trying something completely different from the July 9 issue of First. A week long detox for intestinal healing. Protein, flax, fruit shake breakfast, veggie broth snack with more shake if hungry, unlimited but at least 2 cups veg, 1/2 cup brown rice, shake, papaya and pineapple salad (1 cup) for dessert, veggie broth snack with shake if you want, 4-6 ounces lean meat or beans, unlimited but at least 2 cups veg, 1/2 cup brown rice, veg broth, late snack papaya and pineapple (1 cup). can use olive oil for veg and meat. Not bad so far, you can spice it all up. Uncle Ben’s has those microwavable packages of precooked brown rice which is good because brown rice takes longer to cook than white rice does. It seems to be a ton of food, it’s hard for me to eat that much, but I’m doing okay I think. We’ll see how it goes. It’s only day 2. ;>)
June 26, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Congratulations, and best of luck with it.
June 26, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Now that I nixed lowcarb…I’m thinking of looking at Alli. Was thinking about you today, do you feel special? lol
June 27, 2007 at 7:50 am
I most certainly do! Of course, the last thing I needed was an even bigger ego.
June 27, 2007 at 11:05 am
Thank you for reminding me. I learned about this just the other day at the pharmacy, and just reading the pamphlet, I cried out, “It’s gonna turn people into celiacs! What the heck!” My concern is that it’s also blocking vitamins and minerals along with the fat. I want to research it further so I can rant about it. I was just standing there in the pharmacy saying over and over, “No NOOOOOO. This is how I live. You don’t want to LIVE like this. No NOOOOOO.”
Having said that. Best of luck with it.
June 27, 2007 at 11:34 am
Guess this isn’t a good time to tell you that I lost another pound, huh?
As for the vitamins, people definitely need to take a good multivitamin while on Alli. Since many vitamins are fat-soluble only, and since Alli blocks absorption of half of the fat a person consumes, users MUST take a vitamin daily.
The manufacturers recommend taking the vitamin at night, which makes sense since by then Alli is out of your system and thus your body uses the fat-soluble vitamins while you sleep.
June 27, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Ah! My gut instinct about it was right. A lot of people taking Alli are going to suddenly end up with mysterious vague unrelated symptoms that the doctors can’t explain and will say is not linked to Alli, because after all, they’re taking the multivitamin like they’re supposed to. But a few people on Alli will end up with partial seizures or epilepsy. Chronic migraines. Bruising and nosebleeds. Weird crap like I get. And doctors will say, no, that’s not poo-related, so it’s not related to the Alli. And it’s because they are not willing to admit that a lot of these conditions are sometimes linked to vitamin deficiencies. “Well, a vitamin deficiency wouldn’t give you migraines, those are all hormones, so it couldn’t be that…” Stuff like that. Btw, I’m sure you know this, but make sure it’s a multivitamin/multimineral, and chewing papaya enzymes with every meal might help with the unwanted side effects, because that helps firm things up. I take a brand called “now”, I think.
June 27, 2007 at 11:23 pm
And I’m very happy to hear about your weight loss. I’m just going to be watching closely to see if your symptoms that were already troublesome and very similar to mine start getting worse, especially since it’s very possible you have vitamin deficiency problems as it is. But I know you’re also not dumb and aren’t going to stay on it if you notice yourself getting worse. Also, I think I’m more intellectually fascinated by this kind of stuff than doctors are, so I’ll be watching closely to see what happens. I might also go hang out and spy near the pharmacy window at my Walgreens since I know one of the pharmacy techs is trying Alli. Ok, I’m weird. I own it.