Well, after I talked things through with my doctor, I tossed a coin. Was it to be phentermine or Acomplia? I had no problem with phentermine being an amphetamine. I think I might have taken one or two of those when I was younger. Can’t think what was wrong with me but I seem to remember feeling better. Anyway, Acomplia had just come on the market so not much was known about it. I had temporarily put Meridia to one side. Even though the FDA had continued approval in 2005, I thought I would wait and see how the story played out before trying it — as it happens, there’ve been no more problems reported and the most recent study has confirmed its effectiveness
(http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/28/23/2915) so I might try it on the next rotation.

That coin’s been spinning for a while. It fell for Acomplia so that’s what I started on.

With the first pills inside me, I went down to the public library and browsed through as many “how to” books as I could on losing weight. Not these fad diet books. I can’t say I have much patience with them. They appear on the shelves with a clap of thunderous hype. Hordes of unhappy people run out and buy their copy but they only last ten minutes on the plan. The [insert magic quality] diet plan fade away and the next new thing comes along. I was more interested in the medical reference section where the serious information hides itself away — if advertisers had their way, of course, all these scientific books would be taken away at night and used to make fertiliser for all the cabbages, grapefruit or other fruit and vegetables they expect to sell alongside the next voguish diet book. Or perhaps that should be fertiliser to grow more tress to make more paper to print the next best-selling diet book.

Anyway, the first thing I realised is that losing weight is very simple. One way of putting it is that only small changes each and every day are need to build success. All we need to do is to move on to a net-loss calorie diet and combine it with a little light exercise. So no sudden axing of all our favorite foods, no revolution in the kitchen as to cooking methods, and no need to spend hours a day doing aerobic exercise. Not that I would have had the patience to keep all that up. It’s just a slow drift from where we are to where we need to get to. Making it fun, I experiment with new recipes to find what I like and then substitute them for the less healthy versions. It’s been almost eighteen months now, and without boasting too much (alright, I am boasting too much), I’ve managed to lose almost 20 lb. some days, it hits twenty. Others days it doesn’t. But I don’t really care that much. It will be good when I consistently hit it but there’s no hurry.

All I know is that I’m eighteen months older but quicker round that supermarket now. So if those shelf stackers are reading this, you can put all you like on those bottom shelves now.

I still see those same skinny young things. We smile faintly, but I can see they still pity me. Mind you, they would pity anyone over the age of 25 as being close to death. Ah, the joys of being a teenager.

And I’m rotating the Acomplia and phentermine. I wait a while to let the one clear my system before starting the other. So far, there’ve been no side-effects to worry me. In fact, everything’s on the up-and-up. All I need now is someone to produce an anti-ageing pill and then everything will be perfect.

Tagged with: starting weight loss