I am on my second day of taking Alli, trying to get used to counting calories and fat.  Hoping to find a circle of friends for support and encouragement.

Welcome, Skooter. :)

 I'm new also. I just started the low-fat diet on Monday, and took my first pill on Wednesday. I read somewhere that it's advisable to meet your calorie and fat goals (instead of hitting below the targets.) This seems counter productive to me, but I guess if that's the way it goes. I wish you luck!

Hello, I am new to Alli too, I will start the pill Monday, I have passed the 200 mark and has made me very upset but I do not want to just sit down and eat some more, I want to ensure I do something positive about it.

Hope to find encouragement and motivation from others like you guys, that have done this for a little longer than me, that way I can keep going, I am sure once I get pass the first few months, I will be the one to encourage others :)

I have a crazy schedule and am a single mom, so I need to make sure I plan ahead for meals if not I will fall back into fast food easily.

Look forward to meeting new friends that are going through the same thing I am. 

I know it sounds counter to everything you probably think you know about dieting but it works!  Our bodies are engines that need to have a certain amount of fuel to run. If we don't feed it enough fuel, our bodies go into "starvation" mode and hold on to fat rather than releasing it to be burned. This also slows our metabolism down, making it even harder to lose weight.

A balanced diet helps rev up our metabolism and makes it easier to lose weight. Add in exercise and it gets even better.

One caution - watch out that you don't start replacing fat grams with carb grams. That seems to be a common mistake. Lots of low-fat foods are high in carbs which just turn into sugars and get stored as fat. The menus and recipes on this site are great. There are also many other sites with good, low-fat recipes. Once you learn how to plan your meals, it gets pretty easy to make good choices.