Marcia,

oh my goodness sweet baby goodness. i remember you from a while back. i'm so glad to see you back. my Dad lives in seward alaska. i've only lost 7-9 lbs since i started in jan but i've been back and forth to az. 3-4 times and it was like i was on vacation and doing the vacation eating. no more vacations for me till i get it together.

i have been taking the eating properly/journaling and exercising seriously as of the last month or so. are you going to join the '7lbs in 7 weeks' challenge? it just started and basically i guess we try to lose one pound per week. there is a post about it and it's titled 7 in 7, but written out. I'm going to try it. it's my first.

i'm so glad to have your pretty smiling face back. you remind me of my dad being up there and how pretty your state is. got to see it last july 2008.

take it easy my friend and let me know what you're up to.

peace

nita

 Nita;

Good to see you are back on this lifestyle!  I've had family issues, health issues, and other life events that have affected me following my plan.  I've gone back to eating 1800 cals and have lost 3 pounds this week.

Good to hear from you and happy losing!

Marcia

Hi everyone, I just started taking alli last week.  I'd like to congratulate everyone else on their weight loss.  And maybe some of you can offer me some tips.  I'm kinda a unique case...

Let me explain a little about myself.  I have a lot of negatives against me in the weight loss area.  A few years ago I was diagnosed as being Bipolar... Not so bad, but sometimes the depression gets so bad I can't get out of bed.  I recently lost the child I was carrying, and that has left me with crippling amounts of sadness.  I was also in a car accident a few years ago as well, that left me with severe spine problems [partial paralysis and bulging disks].  I can't sit, stand or lay down for very long without becoming extremely uncomfortable.  Which has led to me not being able to work.  So, you'd think I'd have all the time in the world to work out, alas, this is not the case.  My fiance goes to work and comes home 8 hours later and I have no idea where the day went.  I'm home alone by myself all day with nothing but my pets.  My anxiety gets so bad, I am scared to leave the house. 

In the past I have had eating problems, or lack there of.  I would starve myself, I would make myself throw up... I'm half Native American and I have a larger frame.  I'm not looking to the that size 2 that everyone always wants to be... When I was a size 9 people were worried about my health, they told me I looked sickly.  I'm not looking for a certain size, I just want to look in the mirror and not break down in tears.

When I was 180 pounds I looked at myself and was disgusted, after loosing the baby and not being able to work, I have shot up to 235. 

I don't know how to go about working out when I can't do anything for very long.  And eating three times a day for me is something I haven't done since I was a child.  I'm really struggling with this... but I want change. 

Thank you all for your time,
Stephanie

 I'm having the exact same problem.  Using my e-alli program to add up a meal - just to get those calories and fat grams and feel like i'm stuffing myself in trying to eat everything i've listed in doing so.  Even still, most meals i still don't get the full 19 grams of fat or 1800 calories.

I'm on my 21st day since starting Alli and i've lost 9 pounds.  I'm feeling better and determined to get the weight off this time!

Hi, I'm new here. I am a mother of three and live in Montgomery, AL I have been on the alli plan about 2 weeks now, I have pretty much done my own thing. I stay busy so I have been drinking a slim fast for breakfast and lunch, and eating with my husband and kids at night with some restrictions and I take the pill with dinner. I have messed up twice with my meals, one night I ate fried chicken with the family and another night I had tacos, had bad treatment effects. I know I'm way below my calorie intake and thats why I have lost weight, but I got on here to try to do this the right way and maybe I will lose more? :) I started off at 195 and I am 5"7, so far in 2 weeks I have lost right at 10lbs with no exercise until yesterday. I have replaced all of my pre-alli drinks which were coke and iced tea, and replaced them with water with an occasional diet coke. I have also replaced my super sweet tooth, with fruits.I also joined the ymca and the kids love going so it also motivates me to work out so they can have fun while I am working on getting healthy. I am wondering though, for meals, do you use the receipes or how do you plan your meals?  The meal shakes have been working but I think I might do better with actual food. I look forward to meeting more people on here for support and motivation :)

 Wendybethea;

Congrats on your progress so far and welcome!  You will definitely want to start adding real food to replace the slimfast shakes.  There are lots of ways to follow the new lifestyle you have chosen.  Some of us use weight watchers or nutrisystem and modify the meals to meet the fat gram requirements for alli to be the most effective.  There is a great book alli has out with menus and recipes, there are some links with info from other alli members about recipes they have found to make this easy and even more websites with lots of recipes that include the fat gram and calorie counts.

The important thing is to follow this lifestyle as close as you can with lots of variety!  Living in Alabama you have access to tons of fresh fruits and veggies.  Figure out what works best for you.  Do you need to plan your menus days ahead of time?  Find substitutions that will meet your needs and your family will follow. 

This program is about a healthy lifestyle which is awesome.

Good luck and happy losing!

Marcia

Stephanie,

Your story has really made me think and taken my breath away, i wish i were there to help you, to inspire you and let you know it's going to be okay. You've been through so much. I am 48 and struggled with infertility in my late 20's and 30's, never thought i'd have a problem conceiving b/c my mom had 8 of us. i never was even able to get pregnant so i can't imagine what it must be like for you to have had a miscarriage. i'm so sorry. As for your car accident, oh my goodness, i can't imagine that either because i had a fender/bender almost 4 years ago and had whiplash and saw a chiropractor for 5 months or so and it was like my life was turned upside down. I have so much to be thankful for because now i'm pretty much back to normal and back to speed. my neck might have some arthritis in it from the accident but nothing i can't live with. all i can think of is to have you see your doctor and see what they recommend you can do. i know walking is an excellent first start and that it is non-impact. maybe once you've been walking for a while perhaps picking up speed or the pace. i hear a lot of women on the posts say something about a pedometer and building up eventually to 10,000 steps per day but starting out slow of course. i saw one at wal mart for 5.00. be careful though mine always wants to fall off. they have ones that have something where it won't fall off but i think it costs more.

i know about the being at home all day and being with the pets. i live in the woods and my sister recently moved out of state. we were like peanut butter and jelly, peas and carrots and now my best friend is gone. other people have recommended i get out and volunteer as i'm retired now. many people would give their eyeteeth to retire early but i've just been bored. however, i have been focusing on myself and getting healthier with the exercise and eating better so i'm starting to feel better about myself. this weekend i might even be in a parade with the red cross and get my t shirt and badge. i've been waiting forever for them. it's weird that i have to get them at a parade. maybe it's a test. lol.

oh, how about a funny movie once a week, like renting one. i loved that one, 'little miss sunshine'. it was so cute.

keep coming back to the posts, reading and posting. you have lots of people here that really care, like me for one.

i bet our pets would love to run around together. what do you have? i have two dogs harlie and davidson. they are a couple of scallywags. davidson is 86 lbs and thinks he's a lap dog. they share the couch with my husband and i while watching t.v. it's so bizarre.

oh, i'll go ahead and add you as a friend so i can see when you post again.

don't give up on yourself. life is good - it just takes time.

peace

your friend nita  

Marcia,

congrats on the three pound loss that is so great.

I know what you mean about family, health and other life events affecting our following the plan. i had been to arizona four times in less than a year and every time i went i acted like i was on vacation and ate like it was going out of style. i'm not sure if it was to fit in or that i just gave up or a combination of things. all i know now is i'm not going anywhere, vacation or not til i get my weight under control and my issues too. one issue is restaurants and another is family get togethers. i'm relearning how to eat healthier at these places when i'm away from home. home is my comfort zone and when i get away from that comfort zone and the control i have there then i get sidelined for lack of a better word. I'm doing great on the restaurant thing so far, treating it like a challenge and really watching portion sizes and dividing them up into several meals instead of one. you know how large restaurant meals are? i was one of those kids that my mom said to me, 'eat everything on your plate, there's starving kids in india (or wherever)'. so i got used to that but now i have to reteach myself.

keep up the great work.

how is the weather there?

have a great week.

nita

p.s. what are you doing for exercise or have you incorporated it yet? are you still dancing? i learned the mamba, i think, the other day from leslie sansone in 'walk away the pounds' i feel like a dancer now. lol. 

Hi Everyone,

My name is Susan and I am new to Alli. I started taking it on Monday last week. I am 31 and have an 8 month old baby. Before I had her, I was 164 pounds, which was more than I wanted to be. While I was pregnant, I had a hard time eating alot of foods, so while I was pregnant, I was gaining weight where I needed to but losing where I needed to, which was wierd, but great! I gained 37 pounds when I was pregnant, making me 201 pounds. After I had my daughter, I lost half the weight in two weeks. Yes, my husband and I didn't eat great for a couple weeks, while we were adjusting, but I really don't think we ate terribly bad....not like fast food every night or anything. Anyway, the pounds started packing back on and before I knew it, I was back up to 191 pounds. I'm not really sure why, I've been making dinner for us for months now. I've been exercising about 3-4 days a week, but nothing seems to be happening...for my husband or I. Of course, he packed on some weight too while I was pregnant, so he is also trying to lose weight and has been exercising too. So that's why we started Alli. To be honest, I'm not sure if I want to take it anymore because of the "treatment effects" I've been having. My husband already stopped because of the "treatment effects". I ate pretty badly two days ago, and had some serious treatment effects yesterday, but yesterday I ate really good, I was under my calories and fat for the day, but still had bad treatment effects this morning. I'm scared to go out in public. Has anyone else experienced this? Does your body get used to it? I'm thinking of stopping the Alli, but am desperate to lose weight. Thank you for your input.

Hi Susan,

Treatment effects can occur 24 to 72 hours after consuming excess fat and they will not stop until all of the oil has been excreted, Get back to your plan and do not go above your recommended amount of fat and you won't have to worry about any more effects.

Let me know if you have any other questions,

Betty Kovacs, MS, RD

thanks for starting this. Sometimes when i read through these i get discourged at the small amounts people want to lose. I dont want to deny them any of the benifits of Alli but for me i would love to be at the weight some of these people are calling FAT.

Anyway i just started alli this week and i am not eating all my fats and calories, frankly i feel full without them. I was on WW before and i know that if you didnt eat enough you didnt always lose the weight. I was wondering if this is like that? I also seemed to be obsessed with the scale. I am weighing myself daily, (cant be a good thing) I get up around 5:30 and talk a morning jog/run. that means i try to jog so that my heart rate gets going and then i job until it feels like i am goign to pass out (not very far) then walk until i can breathe again. I continue this for 2 miles. its not much but its something. I have 2 boys in every sport imaginable so my evenings are spent running them here and there.

I started at 306 and i would love to be 75lbs lighter by june 2010 for vacation, i kow i have more to lose than that but i am trying to realastic.

 Brandipope;

You are starting out GREAT!  It is important to get the calories and fat grams in order to lose the most weight.  Can you set a timer to eat a snack in between meals?  Eating small amounts every few hours will keep your metabolism working more effectively and the small snacks can be anything like turkey pepperoni, nuts, some fresh fruit...whatever works for you.  There are some threads on the website that discuss the importance of getting those calories and fat grams that you should review.

I am also a scale "junkie", my son hid one of my scales from me and the other I use once a day.  There are times I still want to weigh more often, but I try not to because my weight fluctuates alot!  I take medicine for a heart condition so I can gain or lose a few pounds of water weight in a short period of time.

Good luck and happy losing!

Marcia

Im in San Antonio.  Howdy Neighbor.  I started about two weeks ago.  Ive taken Meridia with no results in the past.  I wish I had read the calorie plan before I purchased this.  I tend to eat once a day.  I eat at or below my calorie and fat intake goals.  So I am not a junk foodie..I am not terribly active, but Im a teacher, so after being on my feet all day...excercising seems impossible.  Im struggling with a smoking habit as well.  I am wondering if i should look into the glycemic index thing because I think this might be where im slipping up.  I am also a diet coke/tea addict...so I think im getting a lot of sodium that way.  I dunno.  I dont eat healthy....but Im not sure the alli plan is for me.  I think I need to eat less, more often.  But it just seems so impossible with my lifestyle.  I am not sure a pill is for me. Grrrr.

Brandi,

you are doing wonderful. to be jogging/walking two miles a day or however many times you can do it per week is wonderful. i feel like i'm being a chicken but i've cut back on my jogging b/c i was feeling some pain in one knee so i told myself i'll just power walk till i lose more weight so there's not so much strain on my knees. i'm super concerned about not messing up my knees; i've heard so many horror stories. i'm 48 and want them to last me a lifetime w/out surgery. my 23 or 24 y.o. step daughter just found out today she has to have surgery on one hip and eventually probably a hip replacement. she's in the marines but can you imagine how scary that must be to hear at such a young age? i'd be freaking out.

anyhow do what you can do but don't overdo it like me. the way you are jogging/walking i believe is called interval training and that really helps burn the calories and get the heart rate up. i bet shuttling your kids back and forth too burns a lot of calories or keeps you busy. You are a selfless parent. Keep up the great work. do you have a pedometer? those really help out too to let you know how many steps you get in a day. i have one but it's lost in my car or house for now until i unearth it. yikes.

Good luck to you. I know what you mean about the weight thing. I saw somebody complaining about being 150 or 170 lbs and i'd give anything, almost, to be there. we'll get there eventually. just hang in there and keep posting and reading. we're all here for you.

peace

nita 

 Hi everyone

 here i go again another new diet i pray this one work i have tryed everything i can think off even doctor diet pills. but i will give this one a try. I am over 50 pounds over weight**** i need to lose this fat. so i will start alli on friday 8/31/09. more so for my health and to see all of my children reach their goal. i enjoyed reading all your quotes.