I am embarking on my Alli journey.  I, too, am going to school (working on a Ph.D.).  I work (school teacher) from 8 am to 3:30 pm, and two nights a week, I am in class.  I also live/work about 1 hour from the school I'm attending, so I am spending a lot of time in the car (hour to school, 3 hours of class, hour home).  By the time I get off work and make it to the school, I barely have time to grab food, and it is so convenient to go to a drive thru.  Are there any healthy drive thru choices that anyone has found out there?  Also, what other suggestions does anyone have for being able to get to school, and have a decent dinner that won't leave me wanting?  I can't just wait until class is over in order to go home and eat a healty meal, because I don't usually get home until almost 10pm, and that is way to late to be eating!!

I am 6'2", and am starting out around 280 lbs :-(

My ideal goal would be 200 (which is more than I weighed in high school, so I'm not looking for that HS weight again!), but my alli profile forced me to set my initial goal at 14 lbs.

Any suggestions would be great!!!

 Hi!

You and  I have some things in common. I am a school teacher as well as working on my Masters Degree. I go to school 2 nights a week and my college is about 45 minutes from home.  Do you attend a large university and do they have a microwave to heat up your dinner in? I go to a university that has a microwave so I can heat up my dinner during break. It isn't the longest break but it will do. I also am sure to have plenty of fruit or "legal" things to munch on so I don't "Fall of MY wagon".

I can suggest cutting up any vegatables and fruit that you may have at night and put them in a baggie and munch on them while driving or when you get to college.  I also weight just a bit more than you do and I eat my fruit dessert on the way to school to give me the energy that I need.

My obsticle is finding the time to work out after work and class. I know that I must start working out on a regular basis. Do you have any suggestions for me on that subject? I could use some.

Good luck.

I'm a junior (graduating early in December, BA in Spanish & French) and it is SO hard to make myself eat well. When we have a huge dining hall, a take out option to our "fast food" grill, and an on-campus pub serving all types of bar food and drinks, it is so difficult. However, I have recently discovered that our campus dining services website has a Nutrition Calculator where you can choose all the foods you want to eat/already ate at whichever dining establishment and it calculates the nutrition information for your whole meal. It also has a little key to tell you which options have more than 30% calories from fat. SO USEFUL! Also, before you head to campus or head out to eat (I live on campus), you can probably find the menu and shop around for what you want to eat. That way you won't head straight to the salad bar and stop there, thinking there is nothing better. 

Soups, sandwiches, chicken breast, big salads, a lot of vegan/vegetarian food, etc. all are relatively healthy options and if you can scope out the options before, you're more likely to get a satisfying meal rather than just lettuce and water or being really bad and getting like fried chicken or something! 

Also, for those working moms out there, and really all of us with hectic schedules, I recommend reading the blog "Eat Like Me" from Self magazine (www.self.com and look for the blogs). The woman who writes it is a nutritionist with a new baby, a job, and a busy lifestyle. She takes pictures of all the food she eats and analyzes a lot of her meals to break down the nutrition. It has given me some more creative ideas and made me realize that there are more options than just lettuce.

 Although I do not live at school (so no meal plan for me), when I did that was when I gained my weight. My issue is more of that I am at school for the majority of the day and then work. If you like yougart, stuff your fridge with it. Lean cuisines are also good.

Does your school cafe have a sandwich area? My old school did, and that might help slightly. Have a half sandwich with your salad.

 Hello all! New to this thing! I am also in graduate school working on Masters and Specialist degrees in School Psychology. What a schedule! This was my first year and we were in school full time and also worked 20 hours a week. This coming fall we will be going to class full time and will now be in the schools for about 20 or more hours a week!! YIKES! So...haven't heard anyone talk about the infamous "treatment" effects! I am a little worried. Should I be? Is it that bad?? That's why I haven't started earlier. Anyway....good luck to everyone!!

 Hi, I am also in nursing school and is finding it hard trying to juggle meals between clinical days and school days. I am horrible with writing in the journal..ughhh....Keep up the good work and God bless you on your weight loss goals!!

 Hi there. I'm about to start Alli as well as law school in the fall. I will be moving about 2 hours away from my husband and our home and living in an apartment with roomates. I want to get on the program before I start school so that I am not starting everything at once. I currently work a full time (40hr) and a part-time (20hr) jobs a week and I eat bad after my first job. I take my breakfast, lunch, and snack with me to work but by 5:00 when its time for job number two, I am eating crap :-{.

Any thoughts?

 Hi Law_walker,

I am not sure what your options are for 5:00 because I don't know if you are bringing this food or buying it. If you are buying it you can look things up ahead of time and find out what foods can fit into your plan. There are options at almost any place that you eat so you don't have to completely give them up. If this isn't the case give me some more information about what kinds of foods you are eating and what you are doing during this time.

Betty Kovacs, MS, RD

You'll feel like you're eating a lot, but really you're just spreading it out.

Hope that helps!

Laurie

Hi! I'm about to be a college sophomore, formerly played collegiate volleyball (4 hours a day x 6 days a week), so I feel ya on the hectic schedule. During the school year I live on campus, but over the summer I live in an apartment. My favorite pasttime has been boredom eating, and I always am craving either chocolate or salt. I've found that by far the most satisying snack for me is apples (sliced super thin so you get tons of slices) with peanut butter or almost butter for dipping. Not only do you get the cruch of the apple and the sweetness of the PB, you get filling fiber and protein. So good! If you pack the apples in the morning, put a little orange juice or lemon juice in the bag first and try to coat all the apples with a little and they won't turn brown or get mushy by the afternoon!

If your work place has a freezer, the new Healthy Choice meals are delicious! Even the pastas are surprisingly good. Not sure if these work with Alli but they're delicious.

The easiest way for me to avoid overeating is to make sure I'm eating every two hours... breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack.... if you eat constantly throughout the day it helps prevent you from getting starving and reaching for the bag of chips at the end of the day (or my favorite, the pint of Ben and Jerry's...mmm).

This is an easy way to divide up calories throughout your day(if you're shooting for 1500 calories):

Breakfast: 300 cals

Snack: 100 cals

Lunch: 400 cals

Snack: 100 cals

Dinner: 500 cals

Snack: 100 cals

 I feel your pain!! I'm in nursing school, and my schedule is ridiclous! I have a 3 year old and work part time as well. I really don't know where I'm headed half the time!!!

It IS very hard. We can do it!

 hey everyone!

I'm going to start my college lifee in 3weeks from now and I am considering the alli pill but I am worried about the effects of things such as leakage and the diahrea that i've been reading about. Any tips or advice for busy schedules during the day or types of food that are best to eat. How often should i be excersising? How did you handle the temptation of all the fast food and cafeteria food?      thanks.

They say if you start your low fat and low calorie diet before you begin the pill it will help lessen the chance of those side effects and also, if you make sure not to eat a fatty meal with the pill too.In the book it said women might want to wear a pantyliner. I haven't started the pill yet, but I was thinking if I plan on eating a dessert one week I might just eat it much later than my dinner for my "snack" or not take the third pill... but I'm really not sure about how that would work so I want to ask someone who might know before taking that bit of advice!

I'm a college student and I spend problably around 15 hours a day in my studio and darkroom. It gets really hard to keep with the meal plan so that's my trouble. I usually eat once a day a very small meal and I want to change that. To help I plan on measuring out some snacks in ziploc bags so I can just pull them out and eat without worries and set up my phone/clock alarm so I don't forget to eat. We have a microwave so I was thinking of making some of that apple cinnamon oatmeal that's on the menu and just heating it up later. Most of these lunch and dinner things will heat up fine.

If you don't have a microwave or fridge available, try packing a salad or something in a lunch box with those freezer bags in it to keep it cool and safe to eat. :)

Exercising is a huge thing for a lot of people but I live in the city without a car so I walk everwhere. I also live on the second floor of my building so I take the stairs everyday. If you don't live in the city, try taking the stairs to your floor or taking the stairs a few flights before hopping on the elavator. This helps!! My school doesn't have a cafeteria or gym but I joined a gym so that I'm motivated to go because I'm paying for it. With all the fast food around it's really hard to resist so I bring my own meals so I don't get tempted to go out and if I do go out I order a salad or I'll get a healthy burrito and eat half. (qdoba or chipotle fajita burritos aren't so terrible)

This is getting long, I'm very sorry! Hope what I said helps!