Tag Archives: Weight Watchers

I have lost 16 pounds since the end of February.  Eight of those pounds were lost over 3 months on Weight Watchers.  The other eight?  Well, do you want the short answer or the long answer? 

The short answer, you say?  The answer is…diet pills.  Now before you all tsk tsk me to death, let’s hear the long answer, shall we? 

The Long Answer:

About three years ago, there was a woman whose son played on my son’s baseball team.  She was about my height and weight and being the two chubby moms on the team, of course we became chatty.  After baseball season, her son went to a different team so I didn’t see her often after that.  I ran into her last summer at a friend’s birthday party and was surprised to see she had dropped about 50 pounds.  I asked her what she had been doing and she just said that she got serious about losing weight and was very careful about what she put into her mouth.  She told me if I ever wanted to talk to her about it I could, but of course I never called her, although I thought of her often over the next several months. Then I ran into her about a month ago at a department store, and told her I really wanted to sit her down and ask her exactly what she did to lose the weight and keep it off.  She confided in me that she had started by seeing her doctor and he prescribed her an appetite suppressant.  She took them for only a short while, until she got started losing, and then she got off the pills and is now just watching what and how much she eats and she is doing very well. 

                When I had my blood work checked a few weeks ago, I was lamenting to my doctor about how I wanted to lose weight, and he said he could put me on a program. I told him I would think about it, and get back to him. After talking to my friend and seeing her results and how she has kept the weight off for over a year now, I decided that I would give it a try. My doctor is a very close family friend, who has known me my whole life, so I trust that he is not going to give me anything that would harm me. I am on a very low dose of appetite suppressant, along with some damn good vitamins (my hair and nails are growing like crazy!), and a high protein eating plan.  I go in once a week and the nurse in charge looks over my food journal, and we talk about how things are going. The food plan they have me on is similar to South Beach, so I’ll get to add the good carbs back in to my diet soon, which, thank God because I’m getting really tired of chicken and salads! 

                I am also learning how to cook. I mean, I am learning to cook real vegetables and real meat, not just opening a box and reheating the processed chunks of whatever is in there.  I always tend to take the easy way out when it comes to cooking – the faster and easier the better.  Now, I am learning to plan ahead and spend a little time on the meals, and (are you ready for this?) I find that I actually sort of like cooking.  I have always thought of meal time as drudgery, but when I am cooking foods that actually taste good, I kind of enjoy it.  Who knew? 

                Honestly, I attribute my weight loss to my new way of eating, more than to the pills.  For the first time in my life, I think I am getting enough protein and I am eating more veggies than I ever have before, and I feel really good.  I am also working out more and that has given me more energy. 

So why didn’t I just stick with WW and learn to eat from that?  Well, I feel like, for me, there was a little too much freedom on WW.  Protein is not really stressed on WW, and sometimes it can be high in points, so I think I would avoid it so I could keep my points low.  I found myself turning to the low- point, overly processed foods to fill me up, which were usually high in carbs, and so did not fill me up for very long.  I was also eating more junk food, because hey, you can have anything on WW as long as you are within your points.  I could have two slices of pizza and a few Chips Ahoy cookies and still be in my points range, but I didn’t feel like this was very healthy.  Not that I am banning those things from my diet forever, but for now, I am better off staying away from them until I can eat them in moderation, and not feel like I need to face plant into the middle of the package. 

I will be very honest here and say thinking about writing this post has caused me much anxiety over the last few days.  When you tell people you are on diet pills, they always make that face, you know the one that says, “Oooohhh, bad idea. Don’t you know any better?”  Diet pills are the black sheep of the weight loss family, and they have a really bad rep, and everyone says that once you go off of them, you’ll gain all the weight back.  I thought that too, which is one reason I have never tried them before, but heck, I lost 25 pounds on WW three years ago, but I gained it all back, so does that mean that WW doesn’t work?  No, it just means I didn’t learn anything from it and went back to my old bad habits. 

I am giving the pills and the new eating plan a shot because I feel like this is my chance to learn how to do it right.  This is my chance to learn how to cook healthy foods, this is my chance to learn how much food I need, not how much food I THINK I need.  This is my chance to see that there is life apart from junk food, and there is much joy to be had without sugar.  This is my chance to see if I can challenge myself by walking faster and farther than I thought I could. 

                I didn’t want to tell you all what I was doing because I was afraid of what you all would think.  But it’s my blog and I wanted to be accountable and it’s just too hard keeping anything from you guys!  So here I am baring my chunky little soul to all of you and hoping that you won’t tell me that I am being naïve or stupid for doing this.  I feel good about my decision and I have not had any ill effects as of yet, and please do me a favor, and DON’T write me telling me all of the bad consequences your friend’s cousin suffered from being on diet pills, or how I am going to start growing hair on my chest, or that I’ll grow an extra limb or something.  I am fully capable of Googling all the effects of the pills myself, if I should choose to do so.  It’s very hard to maintain a weight loss blog and NOT be able to talk about how I am losing, so I knew I would have to come clean eventually. 

I have lost 8 pounds in two weeks, and I fully expect the loss to slow down a bit now, but that’s okay.  I’m on my way, and I feel good about it. 

So, there it is.  That’s the Long Answer, and I’m sure I’ll have more to add to it in the coming weeks.  And if you are still reading this epic novel of a post, thanks for hanging in there til the end, I appreciate it. 

Posted by Jill in deep thoughts Tags: diet pills, Weight Watchers