Substitutes?

[Glamourcide]

Well, I'm having trouble finding a doctor who will prescribe me a bit of Duromine to hlp me shift this last 8-10kgs. My exercise and healthy eating was working well up until about a month ago, I dropped 7kgs pretty quickly but I appear to have hit that plateau and no matter what I try, I can't shift the rest. I've tried easing off with the 'healthy eating' (I refuse to call it dieting because that implies impractical methods of weight loss, and I think I'm being very sensible - just changing my old habits for ones that will serve me much better long-term) and have tried reducing *and* increasing the exercise, and doing different things... nope. Haven't put any weight on, haven't lost any either. I still have plenty of unwanted flab and just can't seem to get rid of it. Yes, I'm also doing toning exercises like light weight work and pilates... not helping. I really need a kick-start to get rid of this last bit of weight, but my doctor accused me of being 'too thin' (which is RIDICULOUS) and refused to even suggest any ways I could lose a little more weight...

I don't really want to jump through hoops and go doctor-shopping to get my hands on some Duromine (not to mention DH cracked it when I told him I want to try it, he pulled the old, 'You *know* how I feel about drugs, it's essentially speed and just because a doctor gives it to you doesn't mean it's safe'), so I'm wondering if there are any substitutes out there that will help me achieve my goal without the rigmarole? Can anybody give me some info and personal experiences with other diet pills? Do I need a prescription for the ones I see at the chemist or can I just buy them and give them a go? Any advice would be much appreciated

ETA: Contrary to my ticker lol, I'm not BFing anymore either, so I'm free to abuse my body with as many chemicals as I please

[AllisD]

Hi

I have tried some other alternatives including Xenical. It is not nice by the way of side effects but it is effective.

Most other over the counter medicines are effective but mainly the ones that can only be given on pharmacists advice ie no scrpt just a quick consult with the pharmacist.

The tablets etc that can be purchased at your supermarket and just on the shelf at health food shops/chemist are variable in results. In reality they act as a placebo - but DON'T underestimate the placebo effect.

Do some googling on Placebo studies and you will see that mind over matter is a powerful thing. The cheap tablets can work - if you want them to - IYKWIM

It depends what you are willing to sacrifice to loose the weight.

Dignity - ie possible public anal leakage (xenical)
$$$$$ - Most of the truly effective drugs cost lots of $$$$$$$$$$$$
Food - got to be willing to give up the goodies.

Best of luck

Allis

[Bathsheba]

So essentially you want to speed up your metabolism? I would try grazing on something healthy every hour at least (cutting down the portion size of your main meals) and maybe even trying adding a bit of spice to your diet. Do you like chilli?

[ladybird11]

Alrighty I would recommend L-Carnitine - you can get it at most health food stores or online (the brand I use is Musashi - but there are heaps of other brands out there).

It helps to speed up metabolism, and aids in burning more fat during exercise.

It comes in powder and tablet form - but go for the powder, although it tastes disgusting it absorbs into your body much quicker.

You have about one teaspoon about 20 mins prior to your workout, wash it down with water - and your energy levels wil increase with repeated use, while you burn more fat.

HTH.

[Bathsheba]

of course! i take L-carnitine to help my thyroid condition. i have lots of fatigue associated with my condition and this does help. It does taste vile but it does seem to help.

[ladybird11]

of course! i take L-carnitine to help my thyroid condition. i have lots of fatigue associated with my condition and this does help. It does taste vile but it does seem to help.

Tell me about the taste!!! I had an urge to sprinkle some on watermelon - not recommened just in case .

But it is good stuff!

[Bathsheba]

I find that shaking the powder into a lidded cup of juice (the lidded sipper cups are good for this) is a great way to take L-carnitine... it makes the juice go really frothy and is even vaguely pleasant LOL

[AllisD]

Hmmm that sounds interesting. What is in that stuff? Does it have any side effects? How long/often do you take it?

[Bathsheba]

L-Carnitine is an amino acid as far as I know. You can buy it from health food stores and some chemists. the powdered form is best. I don't think there are any side effects... but maybe ask the pharmacist or a natropath. My GP doesn't seem to know much about it. It can be expensive, I pay about $50 for a container.

[Cherished]

Hi Glamourcide I would recommend changing your exercise to things that you don't usually do like play squash, tennis, get a basketball and go shoot some hoops etc go swimming if you don't usually do that or boxing, anything that you don't regularly do. Also eat food that you don't usually eat, different flavours etc and the time of day you have your meals, for example eat a big breakfast, medium size lunch and very small dinner, I found that has worked really well for me in the past. Mushashi has a great weight loss product with L-Carnitine in it for weight loss, try that one if you are keen to use a suppliment.

[Lulu]

I'd up the excercise too - really get sweating!

[Glamourcide]

Lol thanks for the tips, girls I think if I were to up my exercise any more, someone would have to create an extra few hours in the day - I'm already up at 6am and usually not going to bed until well after midnight because I'm trying to pack in a bit more exercise... I would love to get out and do things like swimming/squash/actual sport but with the two kids and busy days I just literally cannot get out of the house until after 7pm when I put them to bed so unless we get one of those 24-hour gyms in town I think I'm c*** outta luck... which is why I'm resorting to supplements etc to get myself charging, I just cannot fit any more exercise/different routines into my schedule

I bought some of those Fat-Blaster tablets from the chemist but so far I'm not feeling/seeing any difference, so I'll give the L-Carnitine a chop and see if that helps at all.
A typical day food-wise for me is either a small bowl of cereal (usually bran flakes, muesli, rolled oats/porridge etc), a small glass of juice and a piece of fruit; mid-morning a couple of multigrain crackers with thinly-sliced cheese; lunch some homemade salad with greens, tomato, onion, capsicum and a tiny sprinkle of dressing (oil-free); mid-afternoon a few pieces of fruit or a tub of yoghurt if I've got nothing fresh in the fridge; and then dinner is usually a small piece of grilled lean red meat/skinless chicken (and yep Bath, I cover everything in cayenne/chilli, I LOVE spicy foods!) and salad or a light stir-fry with mucho vegies and a bit of lean meat, maybe a bit of rice if I'm feeling like having a carb blow-out lol. Any tips on improvements I can make? I try to have boiled eggs on multigrain toast on weekends when I have a bit more time for the protein, but then I find I usually don't eat anything until dinner and I feel a bit sluggish with a bellyful of eggs lol They're yummy though!
I try not to drink much coffee but I usually have a mug of tea in the mornings and grab a McDonald's coffee once or twice a week (that's my guilty pleasure lol, I hardly ever eat chocolate anymore!), so they're my 'junky' things.

I've just suffered a painfully slow metabolism since my late teens (had a bout with anorexia when I was in my mid-to-late teens and I suppose this is the price I pay) and I have really had to completely change my eating habits again after going nuts being pregnant lol (I took full advantage of 'eating for two' and lived on chocolate and takeaways for ages, then I realised one day that my portion sizing was just absolutely disgusting and I've had to work really hard to get back down to 'normal' portion sizes)...
I've asked DH repeatedly about better, more efficient ways of exercising but it seems for now at least, I'm homebound (so whatever I can do in my living room/backyard)...

So hopefully I can get my hands on some L-Carnitine (powder works better, you reckon? I'll try it lol, despite the foul taste!!) and see if that can help me ditch these last few kilos - I weighed myself again two nights ago (I try to only do it once a week to save me getting hung up on .1's of a kilo, kwim?) and I'm sooo close to cracking the 50's (I'm 60.9 right now, goal is 52-54), I reckon once I get into the 50's it'll be easier, my goal will be within sight, kwim?

Thanks for the advice, I'll let you know how I go!

[Lisa]

I'd say to try to eat protein with every meal. So instead of yogurt & fruit in the afternoon, have it for breakfast. Also, try not to eat more than 2 peices of fruit a day and that includes fruit juice. Otherwise I would say your eating sounds great.

[Rouge]

Just like those who suffer metabolic issues due to speed and other other recreational drug use, duromine and a lot of those other weightloss drugs won't help because it will actually damage your metabolism moreso. Have you been to the Dr to have your metabolism issue checked out? A dr should be able to do some blood tests to see what your body is doing, and what it could possibly need.

And hon, I mean this with as much love and light, but please be careful. If you have a history with anorexia and you are already obsessing over .1's of kgs that's not good. And I know with my height (1.65m) 52-54 kg would put me in the unhealthy weight range using the BMI. I have a few friends who have suffered anorexia, including a SIL who suffered bulimia so I do know the struggle you've been through, but it is a struggle that is life long

[Trillian]

I actually think you are over-doing it, and that is why you cannot shift those last few kg's. I think you have gotten your body into 'famine' mode. You are exercising heaps, eating none to little protein and your body is thinking 'holy crap! she is starving me so I'm gonna hang onto the last bit of fat I have" As crazy as that sounds it does happen. Your body needs a certain percentage of fat on it to be able to function and when your body senses that you are cutting out too much protein and doing far too much exercise, it goes into a self preservation mode.

Despite what you think, what your 'diet' consists of isn't really that great at all. I would have a bit of a google and see what the max amount of calories are that you need, buy yourself a calorie counter and go from there. Cut back a bit on the exercise for a week, get a handle on the food you are eating and start exercising again. Also how much water do you drink? You will have to make sure that you are keeping up the liquids to combat what you would be sweating out and possibly use an electrolyte drink during exercise to replace lost minerals as your diet doesn't really contain a lot.

[Glamourcide]

Okay, so too much fruit = bad? But I really like apples!! More protein... will work on that, shouldn't be too hard when DH is forever banging his fork on the table demanding more red meat! Either way, Christmas is fast approaching and I have indeed planned a festive blow-out involving bucketloads of roasts and chocolate mousse for dessert... maybe even some margaritas mum's bringing over will add to the calories!

To be completely truthful though I don't know if it's the exercise that's excessive. Yeah, I never seem to have enough time to do it but in a day I'm lucky to find 45 mins, usually broken into two or three short bursts when the kids are napping/occupied/in bed. Although I suppose housework like vaccuming/mopping etc counts towards it, too, so maybe an hour, an hour and a quarter on a really good day? I try to do 20-30 mins on the training bike to get my heart rate up, then some light weight work/sit-ups/push-ups in sets to tone up my muscles. I read somewhere that if you want to just tone, instead of bulking up, you're supposed to do cardio first, then weights, if you want to bulk up it's weights first? I do give myself two days off in any seven-day period, sometimes two days in a row, other times I'll have a day off, then another day off later in the week, and I do tend to eat more/eat 'bad' foods on some days, maybe one day a week I let myself eat whatever I feel like in small portions so that I don't have a blow-out and totally binge for a week straight when the pressure gets on top of me.

Rouge I agree, I do have to watch myself at times because I find it all too easy to slip back into bad habits almost without realising... or more knowing, and that little voice is doing the happy dance again, so I try to fight it... I have been having a few other issues with myself in the months since DD2 was born, the major one being a very poor body image, so I have tried to stay as aware of that as possible and not let myself get out of control (hence the weigh-ins and tape measuring once a week only), and stick to just the one goal weight. The reason I've chosen 54kg (which may be a bit low going by BMIs but to be honest I don't place too much faith in BMI tables as they fail to take a lot of factors into account) is that that's the weight I was in the months before I fell pg with DD1, and it's probably the only period I can remember being honestly happy with my body and my weight, and being proud of myself - before that, I'd been miserable for a very long time (either dangerously underweight or shamefully overweight), and since then what with having kids, I've also been pretty upset with the way I look (oh, how I wish I had been able to enjoy my pregnant body like other women, I just felt awful!).

Oh, and water - 2.5-3L a day, sometimes a little more on really hot days/if I've been sweating a bit. Why so much? Because I've been prone to UTIs since childhood and there is NOTHING worse than peeing razorblades when you have two kids yelling for attention lol. I had a doctor advise me that a 'person of my size' (whatever that means) needed to be consuming 'at least 3.5L a day', but that sounded ridiculous. I do drink a bit more than what's recommended because I just hate, hate, hate having a UTI, but I don't think it's an excessive amount?

But, with all that being said, I'm quite close to my goal now so I have no aversion to trying out a few different eating options (ie eating more) and seeing how that goes. I might talk to my doctor about my metabolism issues and see if she thinks it's a problem... probably not really anything 'wrong' with me but I do tend to hang onto excess weight if I let it creep up and it takes a long, long time for my body to process food etc (TMI warning, eg I usually only 'go' twice a week whereas DH, who has a wonderfully speedy metabolism, goes at least twice a day so I compare to him and see it as a problem, kwim?). Maybe a bit of genetics at play there too because my mum's always been very heavyset and the women on dad's side of the family tend to carry a bit 'extra', too, so since puberty it's been an uphill battle to not just slide into being overweight!

I just want to thank you girls for the support and advice It's really, really hard for me because not many people around me IRL understand much about where I've been, and I've had such bad habits in the past I don't really trust myself to make these decisions without the advice of others who have a better idea of what is good, kwim?
So I'm very, very grateful for the support and advice, it's wonderful. Thank-you

[Lulu]

Wow - that water intake seems excessive to me. I wouldn't go over 1.5 myself, but I'm not an expert.

[Bathsheba]

How tall are you darl? I agree that over 3L a day of water is excessive unless it's the middle of a heatwave. Also (not just because i avoid red meat) but mammal protien is harder to digest than fish/poultry so if you have constipation issues I would maybe consider not going too heavy on the red meat... it can really bind you up. I'd say some fish and some brown rice (avoid white/processed foods in favour of browns for better digestion too) would do your system some good, for example.

I am about 170cm and 54kilos would also put me in the "unhealthily low" catagory. I tend to hover around 65-66 and am happy with my weight on the whole... my bones are heavier than most women, you can tell by the size of my hands. What kind of frame do you have?