Has anyone tried Atkins and Alli (Orlistat) together?

[Slidesdownmountains]

Originally Posted by Georgiana

Okay... so you were probably overeating fat, since only the other day you entered it in Sparkpeople. You were also drinking too much diet coke. And you've been doing Atkins on and off since New Year. Then why, instead of changing these bad dietary habits, do you prefer to take Alli? Dr. Atkins wanted us to change our eating habits and learn to eat nutritious, healthy, minimally processed foods, not to binge on fat, take Alli and wash it down with diet coke.

This is not what I am doing - I do not want any kind of explosions - I have made a change to my diet whereby I am eating less fat and smaller portions, and have cut out diet coke. I never considered that I was bingeing on fat before: I ate 3 meals a day, but did enjoy lots of olive oil, fish, avocado, eggs, red meat, chicken (admittedly would eat my body-weight in cheese given half a chance) like everyone else here, but I wasn't counting fat (didn't think I needed to). To my shame, I didn't even realise that eggs contained fat!! Doh! Also, I never eat processed foods. Just too much of the above!

So your diet has about 1400 calories, with 55-60 g of fat... out of each 1/4 are blocked by Alli... so you have 1250-1300 calories left. This is probably less by a few hundred calories than your BMR. You should know that eating low calories & low carb will mess up your thyroid hormone levels (look for e.g. E. Danforth and A. Burger, Annu. Rev. Nutr., 1989, 9:201-27 if you're interested in a study).

To be honest I really am not keeping too much of an eye on calories, just fat, but I guess the two are reasonably hard to keep separate. I should probably eat more calorie wise, but as I have not calculated my BMR I have no idea

Did you discuss your diet with your doctor? Does he agree with you taking Alli on a low carb, low fat, low calorie diet?

Yes - she was the person who told me about Alli after my weight loss had dried up. My carb level at this point was up to around 70g a day with exercise, so not excessively low. Of course it turns out to be a lot lower now, but I will check back in with her and we can go from there - there's not too much else I can say about that!

As I said before, I am not saying that this will be the key to my golden skinny future, but it was something I wanted to try out. If I don't get on with it, I am more than happy to go back to a week of induction and then try and keep my fat intake down a bit more but still on Atkins. If it does work, all the better, and I will have learnt a bit more about fat content of foods.

[Slidesdownmountains]

Originally Posted by Georgiana

No, there is no limit on fat. Dr. Atkins told us to eat when hungry or when 6 hours have passed since our last meal. He also told us to stop eating when satisfied, not full, stuffed or sick from overeating. During Induction, the percentages one should aim for are 65% fat, 5% carbs and 30% protein. The protein stays the same throughout the diet, but the percentage of fat decreases to leave room for more carbohydrates. However, Atkins remains a high fat diet, with the majority of the total calories coming from fat. So while there is no limit on the amount of fat or protein we are allowed to eat, we are not supposed to binge on them. And we should not overeat protein either, because part of the excess protein will be converted to sugars, which can kick us out of ketosis, trigger cravings, cause stalls or even weight gain.

My goodness, this starts to get complicated! There's no limit of fat/protein but don't binge, and don't eat too much protein?? ;-P

My current sparks stats are around the 53% fat/19% carb/27% protein mark, which I don't think is bad. I am not hungry and I eat every 4-5 hours or so, plenty of veg, lean meats/fish and lots of water.

[Georgiana]

Originally Posted by Slidesdownmountains

Yes - she was the person who told me about Alli after my weight loss had dried up. My carb level at this point was up to around 70g a day with exercise, so not excessively low. Of course it turns out to be a lot lower now, but I will check back in with her and we can go from there - there's not too much else I can say about that!

So I am assuming she also knew what you were eating before recommending Alli, didn't she?

[Slidesdownmountains]

Originally Posted by Georgiana

So I am assuming she also knew what you were eating before recommending Alli, didn't she?

Yes - she took about 1 weeks food diary, though she was generally aware I was following low-carb diet, and was the one who recommended I log it in Sparks/Fitday to see if I was lacking in a nutrient or something, and to give me a clearer idea of what was going in....
A shocking moment that was.... ;-)
She said if I was willing to cut down my fat, that Alli COULD give some extra help. And me being greedy to lose more weight, as opposed to SOME weight, wanted to try it!

[pinkfusion]

I have taken Alli just doing a regular fat diet and had HORRIBLE what they call, IIRC, "treatment effects" . I believe that Alli was made specifically for a lower fat diet. Even if you are eating less fat or even a "normal" amount of fat you will likely experience them. I think they say under 25% in their guide

There is another low fat low carb high protein program that I have done where I have lost weight but there was the white knuckling the will power before I went into ketosis. I was still always obsessed with food. Atkins has killed that.

Anyway, when I looked at your initial menu it looked like you were eating a LOT of carbs. Am I wrong? It just looked that way to me. Have you tried cutting portions and eating more often?

I would work on the keeping the percentages for each meal/snack on target and just making them smaller.

[Slapshot]

She said if I was willing to cut down my fat, that Alli COULD give some extra help.

That makes sense, and kind of answers the question in your post title. Doing Atkins and Alli together doesn't make sense in any respect at all, putting aside the "treatment effects."

[Georgiana]

Originally Posted by Slidesdownmountains

My goodness, this starts to get complicated! There's no limit of fat/protein but don't binge, and don't eat too much protein?? ;-P

Yep. We need to learn portion control. Not knowing what normal portion sizes are is what made most of us fat in the first place. Just because butter is has 0 carbs per stick doesn't mean we can eat a whole stick of butter. Actually Jacqueline Eberstein, who was the Director of Medical Education at the Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine when Dr. Atkins was alive, once told a story about a patient at the Center who was having a whole stick of butter sprinkled with cinnamon for her after-dinner dessert. She was obviously gaining weight... So the point here, just because a food has few or even zero carbs, we can't stuff ourselves like Thanksgiving turkeys with it.

My current sparks stats are around the 53% fat/19% carb/27% protein mark, which I don't think is bad. I am not hungry and I eat every 4-5 hours or so, plenty of veg, lean meats/fish and lots of water.

Is this sparkpeople.com? I never used it, but there must be a bug in the way they compute percentages. Do they compute them automatically or do you have to compute them? Because if the menu you posted is what you had in the past 5 days, then you have max. 60 g of fat and about 1400 calories, which means 38.6% fat. To have 53% fat from 1400 calories you'd have to eat 82.4 g of fat and since you can't eat more than 15 g or so of fat per meal, that would mean 6 meals per day eaten 2-3 hours apart, not 4-5. It might be that you actually didn't eat 1400 calories and ate 50-60 g of fat, as you said you do in your previous post, but then to have 53% calories coming from fat, you'd need to eat only 850-1020 calories. So there's something wrong with the sparkpeople calculator if it computes the percentages for you. I think it's better if you always do the math yourself, because the numbers sparkpeople.com spills out are clearly off.

Originally Posted by Slidesdownmountains

Yes - she took about 1 weeks food diary, though she was generally aware I was following low-carb diet, and was the one who recommended I log it in Sparks/Fitday to see if I was lacking in a nutrient or something, and to give me a clearer idea of what was going in....

Whoa! So, she asked you to enter your menus in sparkpeople.com or fitday.com to check your vitamins, your calories, fat and stuff??? Sheesh, I should have become a doctor! No blood test to see if you are deficient in anything? No nothing? She just told you to enter them in FitDay??? Because she should know that we all absorb vitamins and minerals differently, so just because FitDay shows you 100% for vitamin X it does not mean you are not deficient in that vitamin.

But I assume she was probably shocked by your fat intake and that's why she didn't care about vitamins... So did she tell you to decrease your carbohydrate intake too? Or to increase it? Or did she tell you anything? Or just "take the pills and run"?

[Slidesdownmountains]

Originally Posted by Georgiana

Yep. We need to learn portion control. Not knowing what normal portion sizes are is what made most of us fat in the first place. Just because butter is has 0 carbs per stick doesn't mean we can eat a whole stick of butter. Actually Jacqueline Eberstein, who was the Director of Medical Education at the Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine when Dr. Atkins was alive, once told a story about a patient at the Center who was having a whole stick of butter sprinkled with cinnamon for her after-dinner dessert. She was obviously gaining weight... So the point here, just because a food has few or even zero carbs, we can't stuff ourselves like Thanksgiving turkeys with it.

Is this sparkpeople.com? I never used it, but there must be a bug in the way they compute percentages. Do they compute them automatically or do you have to compute them? Because if the menu you posted is what you had in the past 5 days, then you have max. 60 g of fat and about 1400 calories, which means 38.6% fat. To have 53% fat from 1400 calories you'd have to eat 82.4 g of fat and since you can't eat more than 15 g or so of fat per meal, that would mean 6 meals per day eaten 2-3 hours apart, not 4-5. It might be that you actually didn't eat 1400 calories and ate 50-60 g of fat, as you said you do in your previous post, but then to have 53% calories coming from fat, you'd need to eat only 850-1020 calories. So there's something wrong with the sparkpeople calculator if it computes the percentages for you. I think it's better if you always do the math yourself, because the numbers sparkpeople.com spills out are clearly off.

Whoa! So, she asked you to enter your menus in sparkpeople.com or fitday.com to check your vitamins, your calories, fat and stuff??? Sheesh, I should have become a doctor! No blood test to see if you are deficient in anything? No nothing? She just told you to enter them in FitDay??? Because she should know that we all absorb vitamins and minerals differently, so just because FitDay shows you 100% for vitamin X it does not mean you are not deficient in that vitamin.

But I assume she was probably shocked by your fat intake and that's why she didn't care about vitamins... So did she tell you to decrease your carbohydrate intake too? Or to increase it? Or did she tell you anything? Or just "take the pills and run"?

OK - I can take some critiquing, but it seems that you are here just to tear apart everything I say and to have the final word.

I have posted in good faith and all you've done is criticise, accuse me of lying, accuse my doctor of being a quack, and not give ONE word of support. As a moderator you need to be a little more diplomatic in your approach - whether you mean to or not, you come across as very harsh and authoritarian.

I am not going to answer the sarky comments in your last post as I am too angry.

[misplaced southerner]

hey slidesdownmountains! i just came across this thread. can i add something here? first of all, i feel your pain. i too have come sooooo close to goal or just stopped losing so many times when i get to a certain point. it is VERY tempting to want to try something new to spark an extra loss and to restart the fat burning process.

i also commend you for talking to your doctor. i am sure that you, like many of us, have had good and bad docs, and those who follow different practices and have different beliefs.

so.....if i may share my experience with you, maybe it will help some. i am 48. for about a year now i have not felt myself and i have done a LOT of reading and research on all the things that make us work (as women.) we are a HIGHLY complex system of hormones, insulin, cortisal and such. interestingly enough, and unfortunately as well, that ALL play on one another. and if ONE is off, it plays heck with the rest. i am not as good at the scientific details as georgianna is but as simply as i can put it is this....when your hormonal levels are off even slighly, it WILL affect cortisal levels, insulin output, metabolism....all which make is MAKE FAT and HOLD ONTO FAT. so ANYTHING we do to throw that balance off has a negative effect on the rest of things.

i recently went to a preventitive medicine specialist who is doing saliva testing (not all docs agree with that but it IS more conclusive than blood tests) to determine which hormones are off (didn't show up much in bloodwork) and also to test cortisal levels, DHEA, and metabolic hormones. i hope to find results there because i deal with WEIGHT GAIN, TROUBLE LOSING WEIGHT, FATIGUE, FOGGY BRAIN (ha!)and sadly, IRRITABILITY. all of this probably caused by something in my body being "off."

my old doc suggested that i am depressed and wanted to give me an antidepressant or anti anxiety drug....guess what i found out when i researched it? THAT DRUG CAUSES THE BODY'S METABOLISM TO SLOW DOWN WHICH CAUSES WEIGHT GAIN. THEN AFTER USE, THE BODY HAS TROUBLE BUILDING ITS METABOLISM AGAIN!

what is the point of me saying this? heck i can't remember anymore! just to say to be VERY careful about what you put in your body. it is a VERY intricate system. VERY much so. and it takes a VERY fine balance for it to work as efficiently as possible. i don't know how old you are but at 48 and with NO SYMPTOMS of menopause, i was surprised that the doctor even suggested doing this work up but after feeling like an alien in my own body, i said ok.

also, may i add too, that when i WAS stuck at a certain weight level, the wise sages here advised me to be patient. weight loss is not linear. (but you know that). what did help for me was...
-eating regularly thruout the day and keeping the blood sugar UP
-EXERCISE...ramp it up, change it out. i'd do cardio one day, weights the next, yoga..
-drown yourself in water
-THINK POSITIVELY. you are building a healthy body on the inside even if you can't see what you want yet on the outside

i commend you also for coming here and seeking info. that's what it's all about. be wise my friend. you have one body. it is YOURS and it is perfect. keep it that way. and it never hurts to seek a second medical opinion. there is a wealth of medical advice out there from providers who study and practive alternatives to the norm.

good luck and let us know how you are doing. i promise you that if you stick with this, and fight thru the plateau, you WILL see results. you will be fit and strong and healthy and HOT (hee hee!). have a great day.

[pinkfusion]

Originally Posted by Slidesdownmountains

OK - I can take some critiquing, but it seems that you are here just to tear apart everything I say and to have the final word.

I have posted in good faith and all you've done is criticise, accuse me of lying, accuse my doctor of being a quack, and not give ONE word of support. As a moderator you need to be a little more diplomatic in your approach - whether you mean to or not, you come across as very harsh and authoritarian.

I am not going to answer the sarky comments in your last post as I am too angry.

Not trying to negate your feelings or butt in in any way, but it seems to me like she is and advocate rather than an adversary.

You cant eat "low fat" and be on Atkins. At least not Alli level low fat. If you want to eat low fat and be in ketosis, it has to be low fat and low calorie, high protein.