Diet Pills: Easy Weight Loss? Forget About it

My doctor offered me an easy, doctor assisted weight loss plan just over a year ago. It worked some, but I never reached my goal, and I doubt I will on this program. Here is my story.

Before the diet pills:

I like every other overweight person on the earth have been struggling with my weight for years. Lose 5 pounds, gain 10. You know the story. I personally have been told time and time again that I needed to take drastic measures. You see, all of the women in my family have died of cancer (with one remaining Aunt suffering from it now, and I too run the risk if I continue to carry around excess fat, which carries excess toxins. I even discussed gastric bypass with my husband, but decided we would ask the doctor for other options. Because I do not look morbidly obese (but the scale tells a different story), she suggested diet pills instead.

Diet pills prescribed by my doctor:

This last diet in particular involved the use of weight loss pills. Tenuate and Glucophage.

Tenuate is an appetite suppressant used along with diet, exercise, and behavior therapy for the short-term management of obesity. Side effects that may go away during treatment include restlessness, nervousness, difficulty sleeping, or dry mouth.

Glucophage also known as (metformin) is used as a treatment in type 2 diabetes. It improves glucose tolerance in patients and lowers plasma glucose. Glucophage is also used to treat Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (another problem that has been plaguing me for years and is know to cause weight gain). While it also can cause a person to lose weight, a person who actually has type 2 diabetes will lose weight on this medication. The worst side effect that I have experienced is digestive problems and diarrhea.

I was originally put on these weight loss drugs and lost 40 pounds quickly and easily. The only problem with that is you need to be very overweight to use these drugs, and I, personally, had 100 pounds to lose. After taking these drugs for 6 months, my prescription was changed to phentermine alone.

Phentermine when used with diet and exercise can help you lose weight by decreasing your appetite. It can cause upset stomach, increased blood pressure, and insomnia to name a few. For me it did not work at all.

The struggle with the diet pills begin:

After 7 months on and off Phentermine, in an effort to fool my body into thinking that it was just starting these drugs, I have gained back 10 of the 40 pounds lost, and my doctor has recently put me back on Tenuate and raised my Glucophage prescription to 2000 MG per day.

Needless to say, this stronger combination of weight loss drugs makes me feel awful and my scale is not moving.

My verdict on diet pills:

I have concluded that there is not such thing as easy weight loss, even when the doctor promises. Of course, someone who is 30 pounds overweight can manage to get it off, but what about people who are more.

My only consolation is that I am well built, and am my weight is commonly underestimated by 30 pounds. If it weren't so sad, it would be funny to watch the look on the doctors faces as they push the scale balance over a little at a time and say, funny, you don't look this heavy. Oh but I am.

Now that I have finally faced the fact that I will not lose my excess weight easily, I have to resolve to lose the rest through diet (I hate that word) and exercise… the hard way.