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Finally reached the end of my 6 month diet

I've been on a diet for almost 6 months during which I've managed to lose 5 stone 10 lbs. I've gone from being well into the obese range to just the top of my ideal weight range based on my BMI (weight to height indicator).

I started the diet on 7 June 2009, finishing on 27 November 2009.

When I started the diet I weight 20 stone, when I finished I was 14 stone 4 lbs which is a BMI of 24.8 classed as a healthy weight.

Before and after

I don't have many photos of me before the diet as I tend to be the one behind the camera, but here are the obligatory before and after photos.

Before my dietAfter my diet

Reason for diet

I started this diet having gradually put on weight over several years. I have already tried many other diet plans which caused a small temporary dip in weight at the time, but then resulted in me putting weight back on after the diet. I reached a weight that I'd never wanted to which suddenly triggered me to do something about it for the benefit of my health. I saw the adverts for the Alli tablets and had a Alli pre-purchase pharmacy consultation before starting the plan.

I think this was particularly good timing when I started the diet as I have the right mindset and determination to lose weight, which I think is very important when on a diet.

Alli diet - weight loss pills

I started the diet by taking the Allli weight loss pills in addition to strict diet and exercise. The Alli tablets work by reducing the amount of fat that is absorbed from food eaten at the same time as the tablet is taken. When taking the Alli tablets it is important to stay within the recommended fat and calorie limits. In particular eating too much fat has unpleasant side effects. This acts are a very good deterrent from eating outside of the diet which I believe was just as instrumental (if not more) than the reduction in fat absorption.

Exercise

I have also greatly increased the amount of exercise that I've been doing. In the past I've always been a keen swimmer, but had found that over time I was putting less effort into my swimming. So I started to put much more effort into my swimming to improve my exercise levels. I also spent additional time on the Wii Fit and PS 1 dance mat and Wii Dance Mats. I have also started jogging for about 30 minutes once a week.

As well as helping me loose weight the exercise now means that I am much fitter than when I started the diet.

Dieting after the Alli tablets

I stopped taking the Alli tablets after the first few months, but continued with the same diet and continuing to increase my exercise, although my will-power has not been quite as good on a few occasions towards the end of the diet. The amount of weight lost over this period was on average about 10oz less per week than the average weight lost whilst I was taking the Alli tablets.

Graph of BMI against date showing weight loss on diet
The chart (created in OpenOffice.org Spreadsheet) shows BMI against date showing weight lost both with and without the help of Alli tablets.

Could I have done it without the help of Alli?

This is the big question - could I have lost the same weight without taking the Alli weight-loss tablets? Just looking at the amount of weight lost with and without the tablets then it doesn't look like it made that much difference. Assuming that the difference between during and after taking Alli was the amount that Alli helped then it helped by about 10lbs or 13% of the total amount of weight lost, which is about an extra month if I had been on the same diet, but without any help from Alli.

Of course when talking about dieting there is far more to it than just statistics of difference with and without tablets. There is the additional motivation created by seeing the faster weight loss which certainly helped, but I think the main part for me was the additional fear factor that made me stick to the diet. The reason for this is that if you are taking Alli and eat above the recommended fat content there are some Alli side-effects, sometimes call Alli-Oops. By ensuring my food intake was within the recommended levels and skipping the tablet where I thought it may not be I was able to avoid these, but the side-effects can be unpleasant.

This helped me to resist the usual temptations (ie. the kids cupboard full of chocolates, biscuits and various other none diet foods) at the start of my diet. As the diet progressed I'd got used to eating the smaller quantities and so it wasn't so difficult.

To answer the question - I really don't know. I'd like to think I could have done it all on my own if I'd tried the diet without the pills, but I've got a long enough history of failed diets to think that perhaps that's not the case.

Any regrets?

The only regret I have is that I have not done this sooner, although the tablets have only been available without prescription fairly recently.

When I first say that I took diet pills some people seam to be a bit surprised and think it's really a good idea that I came off them after the first few months. I don't feel bad about taking the tablets any more than people would feel bad about having a patch or chewing gum to help them stop smoking (I've never smoked, but it's the closest analogy I can think of).

My diet progress

I've stopped dieting now, but my future plan is to try and keep within a much healthier weight than I was before. I expect to put on a little weight especially over Christmas, but then go on a diet again and get back to a healthy weight. I do hope this is a permanent change towards a healthier lifestyle.

I'll be tweeting my progress in the new year on my personal twitter account (@stewartwatkiss) or you can follow the @firstaidquiz tweets relating to first aid and health topics.