The One About the Diet Pill
I am very embarrassed to share this story for a few reasons. I wasn’t actually even going to share it but there are some lessons to be learnt so I here we go.
I have shared quite a bit about my struggles over the last few years with my weight. It all started about 4 years ago when I had burnout – I think the fact my cortisol bottomed out caused the initial weight gain. We sorted it out and my Dr at the time felt that I should start loosing soon – I did not. Despite my best efforts, the weight just would not budge. I worked with her for about 18 months trying to fix it. Then I think I just started to accept it since nothing was working – eating less, working out more, cutting out processed foods, caffeine, sugar etc etc. We also had a lot going on in our lives that it wasn’t a priority. And then Cameron died and it seemed trivial and stupid to be worrying about my weight.
Fast forward 6 months and it was time to wean off my antidepressants (as a result of Cam’s death) so I needed to see a Dr. I decided at the same to get my hormone levels and all of that checked at the same time – the hope was that there would be an answer to my inability to loose weight. I saw a new Dr and we did blood tests, pap smear and mammogram. All came back normal which was obviously great news but not helpful to the weight issue.
So the Dr and I chatted about calorie deficits and exercise but then she mentioned the possibility of going onto a tablet to help with weight loss. Now I am pretty anti meds like this, I have never used any before for this reason. But I am also pretty frustrated with where I am weight wise and I have spent 4 years trying the natural options. In a moment of madness I agreed to do it. I mean what’s the worse that can happen, right?
HA! Let me tell you the worst thing that DID happen – I threw up for 2 days, then had extreme nausea for 3 weeks – ALL DAY! Add dizziness to that, headaches and constipation – just for fun. Basically I had every single side effect of this pill that there was to get.
Needless to say I am no longer on said pill because while I do want to drop this 20kg, I don’t want it enough to be nauseous and dizzy indefinitely.
I am a little annoyed with myself for agreeing to this. And a little (ok a lot) annoyed with the Dr for not mentioning these side effects at all, especially since they are pretty common.
A surprising realization though was that I am actually a lot more at peace with my rounder shape than I thought I was. I am going to keep monitoring how much I eat and have started walking more but I think I am pretty close to accepting that this is just where my body wants to be now. I am going to take that as the win out of this situation.
Disclaimer: This is MY experience. If you are on a diet tablet and it is working for you, that is amazing. We all have to do what works for us. Had this pill not had such severe side effects, this post would probably be totally different.
