“I’ve been cutting down while using these but not really seen much difference in my weight loss. I eat healthy but do have my little treat at the end of the day which I feel shouldn’t have that big an effect. May have to continue for another month to see how it goes if still no big improvement may go back to Lifesum tracking as I lost 20lbs on this”
Hi Karlyn
Thank you for leaving your review regarding this product, we love to hear from all of our patients so that we can improve how we provide treatments for all.
Alli contains the active ingredient Orlistat, which has no direct effect on the amount of fat in your body but instead works to reduce the amount of fat absorbed from your diet, which over the longer term can help to decrease body fat.
Orlistat binds to enzymes, known as lipases, that occur in your intestine and break down dietary fat into smaller molecules that can be absorbed. By blocking this process, Orlistat helps to prevent some dietary fat from being absorbed that is instead passed out when you have a bowel movement.
The side effects that you refer to are most common at the start of treatment and are most likely to occur after eating a high-fat meal. By restricting your intake of dietary fat to less than 15g per main meal you will decrease the chances of these side effects.
The more of your diet contains fat, the more that is excreted and is a sign of an imbalanced diet.
However this is essential for taking a long term and sustained approach to your weight loss journey, which Orlistat is an excellent tool for assisting with.
The expected weight loss is about 10% of your overall weight over 6 months, when combined with a weight-reducing diet and exercise. This equated to about 1kg in a month for someone who weighs 75kg.
For optimal results; Orlisat can be taken up to three times daily every day, seven days a week, with or up to one hour after each main meal.
You should take Orlistat with meals all meal containing between 1g - 15g of fat
I did want to note that you should skip taking Orlistat if you:
Eat a meal that is fat free (such as a salad without dressing)
Skip a meal
Eat a meal with over 15g of fat -for many people, the gastrointestinal side effects of Orlistat mean that if they occasionally want to break your diet and indulge, it is better to skip your dose and not have any adverse consequences
Here are some links which give some inspiration on the ways to build a healthy diet and introduce sustained exercise as the NHS has a wealth of knowledge on their eat well platform (https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/) and also some useful inspiration for keeping active (https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/)
We would always advocate using one weight loss program at a time, and building this into a healthy diet with an appropriate amount of exercise.
I do hope that this reassures you that this medication will help you achieve your weight loss goal however if you have any more questions or need any more help, please get back in contact.
