Any medication that helps with weight loss?

[Padstow58]

I'm doing a healthy eating / calorie counting diet. I eat around 1500 calories a day because any less and I'm starving.

The loss is very slow. Barely a pound a week.

I'm wondering whether you can recommend any over the counter medication I can take to use in conjunction with my diet to speed the weight loss up a bit.

When you say around 1500 calories, unless you are religiously weighing and logging everything, it is very easy to be underestimating the amount of calories you are consuming. After all, we’ve all done it for years which is why we ended up in the situation of needing to diet! We kid ourselves ‘oh it’s only going to be x many calories’ but it’s shocking how many calories are in some things. Add a couple of ‘cheat days’ into the mix and you wipe out all your calorie deficit by drinking alcohol or having that treat.

Are you weighing and logging on to My Fitness Pal or similar?

There are lipid binders you can buy but they are expensive and they act by helping you eliminate the fat you eat, they do that by making you run to the loo and can cause stomach discomfort and diarrhoea. The reviews are not good!

The only way to loose weight is calorie deficit. To get that you need to be exact about the number of calories you need to stick to to get the deficit. Then you need to be 100% exact and log and weigh what your are eating. Lastly you need to fill up on healthy food like protein and vegetables. If you can fit 2 weight sessions a week as well you should loose around 2 lbs a week, without being starving

Are you in the US?
There is a medication that will help with appetite suppression and it truly works.
Personal experience,it helps boost the weight loss process and you learn to eat what you need,not want.
And after you stop the med,you have gotten into healthy habits so you can maintain.
I did look and it's not available in England though.

Ozempic or saxenda. 1 pound a week seems like a reasonable loss to me though.

What is it called? Thanks

I thik the PP was referring to Wegovy. Why are people being so coy about naming medications?

If op is not in the US I would prefer not to waste her time with suggesting a med that wouldn't be acceptable.
That's not "coy"...

It is called Phentermine.

But telling her there is a mystery medication as opposed to naming Wegovy? Or Ozempic or Saxenda?

@LovelaceBiggWither Are you talking to me??

@LovelaceBiggWither
Meds aren't a "mystery "...
But it's not acceptable to someone then why care what it is?

Topiramate .. You can only get it on prescription though.

Very true!
And from experience this combined with phentermine helped me with a jump start to aid in weight loss.
It's also used for migraine,which I experience, so it helped me un many ways.
Thank you for pointing that out!

I took orlistat for a while - the fat binder that can make you shit yourself! It's the same as Saxenda, but I got the generic version that was substantially cheaper.

It basically forces you to stick to a low-fat diet, to prevent the dreaded oily arse seepage. I stopped taking it after a couple of months as it was causing bladder pain, and I don't think my liver was all that keen on it either! I went back to intermittent fasting and had much more success.

Orlistat and saxenda are two totally different drugs. Orlistat is an oral medicine that prevents dietary fat being absorbed. Saxenda is an injected medication that is a GLP-1.

@Padstow58
I also eat around (as in average) 1500 calories a day and have lost over 2 stone since September. Slow and steady has worked very well for me. I'm about to start maintenance. I've about a pound more to lose then I'm going to be maintaining and toning. It's been easy to stick to that amount of calories most of the time. I've had some maintenance days, some complete blow outs if eating out, but most of the time I stick to it and the results have been great. I highly recommend Happy scale app for keeping you motivated with a lovely visual. I'll attach my latest stats from it. I eat fairly healthily but nothing is banned, there are no good or bad foods, I just try to make healthier choices.

That's exactly what I was prescribed it for, migraines.. It helped so much, and then I noticed I was just dropping the pounds, bare in mind I was on 400mg a day, without phentermine. However, at such a high dose, it was amazing!

@AutisticLegoLover oops, I got confused - I meant Xenical! 😅😅

I was thinking of the fat binders but don't fancy shitting myself so might have a rethink.

@AutisticLegoLover can you give me an example of what you eat in a day? Because I'm really struggling with being hungry.

And I'll look at that app.

Thanks.

Are you exercising?

Saxenda has literally changed my life overnight.
You need to meet certain criteria to be able to buy it online.
Have a read of some of the threads on Saxenda and Ozempic on here to get an idea of if it would be suitable for you.
For me it has made "dieting" effortless. It is only my first week, but with zero symptoms, and feeling totally free from food... it is amazing for me. I want to shout it from the rooftops! It has stopped the food chatter in my head. I am eating 3 meals a day, portion size massively reduced which has naturally caused my calorie intake to be around 1000cals a day. I need to be on 1200 or less to lose, so it is perfect for me. It's the absolute lack of effort that makes it so fantastic.

@Padstow58 sure, I'll post in a bit with my very repetitive diet 😁 Habe you worked out your tdee? Have you much to lose?

Breakfast: unfailingly porridge made with semi skimmed milk, chia seeds and golden syrup. I used skimmed mostly as that's what I've had since childhood but semi skimmed in porridge helps keep me full for longer. And a cup of tea made with skimmed milk.

Lunch: usually Fage 0% Greek yogurt, cherry, raspberry and strawberry compote (I make it myself) and honey.

Dinner: homemade soup and two of those part-baked petit pains or pasta with homemade marinara sauce and cheese or rarely a veggie burger and a few chips or veggie fajitas or homemade pizza.

Snacks are the usual things like crisps, snackajacks, sweets.

Portions are smallish and worked out to my daily allowance of 1500. I have hungry days where I eat more but not by much. Over the Easter holidays I had things like McDonald's and lots of things I wouldn't normally have but it's not affected my progress much just slowed it down by a couple of days.

I walk 10 miles a day most days. I'm 46 and have been perimenopausal for years now.

Your diet is very low in protein - I'd suggest upping the protein and working out with weights.