Phentermine: Tips

Count anyway. Get in the habit of tracking yourself. Get in the habit of checking labels, weighing food, being more active. This will make maintenance easier after you get off the pill. I hope your doc is doing close medical supervision while on the phentermine.

Are you weighing your foods and measuring liquids ? If not, I'd learn all about that now. Learn portion control, moderation. Learn how to weigh everything out ,log it here accurately. Because in a few short weeks that doctor will pull your prescription and 10-1 you will resort back to your old ways if you hadn't bothered to learn anything .
Pills are a quick fix . for lasting success ,you need to learn as much as possible. These are lessons that diet pills can't teach.
If you eat at a deficit- you will lose weight. No pills needed. There's no short cuts to lasting success- you gotta work for it.
So try to learn as much as possible now because they won't write them for a long time at all.

I took them back in 2002 when I lost all my weight with WW. They quit working very quickly if you take them everyday, like within 2-3 weeks you are pretty much immune to them, then it will take a few months of not taking them before you get it all out of your system. Therefore, I would only use them when I knew I was going to have a tough day such as a party or event where there would be food everywhere, and even then I usually only took 1/2 of it. So I would suggest using them sparingly, while still counting calories and learning the proper portions. I got some phentermine last fall, but haven't taken them yet, not even sure why I got them, guess I had to have that crutch in my hand for security.

No personal experience and wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.

I remember a recent thread by a young woman who ended up with massive heart problems. I thought that must have been pretty scary. http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10329901/phentermine/p1

It's not rocket science. CICO.

I have personal experience with phentermine, and I can say that it was awesome to see the rapid weight loss.....but! There were so many more negatives that outweighed that.

I would forget to eat all together. Now, while this seems like an awesome thing, but it really isn't. Your body is MEANT to run on food, not pharmaceuticals. My boss would sit food on my desk for lunch because he saw that I was losing weight rapidly...and it was because I wasn't eating while I was taking it. Too many of those lunches went uneaten.

I, too, thought that it would help me jump start a healthy lifestyle and it would only be for a little bit - Well, it didn't. I was prescribed phentermine by a doctor who outright stated "I hate fat people." Guess what? I was a fat people, and the only thing that he would prescribe for me is drugs to get the weight off as fast as possible. He didn't get to the root of the problem (ultimately my weight was a side effect of emotional binge eating that I went to a therapist to work through). I thought I deserved to be hated because I was fat. That just isn't true. I took myself off of it after four months because I was turning into a person I didn't know, and I didn't like her. I was mean and angry and horrible. I was also a single mom who had to be emotionally stable for my son. This didn't help. At. All. While it temporarily "cured" me being fat, it wasn't magical, it didn't ultimately make me change my habits, and it only made me gain MORE weight after I got off of it...because it didn't teach my body anything!

What HAS helped is me realizing that if my diet isn't sustainable for the rest of my life, then I shouldn't be eating that way. I eat real, whole food, trying my hardest to stay away from processed food, and learning what works for my body. My body doesn't like processed sugar, but honey and agave nectar is great! My body doesn't like processed white flour, but whole grain/whole wheat works well for me. I started to learn my body when I followed Beachbody's 21 Day Fix eating plan. When I went off of it, I would add things back in and see how my body would react. Now I know how it responds to food, and I try to stick with it as closely as I can - because it works and it makes sense and it's sustainable.

Ultimately, you need to learn how your body works best. If you haven't already, I would recommend doing a complete physical to make sure there are no underlying medical conditions, and then get on a sustainable healthy eating plan. Keep trying, but PLEASE put down the phentermine! I've been there, and there is nothing good that can come from it.

Phentermine may be proven to help with weight loss, but it says that "Phentermine is used for a limited period of time to speed weight loss in overweight people who are exercising and eating a low-calorie diet." So , the person needs to be on a low calorie diet and exercising.

Here is the thing: eating a low calorie diet (caloric deficit) and exercising is what causes weight loss. So why add a drug that can cause serious complications. I am losing weight to ditch the pills that I HAVE to take to keep me healthy, why would I take another pill that I don't need to ?

Add to that the "speed" weight loss. Research has shown that most people who lose weight fast will gain it back.

Finally, if it is masking hunger, how does that help you to learn how to deal with your hunger in the long run? It just seems like it would promote a vicious cycle of taking the pill for a few weeks, losing weight, then not taking the pill and gaining weight, then back to taking the pills, etc...

It really helped me lose weight during the 30 days that I was on them, but not only did I gain back the 20 lbs I lost, I gained an additional 30lbs on top of that within 3 months of taking the pills.

rainbowbow wrote: »

coreyreichle wrote: »

My biggest tip with these pills are to not buy them. The only weight you lose is in your wallet.

sorry, not true.

phentermine is a clinically proven drug to assist in weight loss. It's an amphetamine.

Um....

SarcasmIsMyLoveLanguage wrote: »

rainbowbow wrote: »

coreyreichle wrote: »

My biggest tip with these pills are to not buy them. The only weight you lose is in your wallet.

sorry, not true.

phentermine is a clinically proven drug to assist in weight loss. It's an amphetamine.

Um....

it is.

Phentermine, a contraction of "phenyl-tertiary-butylamine", is a psychostimulant drug of the substituted amphetamine chemical classes, with pharmacology similar to amphetamine. It is used medically as an appetite suppressant.