O/T-WLF family regulars, a place to show we are here.

REPLY

I'm grateful for this forum -- I used to be on here in '07-'08 when I started having some trouble with refills and found this site very helpful back then.  I was mostly a lurker, sometimes a poster (though I had a different handle and couldn't remember my password so I started fresh again this year)... it was after I got ripped off on an order in '08 that I decided to stop taking phen entirely.  It was becoming too hard to obtain, and the hoops we had to jump through were becoming more difficult and the sources less and less trustworthy. 
Of course, I had a hard time maintaining a healthy weight upon going off phen, so in that time I tried other ways to keep the weight issues under control.  Lets see... there was Alli, herbal green tea diet pills, Medifast and most recently, HCG. 
Alli didn't do a thing for me, the green tea pills just made me jittery and gave me a headache...
Medifast worked but man, it's hard to live on 5 powdered / reconstituted drinks/soups per day.  I did it, and lost the weight (about 20 lbs in 3 months, which I maintained only through constant Medi-fasting) , but was always hungry and struggled with anything social because I always had to bring my little bags of powdered food and couldn't eat or drink like a normal human being... Medifast helped me shed and keep the weight off for nearly a year.  It was toward the end as I started tapering off MF and eating normal foods again that my weight crept back up.  By last Xmas, I went off the powdered foods and decided to eat normal meals with family and friends and gained 15 lbs seemingly overnight. 
The moral of the story is:  Medifast only worked in the beginning to help me lose the initial 20 lbs, I stayed on it for a year but couldn't lose much more (I had about 50 lbs overall to lose) ... but then it lowered my metabolism to the point that when I finally went off of it, tapering off slowly like they suggest, I instantly gained it all back.  I think it's designed for you to stay on forever so that they have a customer for life.  The only way you keep the weight off is to STAY ON IT. 
After Medifast, and the 15lb gain following it, I tried HCG.  It worked -- I lost about 13 of those holiday lbs, but lived on only 500 cals a day.  Not easy .... but surprisingly the HCG did suppress hunger well enough to make it not TOO horribly unbearable hard since I only had to stick to it for a few weeks instead of a few months.  It was do-able -- because the hunger was somewhat under control and knowing it was a short time frame kept me mentally strong enough to see it through to the end. 
Now the holiday are back and I'm back on the phen to help me through it.  I don't want a repeat of last year's huge gain.  I want to keep my HCG weight off and hopefully, lose more.  I hate that the tiniest liberties that I take eating dinner with family over the holdiays can make me gain so rapidly, and then I have to spend the rest of the year literally starving myself to make up for it. 
It was a challenge to lose/maintain/control weight the past 2 or so years without phen.  The constant gnawing hunger, the lack of energy... I really tried hard though and ultimately, I caved and decided not to make myself suffer so much this time.  So, here I am back on the boards, trying to give myself some relief from how awful I feel when I'm dieting without it.  Why must it be so hard for us to get the help we need?  Why must we have to navigate all the shady characters to obtain a legal drug that has been used safely for many years?   I've tried so many other ways and MY body is just genetically determined to be obese like everyone else in my family so I have to use every weapon I have to prevent it.  I'd rather safely use phen than to suffer all the health damaging effects of obesity. 
I felt so alone trying to find phen again after trying so many other methods --I am grateful for this forum for the insight, advice and support I needed to get the help I needed to get through this challenging time in my weight struggles.  
Somehow through all this strict dieting, calorie restriction, I manage to stay just under the "obese" range, but am definitely in the "overweight" range.  I work out, stay active and have lived on less than 1200 calories for most of my life just to maintain an overweight body... (oh yes, I count them like I have OCD or something.)  Whenever I dare to climb even 200 calories more for a special occasion, my body bloats.  It is hard to stick to so few calories ALL THE TIME without feeling fatigue and that constant gruble in the gut but my super slow metabolism will not allow me to go over that calorie restriction.  Phen is the only thing that helps to keep my sanity during this constant dieting because it's the only thing that calms my hunger and gives me a slight perk of energy just enough to maintain.  It rarely lose on it -- it allows me to just hold steady without piling it on at breakneck speed. 
I tried to live without it.  Now I just have to ask myself why I should have to when it's the only thing that keeps me in a healthy weight range.  Perhaps the government would prefer that we all just become dreadfully obese and unhealthy so that we have to suffer multiple weight-related health ailments that will just further burden the healthcare system and cost us all enormous amounts of money in the long run?    Is that option really better than just allowing us to safely use a medication that would help us prevent the alternative? 
Sorry for the long rant.... I just had to get all my weight loss battles off my chest.  Its been such a frustrating journey. Somehow I suspect that you people here would be among the only people out there who can relate and would understand. 

Edit.
(too personal)

Aww..That is really nice Deebee...
I wish the same for you and all of my WLF friends-Bless your hearts all of you and Please have a safe and Happy Holiday..