I also committed to walking every day for 30 days. I began eating more nuts, whole grains, and vegetables, and drinking more water. Now that I could plan and focus, I decided to apply the basics of what I had learned: I cut sugar, white flour, potatoes, white rice, and almost all alcohol out of my food plan. As with so many “great discoveries” in my life, I bought all the stuff, made lists, followed it perfectly… and lost interest. In an earlier attempt at losing weight, I had read The South Beach (#CommissionsEarned) book. In my car, I actually said out loud, “Wow, the medicine is working! I really do have ADHD.” I paid for my purchases and left the store. All of a sudden, I realized I was just wasting my time. I was wandering aimlessly around, even though I had already found the bones and new dog collar I needed. My “Aha! moment” came three days later at the pet store. I made a doctor’s appointment, got diagnosed, and began taking a stimulant, Adderall. After perusing his diagnostic report, I sat in bewilderment. I learned the reason later that year when my oldest son was diagnosed with ADHD. It wasn’t so much the appetite suppression, but the motivation it gave me.Īt one point, while taking fen-phen, I remarked to my husband, “This must be what it feels like to be normal.” The counselor researched fen-phen’s composition: The fact that one of the components was a stimulant might mean something, but what? What I remembered more clearly than the seemingly effortless weight loss - I kept 64 pounds off for two years - was the dramatic difference in how I felt. (I didn’t experience any adverse side effects, but one of the drugs, fenfluramine, was taken off the market in 1997.) When I finally decided to see a weight loss counselor, two years ago, I told her that my most successful attempt had been with a combination of drugs known as fen-phen. For years I went back and forth - losing 40 pounds by drinking only shakes or another rigorous plan, and then gaining back even more. It wasn’t until I lost the structure of a workday and enjoyed the freedom of pregnancy weight gain that my weight really became a problem. The attention feels a little misplaced, however, because what I found was even better than the perfect food plan.īefore I had children - and before I was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ( ADHD) - it was quick and painless to lose a few pounds here and there. Even though my hair hasn’t changed that much, just about everything else about the way I look and feel has. “I didn’t recognize you with your new hairstyle.”įolks often don’t know what to say about my 80-pound weight loss.
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