Day Thirteen

Saturday I had fruit and a 16oz latte in the morning and went to trader joes in the afternoon. I bought more hummus (hummus is not low calorie) and carrots and a sample. I bought a frozen chicken tikka but I didn't make it. I snacked on carrots with hummus for the entire day and had another peach. I did not eat anything after about 6:00, but I did have a glass of wine. I had some vivid dreams, not for the first time since starting the drug, but I will now track this.

I am at panera right now and they have a stupid internet policy that I can only use the internet for half an hour, and I need to post this right now, so I cannot publish a additional speculation today.

Day Twelve

Another Friday, another single slice of pizza, feel pretty good, have plenty of energy, also had some sauteed brussel sprouts for dinner (and a beer). I have a thing to do on Saturday so I will probably prepare for that and get some sleep instead of finishing this.

Day Eleven

coffee, coffee, slice of pizza, coffee, florentine, half egg sandwich, beer. Pretty much nothing on this list is "good" for you, but I didn't feel the need to eat very much of it, so I would say I did well today.

My face looks thinner, my relationship with food is improved, and weirdly, I feel like I have more energy, although that may just be the million or so cups of coffee I drink.

I feel like I have been eating less than those on this pill are typically expected to, but I feel I have found an amount of food that I am satisfied with for the whole day, and for which I do not think about food often. I haven't really spoken about my goal here, but briefly, my goal is to lose 60 pounds of fat by December when I am getting an important knee surgery that I'd like to be thin for. If the drug turns out to not be affecting me (a theory which seems to be losing credibility), or if it stops working somehow, or if 60 pounds turns out to be an unrealistic goal (which it might be, but I think I am extrapolating alright).

By percentage of my weight,  60 pounds is roughly 16%.

Day Ten

some pretzel sticks in the day and a half an egg sandwich and some bread and tomato sauce for dinner. I snacked on carrots and after. I ate when I was hungry, and aside from that I thought about food very little. I almost forgot about the blog.

This is probably the most positive result I have reported so far, so temper it with the fact that I have only been doing this for 10 days.

Day Nine

I made an objectivity error, and read someone else's account of their experience on the drug. It does seem to line up with my own experience, here is a link to it, but I fear my future objectivity might have been tainted by suggestion. It is worth noting that this is the first account that I have read.

Today I had carrots and bread with tomato sauce for dinner. I later snacked on some blueberries and a cookie. I also had a beer. I wouldn't be surprised if they find that alcohol to some alters the effect of the drug significantly, but I'm not sure how you would measure such a thing.

Alcohol acts on the serotonergic system, and while it is not clear how it does this, it is also not clear how Belviq works. My first time mixing the two I felt much drunker than I should have after a glass of wine, but I did not notice any increase in appetite corresponding to it. I have recently begun having a beer with "dinner" and I have also been hungrier later into the night. Not hugely, and it certainly isn't a problem. I usually just eat some carrots and maybe a cookie, and I'm satisfied.

If I had to guess this is more likely a result of not eating anything at all during the day, than an effect of alcohol, but it is a little odd because I am quite satisfied after dinner.

Day Eight

Coffee and cider in the day, carrots with hummus and bread for dinner.

Eight days is reaching the point that most of my diets do not last longer than, but it's unknown how much Belviq itself is responsible for this.

I don't have anything else to say, probably more tonight.

Day Seven

A box of raspberries, a mini-bagel with hummus, and a beer until dinner. We went out to eat for my grandfather's birthday, I was happily full well before my meal was finished, and I managed to stop eating without feeling sick about my decision. 

Ordering a plate which contains more food than you want to eat, and then eating all of it, is an american tradition, and one in which I have regretfully participated many times. It was still not trivial to prevent myself from doing this tonight, but my fullness caught up with my hunger pretty quickly, and even though I stopped about halfway through. 

I'm hoping that this, I guess I'd call it food worship, is more of a habit than a psychosis. In the former case, then it is a habit I am reasonably confident of breaking. I also feel very very full after eating a reasonable amount at dinner. As of writing this, I still feel quite full.

An interesting sort of side effect. A lot of the thoughts that distract me during the day at work have faded, and the feeling of being bored is different than it used to be, and does not trigger the same sort of compulsive behavior. I'm not sure if it's that my usual go-to compulsion is eating, or if it's the drug behaving in a more general capacity than advertised, or if I'm just making this up. 

I wanted to talk a little more about standard dieting and why it seems to fail for me, dieting is all about how long you can sustain the illusion that you enjoy losing weight more than you enjoy eating burritos. While it is true that you want to want these things, it is not actually true that you want them. It usually comes after some sort of rock-bottom type scenario (though sometimes it's as simple as looking at yourself on a security camera TV instead of a mirror, and having your self-image delusions briefly removed). But this illusion that you want weight loss more than you want to overeat is impossible to maintain indefinitely, and it's broken the first time you "cheat" on your diet.

Anyway, this was a good day for me, and I feel like I had much more success overcoming this particular behavioral problem than I have had in the past.