I Was Dependent On Diet Pills For A Year
I wanted quick results
Last summer, I saw a Cosmopolitan Snapchat story about this girl passing out at a bar. She was only eating five grapes a day, while washing down the incredibly intense diet pill, Phentermine, with Diet Pepsi. Shocking, I know. But what was more shocking, or stupidly desperate, is that even after reading her story, I was still intrigued by it to shed my own stubborn fifty pounds. And to spoil nothing, since it’s the title, I took it for a year, and from one fatty to another, diet pills are not the solution, but, boy, they can sure help.
Best Way to Stop is to Never Start
Without completely ripping off WebMD or Mayo Clinic, Phentermine, is a drastic diet pill primarily for severely overweight people, and like anything, it’s supposed to be used short term and in conjunction with a healthy diet and regular exercise. However, just a thought, if I could eat healthily and workout without help, I’d probably not be sitting in a weight loss clinic. However, most people would probably not even walk through the clinic’s doors after reading the mile-long list of scary symptoms: mild dry mouth, headache, vomiting, and ending at heart palpitations, chest pain, insomnia, tremors, and for the men, erectile dysfunction. Yikes.
But yet, I didn’t care. Like most of you, I wanted quick results, and I didn’t want to work that hard. I am young, relatively healthy, and barely had the financial means to pay ninety bucks every month for my refill. I wasn’t going in blind, however, I had read endless mixed reviews, some horrifying and some radiantly positive. I hadn’t fully decided, however, until my mom told me one of her friends had taken it and dropped sixty pounds in half a year! I swear I couldn’t get a doctor’s appointment quickly enough.
Honestly, it was a scarily easy process to get despite how dangerous Phentermine can be. Some users said they had to get blood work done and have in-depth conversations with their weight loss doctor before getting prescribed, while, in contrast, I think my whole appointment, including waiting in the lobby, was a measly fifteen minutes. It is truly a doc-in-a-box for the common overeater. I was weighed, measured, had my blood pressure taken, and essentially asked, am I tired of being fat, and am I willing to change in order to not be fat anymore? And in the beginning, it was yes to both of those questions, but unsurprisingly enough, it definitely didn’t take long to resort back to my old, fat girl habits.
First Week On Phentermine
All I can say is, wow, what a wild ride! Speeding uphill and losing a pound a day while crashing into ditches due to severe insomnia for three nights in a row. I literally felt like a crackhead and not in the quirky, slightly ADHD way; I had insane energy, like think of your college Adderall days but double! Normally, if I stayed up late, I would have eaten my weight in any late-night snacks I could scrounge up, but I honestly didn’t even think of food for the entire first week. Not to be overdramatic whatsoever, but, looking back, I feel as though I lost the sensation of craving food, which was exciting since my main food issue was always unnecessarily snacking. Like, I’m the girl that will eat a whole bag of chips and call it dinner, but with Phentermine, I didn’t eat dinner, nor, breakfast, nor lunch!
I know what any sane person with a somewhat healthy mindset is thinking right now: this bitch is crazy! And to a certain degree, you’re completely right, but that’s why diet pills sell so well. They feed off insecurities, desperation, laziness, and lack of self-discipline. But at least someone eating good, right? But for my people, who understand what it’s like to hate every part of your body, Phentermine, sounds like a godsend, and I took full advantage of it to the point of dependency.
Fully Adjusted, Slightly Addicted
After the first month, my body had completely adjusted, meaning no more sleepless nights, and I could actually eat a full, real meal while still somehow losing fifteen pounds in thirty days. Obviously, I got comfortable. I realized I could literally eat anything I wanted like I always have been, but without the guilt and the potential of seeing it in my thighs later. So, I reverted back to my old unhealthy, indulgent habits. I stopped working out after about two weeks with a gym membership that I still pay for, but I didn’t care since I was still losing weight. It was unfortunately too easy, because come January, I had started plateauing. I was down about twenty-five pounds, but the weight was not coming off like it used to. Of course, my “doctor” suggested that I move to something stronger and more expensive: Benzphetamine, which I would take three times and it was double Phentermine’s price for a monthly refill. Benzphetamine is the reason why I lost about fifteen more pounds and finally weighed under two hundred since my freshman year of college, but I knew I couldn’t maintain this habit for much longer.
Shedding Pounds and Shedding Hair (Why I Quit)
My main reason behind quitting was quite simple yet terrifying: my hair was falling out. I noticed major thinning, and every time I would wash it, I would see large clumps wash down the drain and immediately panic. But of course, I would use humor as a coping mechanism, and say, “I’ll just be a skinny bald girl!”. I mean long hair weighs probably about two pounds anyway, right? But in reality, I was genuinely freaked out. I added Biotin to my morning meds cocktail, started using a hair growth serum daily, and a shampoo/conditioner for thinning hair, but I still had small bald spots in my ponytail. And you can fight against the truth and be in denial for however long you choose, but you really just lose in the end. My body simply wasn’t getting proper nutrition, and my hair reflected my diet pill dependency.
Furthermore, I initially only planned to be on it for about three months, because it isn’t meant for long term use since it’s literally crack, but I was scared I was going to gain all the weight back, and I also didn’t want to be an agitated bitch with a headache during my withdrawal. However, the final cherry on top to this skinny girl sundae was COVID-19 forcing me into unemployment making it impossible to justify $180 on a pill that was simply maintaining at that point.
I have been off of diet pills for about two months now, and I’ve probably gained five pounds back, but contrary to a lot of self-help advice for quarantine, you don’t have to lose weight just because everyone else is doing at home workouts now. Diet pills obviously didn’t transform my mentality about losing weight; if anything, it only worsened since I know how easy it can be now. But we all know, that your body and your health should never be taken advantage of, and quick fixes like diet pills or crash diets, in the long run, do more harm than good. Sure, it feels amazing to have gone from a size twenty to squeezing into a size fourteen but my mental health is probably a size twenty-two. To summarize, don’t take the short cut for the long haul that is your relationship with your body. You’ll only have more to lose, figuratively, and physically.
