Alli joins Ana and Mia as Fat America's New Best Friend

Well, it appears the government has taken another step toward ensuring Americans wipe themselves out within three generations. Read about it here.

Last year, they approved the sale of OTC strength Xenical under the label Alli. Wheee. Alli. It sounds so fun and whimsical. Alli. Like, Ally...or alleve - as in alleviate my over-weight condition. Now that I have a pill to join my psychological friends Ana and Mia, I have a powerful trio of weight-reduction tools. Yay me! Alli!

Shifting from sarcasm to bitterness, let me get real: this drug, a fat-blocker, irks me. It's one more step in turning Americans away from any personal responsibility whatsoever. Alli is a half-strength version of Xenical, a fat blocking agent. You've heard of these drugs by now, perhaps by the name Orlistat, and the accompanying side effects, especially if you eat too much fat while on the drug.

Let me assure you, fattie, that the experience will be no picnic. In fact, I am gleeful that the drugs side effects are quite terrible - not life threatening, perhaps, but downright nasty. I delight in the idea that fatty-fat-fats will go through the same misery I do, VOLUNTARILY, all in the name of weight loss!

There's only one way to healthy weight loss and a fit body, Fatty McFatterson, and that's through diet and exercise. And by diet, I don't mean "a diet", I mean restructuring your intake for good by replacing processed foods with whole foods; by quitting your patronage of fast food and cooking for yourself. And by exercise, I'm not talking about a ten-minute peddle on the stationary bicycle at slow speeds - I'm talking about workouts.

But you already KNOW how to properly lose weight, don't you? And you haven't had the personal fortitude, the personal integrity, to formulate a plan and stick to it, have you? So, lacking the mental structures it takes to be anorexic or the finger it takes to be bulimic, you turn to dangerous and expensive surgeries and medicines that throw your bodies natural cycles into disarray.

But go ahead, really. I'm going to enjoy looking into your eyes as the panic sets in when you all of a sudden have to go. I mean really have to go. NOW. And can't find a bathroom. I'm going to enjoy your misery when you shit your pants with foul, oily stool you can't hold back. I'm going to smirk openly as you begin to carry an extra bag of clothes with you, everywhere you go.

Anal leakage? That's only the start! You are not going to believe the horror that'll be sliding out your poop chute while you're on this drug, whether or not you also reduce your actual fat intake. Of course, after a few of the worst days, you'll finally realize the drug-makers are right when they warn you to cut down the fat intake.

Well, guess what? Cutting fat intake is EXACTLY what's meant by the "diet" half of "diet and exercise". It's just so sad that it take punishment to teach you that. The best part of it, to me, is that this isn't punishment anybody's forcing on you - it's punishment you are laying out healthy amounts of money to voluntarily undergo. But unlike the "other" punishment - exercise - which at least makes you feel good after each session and LOOK good after a few months, this punishment merely makes you feel like shit, literally, and embarasses you in front of your friends and coworkers.

So go ahead, America. Though I think this product shouldn't even be offered just on principle, I encourage you to go buy it and suffer the effects. If nothing else, perhaps some of you will get a clue what living with the digestive side of Cystic Fibrosis is like.

And, yeah, I'm bitter. I spend my life trying to keep weight on and gain weight if possible. I take pills designed to INCREASE my fat absorption, yet still suffer the problems of malabsorption. In fact, I recently had a bone scan and the results show I have osteopenia - just .1 standard deviations short of osteoporosis - and this is a direct result of malabsorption. Despite doing all I naturally can to NOT have low bone density, there it is. Now, I suppose, my doctor will put me on another pill - perhaps Vitamin D and magnesium. Or maybe we'll play wait-and-see.

But I just can't help but feel a little bit bitter that I do all the things a regular person would do to lose weight just to keep my weight ON and to keep from having the bowel problems, yet I still have to take extra pills, extra vitamins, etc etc.

The existence of Xenical and Alli makes me want to look at the the people taking these drugs and give them a big ol' FUCK YOU.

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Next post: I'll post the chart from my St Louis run and, hopefully, have a short run to report. Been lacking time, but will start taking mornings to do my 3.4 mile route. Already afternoons here are getting into the upper 60s and low 70s - so my running schedule has to shift to cooler parts of the day.